Argument for God(s) Second Edition - please critique

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It's astonishing that absolutely every materialist I debate with, without fail, refuses to defend materialism.

If you wanted to hear defenses of materialism, why did you start a thread asking for criticisms of your arguments for God?

Maybe if you tried asking about materialism in some context other than to distract people from how ****-poor your defense of your own argument is going, you would get better responses.

 

[McBell]

It's astonishing that absolutely every materialist I debate with, without fail, refuses to defend materialism.

If you are looking for someone to defend materialism, you should start a thread for that purpose.

This thread is about you supporting your claims.

A bit of advice: if you're too embarrassed to defend your position, or have no defense, you should so some questioning.

I have not declared a position in this thread.

Your trying to assign me a position does not work.

 

[Koldo]

I would like to know the mechanism by which the brain creates the mind, and I would like physical evidence of a mind that does not first rely on material reductionism.

Can you define 'material reductionism' just so I know we are on the same grounds ?

 

[atanu]

A generality in common thinking ?
I haven't ever heard about that. Can you cite a source ?

Are you being difficult, intentionally? Don't you see claims in this thread itself that brain is the creator of intelligence?

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

Are you being difficult, intentionally? Don't you see claims in this thread itself that brain is the creator of intelligence?

I bet you could also find a large cross section of people that will agree that we are made of atoms as well. When the preponderance of the evidence supports a given theory that can be (very easily) falsified, over a great deal of time, what you have is a fact(or the closest thing to one outside of mathematics at least).

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Are you being difficult, intentionally? Don't you see claims in this thread itself that brain is the creator of intelligence?

Whether the alternative claim is supported is irrelevant to the question of 1337's argument. As long as any claim that's incompatible with his argument hasn't been refuted - i.e. actually demonstrated to be false - his claim hasn't been demonstrated to be true.

 

[Koldo]

Are you being difficult, intentionally? Don't you see claims in this thread itself that brain is the creator of intelligence?

What does 'the brain is the creator of intelligence' has to do with 'the material forms are truer than the consciousness' ?

 

[1137]

If you wanted to hear defenses of materialism, why did you start a thread asking for criticisms of your arguments for God?

Maybe if you tried asking about materialism in some context other than to distract people from how ****-poor your defense of your own argument is going, you would get better responses.

If you are looking for someone to defend materialism, you should start a thread for that purpose.

This thread is about you supporting your claims.


I have not declared a position in this thread.

Your trying to assign me a position does not work.

I've done that, and [so far] none of the refutations of #2 have been defended. If it cannot be refuted then what's next on the list?

Can you define 'material reductionism' just so I know we are on the same grounds ?

Specifically for this case, that the mind is nothing but a product of matter.

Whether the alternative claim is supported is irrelevant to the question of 1337's argument. As long as any claim that's incompatible with his argument hasn't been refuted - i.e. actually demonstrated to be false - his claim hasn't been demonstrated to be true.

So you can just throw out any unsupported nonsense and state that it's a valid refutation? That, again, is not how philosophy works.

 

[Koldo]

Specifically for this case, that the mind is nothing but a product of matter.

That's not how I understand the term 'reductionism' on this context. But if that's how you use it, I see no problem.
What would count as a 'physical evidence of a mind that does not first rely on material reductionism' ? Can you cite one example of evidence that if found would be sufficient to establish that the brain generates the mind ?

 

[McBell]

I've done that, and [so far] none of the refutations of #2 have been defended. If it cannot be refuted then what's next on the list?

um...
You actually demonstrate it to be true?
Oops, you have been unable to to do that outside the choir.

Are you still hoping that if you manage to destroy materialism that your ism will take over?
Won't happen until you can demonstrate your ism....

 

[McBell]

Can you cite one example of evidence that if found would be sufficient to establish that the brain generates the mind ?

Or that the mind is separate from the brain.
Or that when the brain dies the mind continues on.

As far as I can tell, the mind is the light with the brain being the bulb.
Once the bulb goes out, so does the mind.

I have not seen anything to indicate otherwise outside of wishful thinking.

Please understand, I am not saying that 1137 is wrong.
I am saying he has not shown he is right.

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

I've done that, and [so far] none of the refutations of #2 have been defended. If it cannot be refuted then what's next on the list?



Specifically for this case, that the mind is nothing but a product of matter.



So you can just throw out any unsupported nonsense and state that it's a valid refutation? That, again, is not how philosophy works.

Ok, let's assume for a second you are right, and the brain/body is actually a proxy for...whatever. let's call it X.

So X is sending a signal to the brain by undetectable means and methods, but the brain is destroyed, what can be left?

Everything 'you' know of yourself is through senses you will no longer have, that have formed memories that are stored in your brain, thoughts and contexts that have been molded by the experience of your physical body. So, no memory, no way to acquire new ones.

Just a DSL signal without a computer. Why is that even appealing?

Unless of course you are going to argue that this spiritual operator has his own brain and his own senses, but then who is operating that? Annnnnd we have infinite regress.

 

[atanu]

I bet you could also find a large cross section of people that will agree that we are made of atoms as well. When the preponderance of the evidence supports a given theory that can be (very easily) falsified, over a great deal of time, what you have is a fact(or the closest thing to one outside of mathematics at least).

it is unthinking to assert "I know I am not intelligent" and "I know I do not exist".

Self and its nature of knowing is self evident. Without consciousness, existence of material forms will not be known.

Furthermore, some people can also intuit that forms of waking state that we take as immutable are actually not there in dream and sleep. when we observe brain of a dreaming or sleeping man, we are actually only talking of waking state and not talking of the true form of sleep and consciousnesses.

What I have said above may or may not make any impression now. But it will not be wasted, 1 out of 100 readers will ponder and benefit. They will start seeing that in sleep, dream, and waking, the forms of consciousness are different and the forms of I and the world also take on corresponding forms.

Most however will be stuck with "I am created and constained by brain processes but (somehow) I know the truth".

 

[atanu]

Whether the alternative claim is supported is irrelevant to the question of 1337's argument. As long as any claim that's incompatible with his argument hasn't been refuted - i.e. actually demonstrated to be false - his claim hasn't been demonstrated to be true.

I have not examined your point. I was only talking in respect of point 2 in OP.

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

1 out of 100 readers will ponder and benefit. They will start seeing that in sleep, dream, and waking, the forms of consciousness are different and the forms of I and the world also take on corresponding forms.

Strangely enough, schizophrenia affects 1 in 100 people, so they say.

Completely unrelated I'm sure.

 

[atanu]

Strangely enough, schizophrenia affects 1 in 100 people, so they say.

Completely unrelated I'm sure.

Yeah. The attack does not go unnoticed but I do not bother at barks.

I can only say that pay a bit of respect, same as I would like to pay you.

 

[atanu]

Or that the mind is separate from the brain.

Mind -- a bundle of thoughts -- can never manifest without a contrast, without a reflection.

 

[McBell]

Mind -- a bundle of thoughts -- can never manifest without a contrast, without a reflection.

Nor, it seems, without a brain.
Which is the point you fail to refute.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I will get to your post in detail. For now, I will state that I favor the consistent histories formulation of QM where measurements no longer play a fundamental role in the theory.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-consistent-histories/

I own Griffith's Consistent Quantum Theory. Ironically, I didn't mean to, as I bought iit thinking that it was written by David Griffith. But I was glad, in the end, to have made the mistake, as I was introduced to the consistent histories approach via perhaps the best source available. And yet the observer in this approach is still fundamental. The attempt to render the observer to a kind of somewhat classical role merely shifts the focal issues in the measurement problem

 

[atanu]

Nor, it seems, without a brain.
Which is the point you fail to refute.

Yes. But mind starts with subject-object division of one consciousness that happens during sleep to dream transition.

You are speaking only from POV of waking state consciousness, which was not there before birth, which will not be there after death, and which does not persist in dream and sleep forms of consciousnesses. But we somehow consider waking state representational forms as absolute truths.

When one intuits that what one sees is only one's mind, which has three forms, similar to three forms of water, one stops imagining the waking state forms as immutable truths.

I am expecting some harsh response of course.