BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
TexasScientist said:
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
TexasScientist said:
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
TexasScientist said:
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
TexasScientist said:
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
TexasScientist said:
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
TexasScientist said:
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
TexasScientist said:
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
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You can't be serious. Scientists throughout history were hampered by their ignorance and presuppositions of gods, or a god to account for what they could not understand. They were persecuted by the religious institutions of power for the scientific revelations they uncovered, until it was abundantly clear science was true and religious belief was false. Faced with the evidence of reality, religious institutions, in order to remain credible, had to modify how they interpreted their religious doctrine. Otherwise, they couldn't to maintain the faith, influence, and power religion held over their culture. When you get down to the basic purposes of control and sway over people, there is no real fundamental difference in the various religions, including Christianity. And yes, science is at odds with every religious doctrine. People don't crawl out of their graves, or caskets at funerals. Virgins don't give birth, with or without relations with a god. Burning bushes don't talk. People don't ascend into space, speak in tongues. The sun doesn't stand still, etc. The universe is more than 6,000 years old (something even the Catholic Church had to recognize). Consciousness is a biological and physical function of the brain. Scientific observation and testing confirm it. We don't have to understand every aspect and nuance of the consciousness to know this.
I didn't say that throughout history, science and people's understanding of Christianity didn't conflict. I am saying that science is not at odds with Christianity. If you disagree, then by all means, give us science that conflicts with or debunks Christianity. You've been challenged with this before multiple times, and you failed each time. So let's make it another, just so you'll go away for a while - then come back, recycling your same old failed arguments, hoping no one remembers your previous failure. Wash, rinse, repeat.
.... Science tells us that cognition is a neurological process that develops, beginning with conception and ending with death. Science tells us when the brain dies, all cognition ends. Science tells us hallucinations and dreams are biochemical processes. I have to repeat what science tells us, because I can't change the truth to fit religious attempts to alter reality. Where would we be if Galileo had scrapped his views, quit repeating, and embraced Church censorship? Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality, until it has no choice but to modify its religious views in the face of science. It has no choice but to reinterpret its beliefs to fill the remaining and evershrinking gap.
Science does NOT tell us that consciousness and subjective experience are ONLY biochemical processes. Science has absolutely no explanation for how atoms and molecules can form subjective experience.
"Religion stands in opposition to understanding and embracing reality.." - you've repeated this over and over. Lay out exactly what you've proven to be "reality" that I or other Christians have been standing in opposition to.
You're the one claiming a reality outside of what we can know through scientific understanding. Demonstrate it. Let's see you supernaturally move a mountain. Science says you can't, religion says you can.
Do you believe that your thoughts and actions coming from your brain is due to choice/free will, or is it due to physics?
If you believe it is all physics, then how do you know that what you're believing right now is truth, and not just what you were determined to believe via physics?
If you believe that it is choice/free will, then how are you moving the atoms and molecules in your brain according to your will? If you can move atoms and molecules, then why would it be impossible to move a mountain?
It's a biologic function of physics.
We obviously have the ability to make assumptions, evaluations and decisions within the context of our learned frame of reference.
Decision making is a contained a neuro-biological process. Explain to me with examples of how you've supernaturally moved a mountain.
If it is just a biologic function of physics, then any assumption, evaluation, or decision you make is still the determined result of physics. Your whole learned frame of reference is the product of deterministic physics, you had no choice in the matter. Anything that stems from this learned frame of reference, likewise, is strictly determined by physics alone.
If this is the case, then why do you care about those who believe in religion? They had no choice but to believe it, physics determined it. In your grand scheme of things, their belief in religion is not "wrong" because there is no such thing as "wrong" in determinism.
In addition, since your thinking is similarly dispositioned, there is no basis on which to claim your perceptions accurately reflect ultimate reality and truth. Your "objectivity" and "empiricism" are determined only by physics, and so any reasoning derived from these is only confirming the learned frame of reference from which they themselves are derived....a learned frame of reference that itself is also derived only from physics. In essence, you are claiming that physical reality is ultimate truth and reality....because of physics. Circular logic, a fallacy.
Everyone (who is not mentally impaired) has the ability to analyze and make decisions base upon what they have learned.
People's beliefs are based upon what they have learned, regardless of its accuracy or veracity. They have the ability to change those fallacious beliefs when presented with accurate information, once they can overcome the hurdle of recognizing their beliefs and knowledge were based upon error, and inaccuracies.
Your premises and reasoning are flawed by your reductionist desire to oversimplify complexity, in an attempt to make a point, that shows you don't understand physics, and science.
If there is any mental impairment or lack of understanding, it is on your part for your failure to understand the logical implications of your thinking.
If everyone has the ability to analizye and make decisions based on what they learned, and then CHANGE them based on their perception of "correctness" and "error" - are they doing this freely, or is it merely the inevitable result of unguided physics? You can not have it both ways. Either you can guide the biology and physics in your brain, or you can't. If you say we CAN guide the biology and physics, then you are invoking the supernatural. If you say we CAN'T, then whatever a person ends up thinking, whether "right" or "wrong" in your view, or whether or not they can "change" their thinking to conform to whatever is "right" or "wrong" in your view, is merely the end result of the pathway that was determined by physics alone. If all there is is physics, then it couldn't be any other way.
You say that everyone "who is not mentally impaired" has the ability to analyze, learn, and make decisions. Serious question - how do you know that YOU aren't mentally impaired to a degree? Mentally impaired people are only that way because it was the end result of physics, right? So how can you assume that the physics that resulted in you, landed in all the right ways for you to have the ability to accurately perceive truth and reality?
A dog has a limited ability to analyze a simple problem and resolve it for the desired outcome. A chimp, or a monkey can do the same, as many other animals. Do you believe they have the same supernatural abilities that you have? Clearly brain development and advancement is a factor that sets species apart from one another.
Clearly we have an advanced brain in comparison to other animals. Whether it is through a species unique evolutionary development, or through individual development, physical impairment from trauma or disease, the brain is where cognition occurs in all species. Consciousness and cognition are physical biological processes, as any other biological function. Because of our evolutionary advanced state, we have the most advanced ability to reason and make choices. Some more than others (autism for example). Consciousness depends upon brain activity. You didn't have consciousness until your brain was sufficiently developed after conception. There is no evidence that consciousness and cognition can extend beyond and without brain activity. We don't have to understand all of the details and intricacies to make that observation.
The only observation you're making, is that biology is a necessary component of consciousness. You are not proving that it is a sufficient component. To illustrate, here is an analogy of your argument, bolded above:
"Seeing moving pictures depends on TV activity. You couldn't see the pictures until the TV was finished being built from the factory. There is no evidence that the pictures can be seen without the TV being "on". We don't have to understand all the details of how the pictures are made to make that observation."
This argument can NOT be used to claim that the entirety of being able to view pictures comes from the physical TV itself. While it is correct that you need a physical TV to see the picture (it's necessary), it completely misses the fact that the TV is merely a physical receiver of an outside signal that is completely independent from the TV, and can not produce the pictures without it (it's not sufficient). Doc's example of the radio antenna is just a reiteration of this point.
You have no observation to suggest that biology is anything otherwise. Biologic function is not a component of consciousness, it is the totality of which consciousness is a component and product.
That's a poor analogy. Ability to view and process what is observed on a TV is a part of the brain's conscious function. This is true of any observations made by the brain. There is no comparison between the operation of a television and the brain, other than the laws of physics govern the operation of both. A TV is an inanimate object.
The observation that suggests subjective conscious experience is more than biology, is that there doesn't exist any fundamental concept in biology that can even begin to explain it. One observational, empirical proof of that, is your absolute failure in providing even a sniff of one. And you fail because it can't be done.
You must have some sort of deficit which prevents you from understanding analogies. The TV is analogous to the biological/physical brain, and the pictures on the tv are analogous to subjective conscious experience. Though you need the physical TV to see the pictures, the pictures are not the product of the TV itself.
We don't know everything, yet. But, what we understand about neuroscience, biology, and physics is the fundamental foundation upon which to conduct scientific experiments, to unravel what we don't know. When Peter Higgs proposed what is now know as the Higgs boson, we didn't know it or the Higgs field existed until it was discovered at the Cern LHC. The concepts to being to explain it rest in biochemistry, neurology, and physics. Your ideas have no basis or even come close to any other explanation.
The TV and brain are not comparable. One is inorganic, and the other is organic, with all of the complexities that come from organics, including consciousness. There is simply no evidence that consciousness is broadcast from somewhere else in the universe, or even into our universe from a multiverse.
The discovery of the Higgs boson is just the discovery of smaller physics. It's a missing puzzle piece of a larger framework of physics that can be predicted and searched for. It's physics being explained by more fundamental physics.
More fundamental biology can't explain conscious, subjective experience. No amount of smaller biology that we can look for in a powerful microscope will explain it. There is no concept or even philosophy in biology that will even allow you to predict a mechanism. Because you ultimately have to link personal subjective experience to physical matter. Conceptually, it's in a different realm.
You continue to fail to grasp the point about the TV. It's not about equating the TV to the brain. It's illustrating the major flaw in your argument, that just because a physical unit (brain, TV) is required for something (consciousness, pictures) it doesn't necessarily mean that physical unit is the SOLE producer of that something.
Look at your sentence - "The TV and brain are not comparable. One is inorganic, and the other is organic, with all of the complexities that come from organics, including consciousness". Can you spot your fallacy there? You're arguing that consciousness can indeed come only from the brain, and is unlike a TV, because the brain is more complex.....since it is able to produce consciousness. You are assuming the truth of what you're arguing, in order to argue for its truth. It's begging the question, i.e. circular reasoning. This is failed logic.
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More fundamental biology can't explain conscious, subjective experience. No amount of smaller biology that we can look for in a powerful microscope will explain it. There is no concept or even philosophy in biology that will even allow you to predict a mechanism. Because you ultimately have to link personal subjective experience to physical matter. Conceptually, it's in a different realm.
This is nonsense. There is every reason to believe through improved technology, research and experimentation, we'll be able to fully understand consciousness. There are a lot of people wasting their careers if you're right. No point in doing any more science. God must have done it.
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Look at your sentence - "The TV and brain are not comparable. One is inorganic, and the other is organic, with all of the complexities that come from organics, including consciousness". Can you spot your fallacy there? You're arguing that consciousness can indeed come only from the brain, and is unlike a TV, because the brain is more complex.....since it is able to produce consciousness. You are assuming the truth of what you're arguing, in order to argue for its truth. It's begging the question, i.e. circular reasoning. This is failed logic.
You don't understand that they are not comparable. One is an inorganic tool created by man using science and physics. The other is part of an organic highly evolved neurological organism, through the laws of physics and biochemistry.
There is what we understand through science, and and what we don't understand, but can come to an understanding through science. There is nothing that we have learned about the physical universe that science attributes to any supernatural power or being. Science has never found the answer to a scientific question to be god did it. There is only what remains unknown, as of yet. There is no logical reason to support your belief that the remaining unknown is supernatural - god of the gaps. And, there is no logical reason to support your belief that the god in the gaps is the god of your particular version of Christianity.
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The discovery of the Higgs boson is just the discovery of smaller physics. It's a missing puzzle piece of a larger framework of physics that can be predicted and searched for. It's physics being explained by more fundamental physics.
And you just proved my point and explained how physics, neuroscience, and biochemistry, can find the answer to a missing puzzle piece of a larger framework of physics. Before Peter Higgs, and some others, and ultimately the LHC, no one thought of the concept, or understood how to predict and search for the Higgs boson.
