Atheism is not a default position

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Would you accept Wikipedia as an authority?

No.

Yes, the word occurs, but it is in context. It says that the agnostic makes a positive claim that truth values of certain claims are unknown. His claim is not one of ignorance about those claims (I don't know, I really can't say because I have no clue) but one of knowledge about truth values (some claims can have no truth value).

I would suggest that to assert that knowledge about the truth value of a proposition/claim is unknowable is to assert that one has a kind of omniscient or god-like knowledge of reality in order for such a claim to be true (and therefore to know that which one claims is knowable). Let us consider the path of a "particle" or whether a teapot is orbiting some planet. In the former case, physics tells us it is impossible for us to know the "path" a particle takes because it doesn't take a path, but more importantly if we were able to say that it were impossible to know the path a particle takes we would either have to know that it takes no path or that there is a path it takes (and to know that there is a path it takes is to assert that it must be possible to know the path, or there would be no way to know that there was any). In the latter case, to assert that it is impossible to know that a teapot is orbiting some planet is to define the precise properties that one asserts is unknowable. But if these properties are unknowable, how is one so certain of their existence and nature as to KNOW they are Unknowable?

 

[ArtieE]

Likewise, one could self-identify as an atheist, theist, deist, or Wiccan fundamentalist Satanist Muslim agnostic, but it won't change the fact that simply using the word "god" makes it physiologically impossible to lack beliefs about "god".

LOL. "I am a weak atheist. I don't believe in God. I lack belief in the existence of God. I don't have a belief in the existence of God". How many examples do you need?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

LOL. "I am a weak atheist. I don't believe in God. I lack belief in the existence of God. I don't have a belief in the existence of God". How many examples do you need?

You haven't provided any. You've stated claims that I know contradict logic, linguistics, and neuroscience. You've provided nothing to substantiate any claim you've made other than your own assertions, and nothing to suggest you even are aware of what such a substantiation might consist of. You simply assert what you've said as evidence that it is true, in combination with a failure to deal with contrary evidence from philosophy and the sciences. You assert that the word "atheism" has some special status in that it alone of all words in any language somehow asserts merely a lack of belief when any actual lack of belief lacks any functional purpose to warrant a word, that the position indicated by this special definition of "atheism" is capable of defying neurophysiology, and that the same states of knowledge that characterize infants and rocks are not equivalent because you further idiomatically define atheism to make lack of identification equivalent to mutually incompatible epistemic states (those of atheists and infants), but not equivalent to compatible states (infants and rocks).

 

[ArtieE]

Yes, the word occurs, but it is in context. It says that the agnostic makes a positive claim that truth values of certain claims are unknown. His claim is not one of ignorance about those claims (I don't know, I really can't say because I have no clue) but one of knowledge about truth values (some claims can have no truth value).

I'm not going to try to untangle your reasoning in detail. It only makes sense in your head.

Me: "Does God exist or doesn't God exist?"
Agnostic says "Don't know" or "That's unknowable".

"someone who does not know, or believes that it is impossible toknow, if a godexists:"
agnostic Meaning, definition in Cambridge English Dictionary

 

[Gary Sheldrake]

(one of the first neuroimaging studies I worked on was looking at the neural representation of beliefs among subjects who evaluated concepts similarly along a spiritual/materialism dimension).

Good Morning LegionOnomaMaoi: This is a subject that I have always thought was fascinating. What I find even more fascinating are the conclusions people draw on these matters. Could you tell me if you would, precisely what it was that you observed in these subjects? As a follow on question, could you tell me what you concluded?

All the best,
Gary

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Good Morning LegionOnomaMaoi: This is a subject that I have always thought was fascinating. What I find even more fascinating are the conclusions people draw on these matters. Could you tell me if you would, precisely what it was that you observed in these subjects?

Eye movement. Real fMRI studies don't produce images like those seen in advertisements, popular science, TV, and even peer-reviewed journals. They produce hundreds and hundreds of still, black and white scans similar to MRI scans that one can scroll through and that show nothing other than whether the participant was moving her or his head (which will ruin a run) and my favorite and first discovery: people who are asked to close their eyes will rapidly move them left and right without knowing it.

My first studies were as the lowliest of the low (beginning graduate research). While the experimental designs were decent enough if not good, the use of statistical analyses required for everything from discerning significant activity to coloring in the images from the scans were fundamentally flawed. So I devoted a lot more time to physics and mathematics than I was supposed to.

As a follow on question, could you tell me what you concluded?

That neural correlates are correlates. We can state that, given some neural activity and a sufficiently well constructed experiment, there is a necessary relationship between particular neural activity and specific mental states or conceptualization, but not a sufficient relationship. Essentially, we can say a lot about brain activity that accompanies thoughts, beliefs, sensory processing, etc., but little about the causal direction of such relationships.

 

[marcosmasliaev]

No, it i even simpler than that - those intellects evolved from bacteria, and thus need no intelligent creator.

Think a little more, than you'll see what's wrong in your idea.

 

[Gary Sheldrake]

Eye movement. Real fMRI studies don't produce images like those seen in advertisements, popular science, TV, and even peer-reviewed journals. They produce hundreds and hundreds of still, black and white scans similar to MRI scans that one can scroll through and that show nothing other than whether the participant was moving her or his head (which will ruin a run) and my favorite and first discovery: people who are asked to close their eyes will rapidly move them left and right without knowing it.

My first studies were as the lowliest of the low (beginning graduate research). While the experimental designs were decent enough if not good, the use of statistical analyses required for everything from discerning significant activity to coloring in the images from the scans were fundamentally flawed. So I devoted a lot more time to physics and mathematics than I was supposed to.


That neural correlates are correlates. We can state that, given some neural activity and a sufficiently well constructed experiment, there is a necessary relationship between particular neural activity and specific mental states or conceptualization, but not a sufficient relationship. Essentially, we can say a lot about brain activity that accompanies thoughts, beliefs, sensory processing, etc., but little about the causal direction of such relationships.

Thank you very much for the reply LegionOnomaMoi. So, to clarify, what you observed was specific repeatable behaviors in neural activity in predictable regions of the brain that correlate to specific modes of thought and sensory input. Is that correct?

Thanks and all the best,
Gary

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Thank you very much for the reply LegionOnomaMoi. So, to clarify, what you observed was specific repeatable behaviors in neural activity in predictable regions of the brain that correlate to specific modes of thought and sensory input. Is that correct

Correct and very elegantly put (with the slight possibility of an issue with the use of "predictable regions"; there is actually an issue of predictability that goes into e.g., voxel size and ROIs but that is beyond what I stated and is more than a little technical).

 

[Willamena]

No.

Aww.

I would suggest that to assert that knowledge about the truth value of a proposition/claim is unknowable is to assert that one has a kind of omniscient or god-like knowledge of reality in order for such a claim to be true (and therefore to know that which one claims is knowable). Let us consider the path of a "particle" or whether a teapot is orbiting some planet. In the former case, physics tells us it is impossible for us to know the "path" a particle takes because it doesn't take a path....

I don't think an omniscient knowledge of reality is necessary, just a plain old ordinary knowledge of reality (especially as the former is impossible for us outside of thought experiment). Certain kinds of sentences, for instance, have no truth value. More to the point, claims made in the "dark room" (ignorance) per the analogy made earlier in the thread, have no truth value, on a par with imagination. The argument was pursued about turning on the lights, making for a truth value no longer latent, but there's no guarantee of lights.

In the case of the particle, a statement about the impossibility of knowing its path is not the same as the claim that its path has no truth value. You implied no truth value when you said, "...because it doesn't take a path," hence no truth is possible about its path (a simple elimination).

...but more importantly if we were able to say that it were impossible to know the path a particle takes we would either have to know that it takes no path or that there is a path it takes (and to know that there is a path it takes is to assert that it must be possible to know the path, or there would be no way to know that there was any). In the latter case, to assert that it is impossible to know that a teapot is orbiting some planet is to define the precise properties that one asserts is unknowable. But if these properties are unknowable, how is one so certain of their existence and nature as to KNOW they are Unknowable?

I agree, but again agnosticism, in my view, is not so much about impossibility of knowing as it is about the case of impossibility of truth value, and a big part of that is the limits of logic and what it means to know. It's given to us to know truth in the context of our conscious state.

 

[Gary Sheldrake]

Correct and very elegantly put (with the slight possibility of an issue with the use of "predictable regions"; there is actually an issue of predictability that goes into e.g., voxel size and ROIs but that is beyond what I stated and is more than a little technical).

Thank you for the reply LegionOnomaMoi. Would I be correct then to surmise that you haven't drawn any conclusions on the origins of thought and consciousness? For instance, have you intuited in any way whether consciousness is an epiphenomenon of brain activity, or simply that brain activity can be seen to attend processes associated with conscious functions? The reason I ask is that you seem to have some solid background in this area of research, and consciousness is an item of particular interest to me. To be forthcoming, I am not satisfied with anything I have seen posited on the matter to date. To be clear, I am not advancing or offering any particular theory or idea on the matter. I am looking for one.

Thank you for your time and all the best,
Gary

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Aww. .

I know what kind of morons are responsible for Wikipedia pages. Or at least I know one moron who is: me. If Wikipedia is so irresponsible as to allow persons such as me to act like authorities, clearly it can't be trusted.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Thank you for the reply LegionOnomaMoi. Would I be correct then to surmise that you haven't drawn any conclusions on the origins of thought and consciousness?

I had to leave my graduate program because I devoted to much time to math and physics in an attempt to complete a doctorate that was pathetically unbelievably and pathetically arrogant in scope: to refute the possibility that quantum theory could be relevant to consciousness. Despite my failure and arrogance, I do think (and have drawn the conclusion that) quantum physics isn't the origins of thought and consciousness, and I believe that the classical interpretation of classical physics is too restrictive but that something like classical physics enables thought and consciousness. I am no longer so arrogant as to claim that I have enough evidence to demonstrate the scientific equivalent of proof either that quantum physics is irrelevant to consciousness or that the modern perspective of classical physics is too limited, or that modern physics is "complete". This is merely my certainty regarding the relationship of the nature of physics and consciousness, not my certainty regarding physics and consciousness; my position here is far less clear and has become increasingly less certain.

For instance, have you intuited in any way whether consciousness is an epiphenomenon of brain activity, or simply that brain activity can be seen to attend processes associated with conscious functions?

Whatever I may end up as, I began research in neuroscience and have continually focused on the brain and done so as scientists tend to. I'm predisposed to the position that neural activity causes conscious states, even though I believe that the strict reductionist view can't be correct. However, I must admit that the evidence doesn't thus far rule out the possibility that "brain activity can [simply] be seen to attend processes associated with conscious functions".

To be forthcoming, I am not satisfied with anything I have seen posited on the matter to date.

On this we agree, except that I had the stupidity to think I could produce something satisfactory.

 

[Gary Sheldrake]

I had to leave my graduate program because I devoted to much time to math and physics in an attempt to complete a doctorate that was pathetically unbelievably and pathetically arrogant in scope: to refute the possibility that quantum theory could be relevant to consciousness. Despite my failure and arrogance, I do think (and have drawn the conclusion that) quantum physics isn't the origins of thought and consciousness, and I believe that the classical interpretation of classical physics is too restrictive but that something like classical physics enables thought and consciousness. I am no longer so arrogant as to claim that I have enough evidence to demonstrate the scientific equivalent of proof either that quantum physics is irrelevant to consciousness or that the modern perspective of classical physics is too limited, or that modern physics is "complete". This is merely my certainty regarding the relationship of the nature of physics and consciousness, not my certainty regarding physics and consciousness; my position here is far less clear and has become increasingly less certain.



Whatever I may end up as, I began research in neuroscience and have continually focused on the brain and done so as scientists tend to. I'm predisposed to the position that neural activity causes conscious states, even though I believe that the strict reductionist view can't be correct. However, I must admit that the evidence doesn't thus far rule out the possibility that "brain activity can [simply] be seen to attend processes associated with conscious functions".


On this we agree, except that I had the stupidity to think I could produce something satisfactory.

Thank you for the candid reply. For a time, I had believed that quantum physics pointed to a primacy of consciousness over matter, however, at this point in my inquiries I am only willing to say is that there appears to be some sort of interdependency between what we perceive as the temporal world of objects and that which perceives it. Lately, I have even started to question the idea of a temporal world of objects and am starting to favor the idea of a reality devoid of objects and filled instead with events that we label as such things as trees, grass, people, planets and stars and such, based on the observations allowed by a given metabolic rate and sentient instrumentation. In short, I wonder if we are simply extracting a given reality from a set of infinite potentials based on the speed at which we observe them and the sensory apertures available to us. I further wonder if what we take to be objects are in fact just events embedded in a process. As what we perceive as time stretches to greater and greater spans, it becomes clear (or appears to be clear) that there are no fixed objects. For instance a cherry blossom is not a blossom but a "blossoming," and rather than being a person, perhaps I am a "personing." Much in the same way that wave is only what the ocean is doing at the place where the wave is, perhaps I am simply what the universe is doing at the nexus of space and time where I am sitting.

On the topic of thoughts and consciousness, I wonder if they actually have to reside anyplace in particular, and that perhaps the brain is something like a receiver that picks them up and integrates them with the realities made available by the input of our instruments of sentience, which would mean that our purpose (if there is one) is simply to produce experience. I think there is at least some evidence of crosstalk when it comes to thought and consciousness - enough to think that it may be something of an overstep to assume that our brains are what initiates them.

I am not offering this as a truth of any sort. Just some possibilities I am playing with, or maybe just a way of looking at things, and of course I am open to any suggestions.

All the best,
Gary

 

[Ouroboros]

The PIE root of the Latin deus is known, and has been for a long time: "deus from *deos, *deiwas: Skt. devas, Lith. dievas, OPr. deiws..."
Buck, C. D. (1933). Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin. University of Chicago Press.
Buck's classic is still the standard, but its age required a new treatment which, while less comprehensive and arguably deficient in other ways, provides all the necessary updates: Sihler's New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (Oxford University Press, 1995). The etymology of deus is unchanged except that other cognates are added, but in addition the Greek theos is explicitly stated to be distinct and indeed (unlike the Latin deus) unknown:

Very interesting. Didn't know that. I always thought they had the same root. Thanks.

 

[Ouroboros]

That is, one cannot be capable of using a word like "god" without certain patterns of neural activity, or more generally ANY belief that ANYTHING does or doesn't exist corresponds to neural patterns that CANNOT exist without belief. If one believes no god(s) exist, one CANNOT have "no belief gods don't exist" or "lack a belief that god(s) exist".

Perfect.

 

[atanu]

Strong atheists have an absence of belief in gods.Strong atheists have an absence of belief in gods and in addition they believe gods don't exist.

That means that having an absence of belief in god/s does not prohibit one from having a belief about god/s. And this is clear and unambiguous. Since: "not believing X" (not believe gods exist) means the same as "believing not X" (believe gods do not exist), if not modified by any other stated condition.

1-0 Theism (belief gods exist, no belief gods don't exist)
0-1 Strong atheism (no belief gods exist, belief gods don't exist)
0-0 Weak atheism (no belief gods exist, no belief gods don't exist, undecided)

OTOH, a so called weak atheist will say "I have no belief that gods exist". But when pressed that holding a position "I have no belief that gods exist" is same as holding a position "I believe gods do not exist", they add the second denial "no belief gods don't exist", which is meaningless.

Why does he not simply say "I am undecided regarding existence or non existence of god/s"?
Why is it needed to be vague and say "...no belief gods exist, no belief gods don't exist"?

 

[ArtieE]

That means that having an absence of belief in god/s does not prohibit one from having a belief about god/s.

Having an absence of belief in the existence of god doesn't prevent you from actively believing God doesn't exist.

And this is clear and unambiguous. Since: "not believing X" (not believe gods exist) means the same as "believing not X" (believe gods do not exist),

Of course not. He may be undecided and haven't picked any of the two options. How many times do you have to see the same line?

0-0 Weak atheism (no belief gods exist, no belief gods don't exist, undecided)

OTOH, a so called weak atheist will say "I have no belief that gods exist". But when pressed that holding a position "I have no belief that gods exist" is same as holding a position "I believe gods do not exist", they add the second denial "no belief gods don't exist", which is meaningless.

No it isn't. They just haven't picked any of the two options. Who do you think you are? What gives you the right to tell people that they either believe God exists or believe God doesn't exist when they tell you to your face that they haven't made up their minds or don't want to take sides?

Why does he not simply say "I am undecided regarding existence or non existence of god/s"?

He can say whatever he likes as long as the meaning is the same.

Why is it needed to be vague and say "...no belief gods exist, no belief gods don't exist, undecided"?

It isn't. It's just formulated that way in the example to make it as simple as possible for you to understand.

 

[atanu]

....He can say whatever he likes as long as the meaning is the same.It isn't. It's just formulated that way in the example to make it as simple as possible for you to understand.

Surely it is when the meaning is simply "I am undecided regarding existence or non existence of god/s".

Do you honestly believe that a statement such as "I have no belief that gods exist" conveys "I am undecided"?

Most except the weak atheism followers will concur that "I have no belief that gods exist" means same as "I believe that god does not exist".

 

[ArtieE]

Surely it is when the meaning is simply "I am undecided regarding existence or non existence of god/s".

I'm done with you atanu. My patience has its limits. See you later.