Sethbag wrote:I cannot say I understand everything MFB writes in these threads. I'm certainly not well read in philosophy. However, my gut feeling based on my observations of a number of these threads over time is that MFB employs a sort of scorched-earth apologetics. That is, if he can destroy all basis for argument against his beliefs, then his beliefs become off-limits to criticism, and he can go on securely believing whatever he wants, which is apparently some personal form of Mormonism.
Am I far off?
That is actually kind of backwards. I was an anti-realist as an atheist- I was a real Rorty man, and then I had some spiritual experiences and everything turned around, and I saw that one could make sense out of it all through William James.
But I guess if you don't know those guys that would not make much sense. What is strange is that many on this board think I dreamed all this up myself and I am some kind of weirdo out of the mainstream, but the reality is, most of what I believe has been around at least a hundred years in the philosophy of William James, John Dewey, Wittgenstein and Rorty. Throw in a dash of Whitehead and Teilhard de Chardin and Vattimo, and it's pretty much all there
Samantabhadra wrote:keithb, you can quantify the physiological response to color-stimuli, and you can quantify the physical characteristics of the color stimulus, but the phenomenological experience of color is not material and thus not quantifiable.
Says who?
I really don't believe in the whole idea of "qualia", which is what you seem to be tacitly implying here. The more scientific evidence that comes out about how the brain works, the more the idea that there are just non-reproducible responses to stimuli that an individual brain can produce that another brain cannot seems wrong. I don't think that the question is settled, but to me the evidence keeps stacking up against this notion.
And, even if there are "qualia" in the human brain, I don't see how this lends any credence to the idea of the supernatural. Just because there might be something specific and non-reproducible about a certain type of brain chemistry that make the experiences of that individual unique, does that then imply that these non-reproducible experiences are somehow caused by a supernatural force? To me it doesn't, and I have yet to see a convincing argument from someone that would make me change my mind.
"Joseph Smith was called as a prophet, dumb-dumb-dumb-dumb-dumb" -South Park
Samantabhadra wrote:keithb, you can quantify the physiological response to color-stimuli, and you can quantify the physical characteristics of the color stimulus, but the phenomenological experience of color is not material and thus not quantifiable.
Samantabhadra wrote:keithb, you can quantify the physiological response to color-stimuli, and you can quantify the physical characteristics of the color stimulus, but the phenomenological experience of color is not material and thus not quantifiable.
Besides it is only language
It is maya
???????
"Joseph Smith was called as a prophet, dumb-dumb-dumb-dumb-dumb" -South Park
I really don't believe in the whole idea of "qualia", which is what you seem to be tacitly implying here.
I don't really like "qualia" either and that's not exactly what I'm talking about. What I mean is that experience is not reducible to changes of physical states.
Just because there might be something specific and non-reproducible about a certain type of brain chemistry that make the experiences of that individual unique, does that then imply that these non-reproducible experiences are somehow caused by a supernatural force?
Are you familiar with the work of the Mind and Life Institute?
For the record I am not claiming that mystical experiences are necessarily "supernatural" (whatever that means) in origin, only that physicalist reductionism does not work as an account of perception, to say nothing of exalted spiritual states.
How many Mopologists does this make now that try to argue an apple doesn't exist?
V/R Doctor Cam "Not sure if I'm typing on a keyboard or a pizza" NC for Me
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
I really don't believe in the whole idea of "qualia", which is what you seem to be tacitly implying here.
I don't really like "qualia" either and that's not exactly what I'm talking about. What I mean is that experience is not reducible to changes of physical states.
Just because there might be something specific and non-reproducible about a certain type of brain chemistry that make the experiences of that individual unique, does that then imply that these non-reproducible experiences are somehow caused by a supernatural force?
Are you familiar with the work of the Mind and Life Institute?
For the record I am not claiming that mystical experiences are necessarily "supernatural" (whatever that means) in origin, only that physicalist reductionism does not work as an account of perception, to say nothing of exalted spiritual states.
Well, what are you claiming then? That there are things about the brain and how it experiences the world that we don't understand yet and that are unique to each individual?
Okay, fine.
But what does this have to do with anything related to the notion of whether or not god(s) actually exist?
"Joseph Smith was called as a prophet, dumb-dumb-dumb-dumb-dumb" -South Park