Darwinism, education, materialism's fatal flaw

No, ontological priority does not imply epistemological priority.The arguments I have already presented explain why the assumption that human reason is adequately reliable must take priority in epistemology.Mathematics can also handle 10 or 11 dimensions - of course the math gets harder if only because we have to deal with 10 or 11 -tuples instead of triplets for the spatial coordinates. Moreover mathematics itself cannot "break down" in the sense you mean because it is mainly a formal system that happens to be used to model reality - the models may need replacing but the system itself will remain valid. Physics as we understand it could break down BUT this is not an epistemological problem - we might have to go back to scratch on some things and at least take several steps back on others but there is no good reason to assume that our efforts to understand the new universe would necessarily fail (or that they would succeed if your axiom were true - huamns do indeed have limits).As to the validity of philosophical arguments I would think that the fact that I have made one in this thread and strongly believe that it is valid is proof enough that I do not reject philsophical arguments out of hand.
My view of sicence is that it is one of hte most reliable means of gathering knowledge that we have - but its reliability is at the cost of restricting the domain it operates within. I have not claimed that we need not consider other means of knowing - but I do reject the idea that we should accept alleged means of knowing without some assurance that they are sufficiently reliable (this was the focus of the discussion with Hangdawg late last year over faith as a way of knowing - or at least it was my major point which Hangdawd did not ever really deal with).Claims of special revelation require epistemological justification - i.e. the reliability issue I mentioned above. (One big problem for you to consider is under what circumstances should we beleive somebody elses claim to have had a revelation ?).

To simply argue that Flew has converted is an argument from authority. While it might be the case that Flew has good reasons it could also turn out that he does not (in this particular case we should remember he is quite old now and could be slowing down mentally).From this article it seems that Flew has not considered the arguments which converted him in any depth - which means that his conversion cannot carry little weight.secweb.orgIronically it seems that part of Flew's problem was that he mistakenly accepted Gerald Schroeder as an authority when Schroeder's ideas are not soundly based in real science.

Well you see the problem is that your resurrection argument is dependent on having a working epistmeology in the first place. Any argument is. Even if you succeed what you are suggesting is like kicking away the foundations and a lot of the lower floors of a skyscraper on the assumption that the upper floors will just remain floating. You just can't throw out the supporting superstructure. And again if the foundations are wobbly the upper floors aren't likely to be much more stable - and this too is the case. So you cannot be more certain about your conclusions than all the assumptions you had to make to get there - and you will usually be less certain.As to your moral example you would have to decide what naturalistic morals entailed. I can't see a valid argument for them favouring utilitarianism over following an instinct to help others or protect children. Again I have to emphasise that the whole question of the foundation of morality is one that is a BIG and unsolved philosphical problem. (I can't even agree that the chosen course of action is necessarily the bravest - I can see that it would take a lot of courage to live with the guilt - and vilification if the facts became known - if he chose not to even try to save the child).And Christians do NOT necessarily line up to serve in a volunteer army as I know from my own family history. One of my grandfathers - himself a minister - was jailed for refusing to fight in WW I. Granted that was during conscription but if he had been so eager to fight he would not have waited to be called up. And there is the simple fact that the objective of the military has more to do with killing the enemy than their own soldiers. A lot of Christians either object to that or do not want to give their consent without knowing in advance what they will be fighting for (and once you are in the army you have signed away most of your rights to make that decision).And of course there is no reason why naturalists cannot be patriots and want to fight to defend their country.Now a simple point to consider is that although you argue that Christians have a firm basis for morality in fact in the examples you have listed there is no clear Christian view. Moreover just because Christians BELIEVE they have a sound basis for morality doesn't mean that they do (in fact many suscribe to Divine Command Theory which is one of the worse attempts and which has been known to have a problem since Plato's time)

Hold on, as I've already explained you need an epistemology to REACH conclusions. So those conclusions rest on that epistemology. But if you don't want "an Ultimate Reason is pre-existent to the universe" etc to eb a conclusion it has to be an assumption and thats one big assumption - and if you're trying to build an epistemology you want to make your assumptiosn as few and as weak as possible. So that doesn't work either.Now the approach I have suggested is NOT inherently naturalistic. It starts by making the minimal assumptions that we can. We have to assume that there our thinking doesn't contain systematic errors that we cannot detect, for instance, because there's nothing we can do about it. But we don't want to make any assumptions which aren't forced on us - becasue by efinition we cannot know that those assumptions are true and so the more we rely on them the less we can trust our epistemology - and therefore the less we can trust the conclusions resting on it.Please, please, please forget the idea that epistemology has to be constructed on the basis of assuming an ontology and working from there. That is not the way to do it.So we go on to other knowledge beyond empirical science. Now I agree that we cannot trust our conclusions in other areas to the same degree as well-founded science. However we cn't get around that problem just by making convenient assumptions - for the simple reason that assumptions are themselves untrustworthy and we cannot trust conclusions that rely on them any more than we can trust the aggregate of the assumptions we need to make. Moreover there's no need to invoke an "Ultimate Reason". Our problem in dealing with areas is not a lack of reasoning ability - it is a shortage of data to reason FROM. Granted intuitive ideas are liekly to be even less turstworthy than they are in dealing with the physical universe - but more formal methods are far more reliable (and that is how we DO make progress in areas where intuition is unreliable).On to the subject of morality. As I have already stated I am NOT making any comments on "Absolute Morality" on the grounds that it is a question with as yet no satisfactory answers. All I have described is the situation as it is and as it DOES affect human morality. I have not claimed that it is the complete picture although it explains a great deal.And you really can't appeal to widely shared values as any refutation. Of course we all want to protect children. That's an inevitable part of our biology - we produce relatively few offspring and they are born far less able to fend for themselves and with a longer growth to maturity than most other species.Please understand that I do recognise the convenience of assuming Ultimate Reason and Ultimte Morality. But unlike you I do not see that as an indication that they are true. In fact the convenience makes me trust them less - which I consider the only wise course when dealing with an issue where emotional attraction is all too likely to bias a rational assessment.

quote:

---

and this "Ultimate Reason" is not a convenient assumption, or something we invoke. This is an Ultimate Reason, that given the minimal "man's reason can be trusted at least to some degree", reveals itself quite easily and then becomes the "grounding" premise of epistemology in that "man is a capable of reason because he is made in the image of Ultimate Reason and the universe will yield to reason."

---

Can you explain HOW this is "revealed" ? It hasn't been revealed to me, and I can't see how it can be anything other than an assumption.And, BTW I don't see how you can avoid a situation where everything is potentially open to question. Descartes didn't really get past personal existence and from my own reading I understand that even that has to be qualified. Absolute certainty is very hard to obtain (it's really the domain of pure deductive logic - and then only when the premsis themselves are certain).

quote:

---

But this would be dealing with the empirical sciences. When it comes to other areas of reason, I would say we are lacking a "grounding" premise. We are right back to our problem of allowing empirical science into the driver's seat.

---

Well if you limit the reliable data available to that of empirical science (and I would agree that it is more reliable than other data sources) then yes, you do have that problem. But there really is no way around the need for data.

quote:

---

I think that widely held values are a very good indication that man is more that just a biological construct. Why would evolution, by itself, create a creature that feels and wants to act on much more than just what survival or procreation would seem to dictate? I don't think any lions or apes would be upset by the tsunami news. And yet some of us feel a nearly physical pain when we think of the devastation to fellow humans.

---

Well if we can come up with some genuinely universal values that are hard to explain in an evolutionary framework, that would be interesting. But I don't think that this particular one is a big problem. Humans are a social species - our incredible success as a species is due to cooperation and mutual assistance. Once we see other people as "us" (as oppsoed to "them") then we want to help them if they are in trouble. All that is required in evolutionary terms is that the overall benefit to "us" is greater if we help each other than if we do not.

quote:

---

This gets even trickier when you reconsider my Red Hummer scenario. You may be right in that it may have been refuted (somewhat, I'm still pretty stubborn) as evidence FOR a True Self (I think it is a package deal and has to be considered along with other evidences), but in the refutation of it the opposite became abundantly clear; that under a naturalistic philosophy; there is no True Self.

---

Well so far as I can see the obvious fact is that the concept of a "red hummer" is no more an actual "red hummer" than the phrase "red hummer" is. But I don't see that naturalism reutes the idea of a "True Self".

quote:

---

So any call to a personal morality vanishes when a neurosurgeon decides to "change your mind." Quite feasibly, given some of the refutation, a neurosurgeon (or team of neurosurgeons) could change man's moral construct into anything imaginable, if natural philosophy is true.

---

Well be "quite feasibly" you mean that it is possible in principle but not even a remote possibility without a great deal more knowledge and technology.But firstly there is some evidence that this is in fact the case. See the case of Phineas Gage http://www.deakin.edu.au/hbs/GAGEPAGE/Pgstory.htmTHe other problem is that if you assume supernatural beings then they could "quite feasibly" do the same thing. If the mere possibility of such a change negates the possiiblity of a "True Self" then it is clearly doubtful that such a thing does exist.

quote:

---

The flower needs water and finds a drink. The bird needs to fly and finds he has wings. This is much more that a convenience; man needs to be valued, to see an end to the suffering that makes sense of his life. There is a provision for every need, and man needs to know that his reason and morality are grounded and his life is meaningful.

---

But this is not always true - a flower needs water to live and most birds need flight to escape predators. But that does not mean that the flower will find water. And extinction tells us that species do not automatically evolve capabilities they would need to survive. The existence need does not mean that it will be met.When it comes to absolute reason or morality there is not even the same sort of need. Nor is it clear that what we really desire is the actuality rather than the belief that it is so.And I think we will leave any judgement on the rationality of your adoption of Christianity until after the Rsurrection debate, since you have chosen to make that the key issue. (Is it what convinced you ? if not, I'd suggest a rethink - I've looked into the issue myself and not found much of substance).

Aristotle and Plato may have believed that there was a superior intelligence but if you think that they had solid arguments then you're just kidding yourself. THere are reasonable arguments for some sort of first cause - but none to assume that it is itself a complex ordered entity. As I believe I have said once you assume that then you are begging the real questions.And I have to keep hammering at this point. Naturalistic philsophy is NOT involved in Cartesian doubt. We are dealing with basic problems of epistemology that apply to ALL philosophies.Likewise the problem of moral values if a problem for ALL philosophies. None have a truly acceptable answer.The "Red Hummer" analogy fails because ultimately it is a strawman. Nobody expects a literal physical red hummer to be in the brain - justt a representation, like the words "red hummer".The case of Phineas Gage establisheds that physical brain damage may change personality.And I wasn't picking nits with the birds and flowers - I was pointing out that if a need is SOMETIMES met it does not mean that it is ALWAYS met - and your argument requires the latter. And if all we need is to be valued then we have each other. Or is love entirely absent from your life ?

The hypothesis of a creator may be "simple" and you may find it beautiful but that does not make it true. In fact since it requires the assumption of a highly complex ordered entity - with no explanation at all for how THAT exists - all it does is swap a possibly solvable problem for a worse one. And it is rather vague about the hows and whys, to say the least. Quite frankly I find it an ugly bodge which doesn't even deserve to be called a real answer to the question of the origin of the universe. I have no problems with assuming some sort of first cause but to attribute intelligence and personality to it, let alone an interest in one little planet. is just too much to assume.And I am afrid that Cartesian doubt is all about the foundations of epistemology. But it was really odd for you to suggest that it was a flaw in naturalism when it is well knwon that Descartes was a theist and in fact his solution was to attempt to prove the existence of God by pure reason (needless to say, he failed).I don't know the euthanasia story you are talking about - the only debate I know going on is about voluntary euthanasia. Which is a very difficult issue and not one that I see an assumption of theism being much use in solving.However the problem I refer to is not working out details - it is the issue of the foundations of morality. The observations I have made earlier explain a lot but they do not address the issue of ultimate moral values. And I ahve to add that the only theistic explanation I know of is Divine Command Theory which is one of the worst foundatiosn for morality I know of. Even if it has consequences which I do not agree with at least Utilitarianism has a better claim to be a valid basis.I am really not certain of how your "Red Hummer" analogy is supposed to work. Yes there will be soem sort of internal representaion and it will not be a real "red hummer" or even look like one to an outside observer. But that applies regardless of whether the mind is rooted in the physical brain or not. I would suggest that the image is encoded in the internal connections within the brain - that it is the activation of a pattern of connections that elicits the image by producing more-or-less the same internal state as stimulating the retina with an visual image of a red hummer.Your comments on personality suggest to me that your idea of a "true self" is close the the philosphical question of identity (e.g. if a boat is damaged and repaired, piece by piece, over the years until eventually none of the original parts remain, is it still the same boat ?)My final comment may seem to be a jab but if you feel that you aren't valued and that you value nobody then I think that you needed a jab to wake you up. We may not have any "Ultimate Value" but why care about that ? I don't need it and I don't beleive that anyone else does either. People may feel small and insignificant in the face of the universe but that is because we are - but why worry about that ?And I certainly don't agree that a finite life renders reason pointless or removes any basis for morality. In fact I cannot see any way you could conclude either.

Well the assumption of a creator is convenient in that it offers some reason why these things might be but that is all it is. In itself that is not enough reasn to assume it. But it has a plausibility problem - even most Christians agree that complex ordered entities need an explanation (that, after all, is why we are looking for answers to those questions in the first place). And special pleading is not a "beautiful" form of argument. And it leaves the big questions unanswered - even declares them unanswerable which is itself a big ugly stain on it in my view.You may say that calling it an "ugly bodge" doe not make it any less likely to be true - but the calling it "beautiful" does not make it any more likely to be true.You say that the Creator is timeless - yet that is just another ad hoc assumption and one that makes little sense. How could a truly timeless being act ? How could it think ? These are things that happen in time. And it doesn't even deal with the problem I raised. What you need to produce is a reaon why this complex ordered entity should exist - an explanation need not be a cause. So again we see a strategy of trying to assume your way out of problems. Which really isn't a good way to find the truth since it relies heavily on assuming that you already have the truth.With regard to Descartes he is famous for raising the posibility of a deceiving demon which deliberately misleads us . However there is no absolutely sound way out. Which is what I have been saying for most of this thread. Not only is it not an issue for naturalism alone - naturalism does not even accept the existence of demons so if we were to assume naturalism we could ignore that problem all together. THe problem is - as I have been pointing out - without an epistemology we have no business trying to settle on an ontology because we have no remotely sound basis for doing so.Now I agree that we have an answer to the basic problem of epistemology - although not one Descartes would have found entirely satisfactory (I wish we had a better one !) - but so long as you keep suggesting that this repesents some sort of special problem for naturalism I will have to go on refuitng that claim.On to morality, I have not seens any theistic morality other than Divine Command Theory. IF there are others that actually require the existence of a God I cannot comment on them. Likewise there could in principle be an Ultimate Morality without a God. But again as I say here is no satiosfactory basis - nor, if there is an Ulitmate morality, any objective way to determine what it says.Now I will turn to your "red Hummer" scneario. In my view it would in principle be possible for a sufficiently knowledgable neurosurgeon (which requires a great deal of knowledge we do not possess now) to find a representaion of a "red hummer" in the internal state of the brain. Of course he would not find a "red hummer". By changing the connections the image could be changed - a green hummer might be relatively easy. But it would still require a highly detailed understanding of your particular brain. More detailed changes would, be more difficult but possible in principle.
Your assertion that it is not like changing an image on a TV is true but irrelevant. It is differnet because the representaion of the "red hummer" is completely different. We have not a simply encoded visual image but a whole web of connections associating different concepts. The tric kwould be to excite the right connections so that the internal state corresponds to the image we wish to produce.YOur argument then boils down to begginf the question. You assume that the mind cannot be physical and therefore conclude that the mind cannot be physical. If minds can be physical then physical objects CAN posess intentionality. And so your arguments can never get beyond the assumptions. I suggest that before you assume otherwise that you consider some of the evidence that the mind IS physical. For instance the effects of the so-called "split brain" operation severing the corpus callosum. If the mind is not physical how can severing a connection in the physical brain also split the mind ?As to yur final paragraphj you are still making the same error. Naturalism does NOT say that I cannot love or be loved. On the human scale your claims are so obviously false that I cannot see how you could make them - unless love is so absent from your life that you cannot believe in it.As I siad it is only on the cosmic scale that humans are insignificant. But I am not going to be upset about that. That would be egotism and even hubris.

Well I will just answer your question by posing another. Are there any known examples of a non-physical object displaying intentionality ? Or of non-physical objects full stop ?I have to disagee with the idea you attribute to Sperry. After all why should there be the sort of differences mentioned ? If the two hemispheres DID have radically different minds it would be EASIER to explain on a supernaturalist basis - with the situation as it is the fact that the split mind is based on parts of the same brain - including many that overlap suggest that they should start in a very similar state and dieverge slowly, if at all. On the other hand how do you explain why the hemispheres display the degree of independance they do if there is a single supernatural mind ? Why should that be so dependant on connections in the physical brain.You need to deal with things like this

quote:

---

...if a perception does not go to the left hemisphere (our center for speech) the patient says they are not conscious of it. (see a standard experiment for a review) However, his right hemisphere is aware of it and can respond accurately."

---

It leaves no doubt that the brain is very deeply involved in the mind. And of course the material you quote goes on to explain that physical anatomy adequately explains the similarities. Yet you reject that completely out of hand to claim that instead it is evidence for some non-material "mental entity".And in case you didn't know brain cells are NOT replaced on a routine basis.Near death experiences - are less of a problem. For a start they are mainly anecdotal The page you quote talks of a need for studies so it is quite clear that it offers nothing on the same levell as the split-brain experiments which are well understood and inexplicable without acknowledging that the mind is dependant on the brain in ways which make mental operation without a functional brain highly implausible.On to the subject of a creator. I don't know what "big three" you have in mind but one of the biggest questions I would have is why are there complex ordered entities - and appealing to a creator not only doesn't aanswer that it declares that it cannot be answered. Well I am not about to jump to that conclusion. In fact the assumption of a creator really offers ad hoc arguments - "why is X the case" - " the creator wanted it that way" is not a useful answer. Maybe it is true but again it isn't something that should just be assumed.So no, a creator is not the best explanation. It's worse that "it just is" since at least the latter assumes less to get to the same useless position.And DNA as a message ? Well in the sense of hereditry it is - but in no uther sense. There's no need to propose an intelligence there. It lacks semantic meaning which is the whole point of intelligent communication. The best you can manage there is an argument from ignorance.Descarte's deceiving demon ? My thoughts are that it cannot be refuted but there is no reason to assume it. A modern equivalent is the "brain in a vat" scenario (which may well have been replaced by The Matrix, now). Equally a creator cannot be proven not to exist but there is a distinct shortage of seriosu arguments for it.How could there be an Ultimate Morality without God ? The same way that there could be an Ultimate morality WITH God. The Euthyphro dilemma deals with that issue quite adequately.On to meaning. If our life is meaningful on the human scale, where we exist then surely that is all we need. Your argument amounts to "Naturalism is false because it says that *I* am not a god". How can I describe that as anything less than egotism ?

Well it is no good saying that it is too difficult to produce examples. How would we show intentionality in a physical object that you would accept as being purely physical ? Since the only examples available to either of us beg the question it is pointless to demand more.As to the replacement of brain cells I note that it does not actually state that replacemnet is going on - and it also states: And of course even if you could establish regular replacement of brain cells that would simply remove the simplest and most obvious objection to your argument.

quote:

---

If the mind is a non-physical entity that requires a brain to operate in the physical world, wouldn’t that explain the split brain phenomenon, mental retardation, brain damaged patients with limited abilities, etc just fine

---

No, it would not. The split-brain in particular shows that the internal communication within the mind is disrupted. Thus it cannot be the case that the mind is simply unable to operate in hte physical world. Likewise loss of memory is an impairment of the mind - and that too can be inflicted by brain damage.As to NDEs I can only repeat that the article you quoted stated that further study is needed. At present I have seen nothing to indicate that NDE claims are anywhere near as solid as the contrary evidence I have cited.I cannot epress the question "why are there complex ordered entities" any more clearly. It is generally accepted that the existence of such entities requires an explanation - and the question I ask is simply a generalisation of that. And the generalised form cannot be answered by assuming a creator - since it is an example of the class of enitites that the question is to explain.Evolution is a far better explanation of human origins, the origin of life is something of a puzzle but there is active research still making progress. The same can be said for the origins of our universe. I can't see how an ad hoc assumption could be considered adequate at all - let alone comparable to the scientific work that has already been done.Semantic communication is the hallmark of intelligent communication. Unless you are prepared to argue that the exchange of gravitons between masses are evidence of intelligence (and I don't see how you could establish that at all) then I don't see how you can argue that interaction requires intelligent input. And I do think that it is interesting that the CLAIMS of supernatural appear precisely in complex and poorly understood areas. The used to be far more common but as our understanding grew we found that it wasn't so at all. It's exactly the sort of thing I would expect if the supernatural was mere superstition.Moving on, a serious argument for the creator would have to be far better than asserting that it was a convenient ad hoc assumption. Which appears to be the main thread of your argument - you use it twice in the message I'm replying to. I had understood that your main argument was going to be based on arguing for the Resurrection of Jesus - but you've not presented that and the arguments I've seen for it in the past have been far from strong enough to overcoem the inherent implausibility of a resurrection.As to the argument against a Grand Deceiver I have to say that "ot fitting any of the historical depictions of a creator" is hardly a weakness. After all if the Grand Deciever existed we would expect such accounts to be the product of deception and therefore false.Th Euthyphro Dilemma in it's modern form is "is it good because God commands it or does Go command it because it is good ?". The former implies no ultimate morality (since all we have is comands which themselves have no moral basis) and the latter implies that there is an Ultimate Morality which God follows (and therefore it exists independantly of God). Thus I argue that the existence of an Ultimate Morality is independant of the existence of God. If you really want to get into this point then can you explain what woudl make an action moral in an Ultimate sense - without appealing to empty statements like "it is in accord with the Ultimate morality" ?I still do not know why you are insistent that the human scale is not enough for you and that you have to be important on a cosmic scale if it is not ego. Simply denying it does not offer any explanation of why you feel that way.Finally I think your comments on judging worldviews fail to distinguish between judging the TRUTH of a worldview - which is the real point - and judging it on other reasons. So far as the truth is concerned the reliance on ad hoc assumptions to "explain" origins is something of a negative - better to take no stand at all than to insist on something so unreliable. And implications have no bearing at all - and even less bearing when the "implications" are not implied at all.

Well the first version of my reply was lost.That some new brain cells are produced does not mean that they are replacing existing cells. But even if they are it simply goes back to the same question of identity I spoke of earlier. And although these addiitonal cells may partially explain the mental changes you have already acknowledged I see no reason to think that they are any more of a threat to my concept of identity.Blind people "see" during NDEs the same way as everyone else having an NDE "sees". What's the problem ? I certainly don't need a special explanation for blind people any more than you do. Of course since you apparently believe that they actually DO see you have a problem to explain how that is possible.Moroever the split-brain experiments and the effects on memory provide VERY strong evidence that these aspects of mental function is dependent on the physical brain. And since your view o NDEs denies that then you need equally strong evidence.And talking of evidence neither of the links you qualify as offering strong evidence. Although Grossman accuses those who disagree with him of "Intellectual Arrogance" he does so in such a nasty and insulting way it is clear that the arrognce is his.Grossmann does offer what he THINKS is a "killer argument" but contrary to his opinion it is easily answered. The possibility that Grossman neglects is that the experience did NOT happen while the brain was inactive. Grossmann presents absolutely no evidence to suggest that it did but simply assumes it. Why should the experience not draw from what happened as she was going under and/or the time when she was being revived ?As to the other link I looked for the Lancet report - and it is available on the web. One interesting fact is that it concluded that many features of an NDE can be explained by physiological factors.On to your "three big questions". Firstly I do not admit that evolution is "no answer at all". On the contrary evolutuion has alredy explained a great deal about human origins. THh other subjects may be harder to deal with but even there there is a lot of productive work that has been done. And in all three areas we have not reached the limits of what we can know. And it's not true that we have no explanations - the fact is that science demands a lot more of an explanation than you do.From science we have learnt that humans share a common ancestor with the African apes - and discovered a good number of fossils of other from our side of that divide (and continue to discover more - a major find was announced last week).From science we have developed outr understanding of the age of the Earth, identified the remains of ancient cyanobacteria and discovered that early life could have operated with RNA alone - without DNA or proteins. On the way we have generated and discareded a number of explanations for the origins of life. If all we wanted was an explanation - instead of one that we could make a strong case for form knowledge we could have stopped with any of them - Cairns-Smith's proposal of life poriginating from clays. for instance.For the origin of the unvierse we have got as far as the Big Bang - with a good estimate of the age of the Universe too. The study of cosmology is heavily wrapped up with the quest to unify Physics and discover a "Theory of Everything" since cosmology involves the extreme conditions where current physical theory break down (just as Newtonian Gravity broke down under less extreme conditions).I don't see evidence that supernaturalism has contributed anything of equivalent worth to ANY of the three questions - do you ?As for arguments for God, it doesn't matter WHY you haven't produced your argument. But surely you must acknowledge that if you had a strong direct argument for ANY of your "big 3" that there would be no need to try an indirect argument. It MIGHT be possible to produce a serious argument for the existence of a Creator around one of the three - but an argument from ignorance (for instance your argument over consciousness) is not a serious argument. I'm sorry but I see no reason to accept a belief because you happen to like it. If I don't think that MY likes and dislikes matter to the truth why should I think yours are any better ?On DNA you badly misnderstand my point. My point is that DNA can be entirely "understood" by non=intelligent chemical mechanisms - and indeed that is all that matters to DNA. There is no "meaning" beyond what it does in the correct environment. There is no element of abstract thought - just chemistry - even if it is very complicated chemistry. And other than a few small human efforts in genetic engineering so far we have found no sign of intelligent intervention in DNA - so far as we can tell mindless evoluionary processes have shaped a very large part of it.On morality you again misunderstand my point. I am not interested in how we KNOW it - but how it could exist and I see no useful contribution a God could make which would not undermine the very claim to HAVE an Ultimate Morality. For instance how could you meaningfully call God "good" without a standard of "good" to judge God by ? And I have to add how can we judge commands to commit genocide as "good" ? Or do we put the assumption that God is good ahead of the Bible or ahead of morality itself ?So far as "Ultimate Value" goes - unless you wish to deny that huamns have a value to each other on the human scale of things - we simply come back to my question of why that is not enough. Do you really not care about other humans for what they are ?As to your final point, if our Ultimate Destiny relies on wisful thinking or making a lucky guess I have just to ask what sort of creator would set things up that way ? I'd rather try to stick to the truth and admit the limits of my knowledge than pretend to "know" something that I truly don't. And I can't see that as a fault.

quote:

---

The Mother Teresa Ideal is the best example of theism at work, the Osama Bin Laden ideal is ultimate Muslimism, and Woody Allen or Madeline Murray O’Hare ideals are the ultimate atheism.

---

I'd say that you were wrong on all three.There are enough less-than-complimentary reports about Mother Theresa to doubt that the actual woman was an ideal role-model.Osama bin Laden's activities have a lot more to do with anti-Western sentiment than Islam (propping up the House of Saud is a good part of that - supporting Israel is another part).And I certainly don't regard Woody Allan or Madalyn Murray O'Hare as any sort of ideal nor see any reason why I should.

There is a continuity of experience and to a lesser extent of personality. These would seem more important to me than the physical makeup of the brain - which I regard as being of very low importance. While we do sometimes grant that long term personality change may be enough to consider the person involved "different" I see no reason to adopt any more radical view as you suggest. And sicne we do not grant that small replacements are sufficient to change the idnetity of inanimate objects why should we adopt a radically different view for humans ?Ansd what does your "True Self" add ? What makes it qualify as a "self" if it is not physical identity or memory or personality ? So far as I can tell it doesn't contribute to identity in any meaningful way.Moreover sicne the article you quoted indicated onlt that SOME new cells are generated in some parts of the brain your claim that all cells will be replaced in seven years is false. You do not even have a timescle for replacement of the parts of the brain that are affected - or even evidence that they are ever completly replaced.So far as I can see you have no grounds for your idea that there is the sort of complete change that would justify considering a person completely different (at least not without very unusual circumstances) nor any reason to beleive that there can be a "True Self" which continues identity in any meaningful way. It seems to be just another convenient assumption - but onw which cannot be meaningfully true.On to NDE's. Since I do not grant that anyone undergoing an NDE does see a doctor working on them I can only repeat that blindness makes no difference to my view. I am not ignoring the anecdotal CLAIMS of verification - I simply do not consider them to be significant evidence. I knwo that attempts at controlled experiments ("planting" things to be "seen") but I have never heard of any of them succeeding.The denture case is less significant than it appears - it only mentioned a week after the event and it was not produced by controlled questioning. Therefore we cannot conclude that the patient did not learn of it by normal means and work it into his memory of his NDE (or indeed that the doctor's memory has not elaborated the accuracy of hte patient's account)
http://www.merkawah.nl/literatuur/lommel-lancet.htmlOn to your "big three" I do not beleive that I am taking a reductionistic approach. And I can only repeat that you need to show that supernaturalism has something worthwhile to offer in respect of any of the three. Nor do we know if there is anything truly fortuitius in the nature of our universe nor if it is simply one of many and the weak anthropic principle suffices to explain why the universe we see is one where our existence is possible.If ou want to deal with fine tuning speifically you can start up another thread - or look for past threads. I seem to recall that I have already brought up a seriosu philosophical issue in the "fine -tuning" explanation but I think we would be going to far beyond the topic (and making the posts too long) to go into it here.On the origin of lifeyou are on even weaker ground. Given that we do nt even have a clear definition of life nor a clear boundary between biology and chemistry talkign about an "infuser" of life - wiht its overtones of the discredited idea of Vitalism seems pointless. It is true that current research is looking for simpler predecessors to RNA - but is self-replicating RNA alive ? If not then where does your "infuser" fit in ?As to the differences between humans and modern apes I need only point out to the relative brain sizes - remind you of the range of intermediates. And point out that even chimpanzees are capable of making simple tools that they have some capacity for language and even behaviour that is more like ours than you might think - for instance this article BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Chimps have 'sense of fair play'I note that you cannot answer the question of how we could judge God to be good without an independant moral standard. YOur answer amounts to simply assumign it or defining God as "good" - without regard to what GOd might actually be like. I don't see how you can suggest that either is a valid grounding for morality nor how speculating that a society might somehow be so "evil" that the only thing to do is kill everyone in it (which I find highly implausible - what could they be doing that is worse than genocide ? how could infants be guilty of anything worse than the killing of infants ?)As yo your other moral arguments I hardly see how it is "making it personal" to point out what you are saying. Let me make it simple - if human values - like love - are sufficent value for human-scale actions then there is no need to require an "Ultimate Value". Thus whenever you insist that an "Ultimate Value" IS needed you insist that human values are not enough. If you greatly care about another person there is nothing pointless in wanting to preserve their life even at the cost of your own.As for your ideals. YOu suggest settign the "ideal" of Mother THeresa against the actions of real people. Yet Osama Bin Laden is surely not regareded as a moral exemplare by the majority of Muslims - selective quotatiosn from the Quran aside - and Woody Allan and Madalyn O'Hare are not regarded as moral exemplars by the majority of atheitsts. YOur choises are clearly designe to skew the argument in favour of your position and only serve to demonstrate your own prejudice.And if you consider Woody Allan's or Madalyn Murray O'Hares values telling then what about Torquemada ? The witch-hunters ? The long history of Christian persecution of the Jews ? Or the ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia - after all we already have your word that Islam is an evil religion and that genocide may be OK if the victims are "evil" ? Or how about those devout Christian monarchs Vlad Tepes and Ivan IV Vasiljevich ?And atheism is hardly comparable to a single religion - it is more comparable to a general position like monotheism . So to be fair we ought to add Osama Bin Laden and co. to your list. After all most Christians are considerably wobbly on the issue of monotheism so it stands to reason that the ideal Monotheist is more likely a Muslim or a Jew - how about "Saint" Baruch Goldstein as the ideal from the Jewish side ?I hope this illustrates that choosing "examples" solely to paint a bad picture of those who disagree with you is pointless. Bad examples exist on both sides - what you need is a justification of those examples beyond simply being convenient for your argument. And that is something you do not even attempt to offer.

You surely can't be unaware that there are Muslims that condemned Osama bin Laden ?Muslim Clerics Condemn Osama bin Laden, Media Don't Tell Us http://healthandenergy.com/osama_bin_laden.htm http://www.islamfortoday.com/khan09.htm From the same author, an article called "OSAMA BIN LADEN: AN ENEMY OF ISLAM" binladen: Enemy of IslamThe Quran is - like the Bible a mixed bag. There are also verses giving Christians and Jews a favoured status over other non-Muslims which is rather odd if a Muslim state would not permit them to live. Picking out the most blood-thirsty parts is nor more reliable for the Quran than it is for the Bible (and with really selective quotation you could depict even Jesus as demanding the death of non-believers "Whoever is not with us is against us", "I come to bring not Peace, but a sword...")As to your radical view that even small changes to the brain completely destroy identity I see no sign of it taking hold at all. None of the examples you offer rely on it. The use of drugs for instance is simply more evidence for the dependence of the mind on the physical brain - they are used BECAUSE they work. The use of drugs and surgery on convicts is still only likely in cases where there is a mental illness that contributed to the "criminal actions" - and that is a situation that has not significantly changed in the direction you suggest for a long time.I still don't have an idea what your "True Self" is supposed to do. If it is just the passive recording device you suggest then it can't be considered a "True Self" in any meaningful sense. No, there is no way in which you can offer somethign that might usefully be consiered a "True Self" that escapes the objections you have raised to supposedlt establish the need for one.As for NDEs you mistake anecdotes for facts. I acknowledge that there are many such claims. But they are still anecdotal and can't be consiered proven. And the supposed common elements of NDE do not seem to be that significant either - either they are common expectations in our society (going back to well before the popularity of NDE reports) or physiological in origin (like the "tunnel of light"). The personality changes are genuine but there is nothing there that requires that the mind is independant of the brain. ANd I really don't knwo what facts would require a "Grand Conspiracy" to explain away - I have not suggested any fraud or deception on anyone's part.Your later comment that new and better studies are on the way is simply an indication of the failure of the field. Certainly there have been attempts at studying them to prouce the evidence you claim. Surely the reliance on anecdotes is because these past attempts have failed. So what makes you think that these new attempts will fare any better ?On to your "Big 3"It is surely not unfair to suggest that IF the supernatural offered a genuinely good explanation of he origin of our universe that it should contribute to our understanding of the natural universe. That is what a genuinely good explanation of the origin of our Universe WOULD do. Agin what you are saying is that the ad hoc assumption you like should be given very special treatment - for no reason at all other than you like it.What you fail to understand about the many-universes scenario is that it not only has some scientific support (in the sense that it is implied by some cosmological models) but also it simply proposes more of the "same". Assuming that our visible universe is all that is is as questionable an assumption as assumign that there is more. What I am NOT doing is assuming a redically different entity - and not one that is more complex or more ordered - or one that will have an unexplained origin (all universes would be generated much the same mechanisms). In all these ways it is clearly better than assuming a God.Moreover you fail to understand my use of the weak anthropic principle. Imagine if the firing squad is shooting at multiple prisoners - one gun to each priosner and that one gun is unloaded. Would it be an odd coincidence that the unloaded gun was the one use to shoot at the sole survivor ? Thats an analogy of my usage. It would be coincidence if we evolved in one of the small proportion of universes where we COULD evolve.As to your arguments that the supernatural may be required in abiogenesis - well it really only indicates your opinion. THere's no solid ground for it or any suggestion that a genuine and useful supernatural explanation might be forthcoming. By any objective standard abiogensis research is more promising than anything you have to offer.As to humanity - why should there be problems with the physical communicating ? All communictation I know of is physical ! If you accept the possibility that mind could be derived from the physical brain I don't see that this raises any new issues at all.On morlaity you ask the question of how we judge the standard to be the standard. Good question. If there is an Ultimate Morality out there how can we KNOW it to be the Ultimate Morality ? And if we can't then how does the existence of an Ultimate Morality help us ? The rest of your stuff goes nowhere except towards the idea that the murder of innocents is a good thing.As to what I say to the person who will not accept that human values are adequate - well you've got a good idea already, have't you ? How would you deal with someone who acts as you suggest and also rejects your assumption of "Ultimate Value" ? Is your argument going to be that we should indoctrinate people to believe in this "Ultimate Value" for reasons of social control ?

Im pretty sure that most of the support for Al Qaida is based on hatred of America. And that hatred is underlined by some genuine grievances.If I were looking for religious support for atrocities I would list "Saint" Baruch Goldstein as a clearer example - but he was Jewish, not Muslim.