Philosophy and Physics agree about God?

[_Maksutov]

Mak,

You think I'm in woo-land fair enough. I have produced the Randi challenge that realism has been all but falsified by current quantum physics. So I think you are.

I think you don't understand what's being discussed. Impasse. I'm interested in real discussion. I can have my mind changed but i like learning not being opinionated without evidence to death.

I hope you had great holiday weekend.

mikwut

I did as a matter of fact. Nice job totally fabricating our exchange. You've produced no evidence of your thesis other than general restatements that you then call evidential.

You need to revisit the discussion and events around the publishing phenomenon of Eben Alexander and his NDE that proved the existence of heaven. Many of the relevant issues were discussed around that without restricting the discussion to some arbitrary rules you come up with about realism and idealism. They're your words, dude, not part of my argument. You're arguing with yourself and trying to use me as both sock puppet and straw man. Not cool, but just part of the wooster playbook, I guess. Maybe a little more Deepak would improve your game?

[_mikwut]

Mak,

I apolgize for flippancy. if you could clarify for me your challenges I would be happy to specifically reply. The thread started moving pretty fast.

mikwut

[_spotlight]

This would be the take off point for a philosophical discussion that corresponds with current science.

[Guest]

What I am puzzled by Dr W is how you see the Christian God not just as undemonstated but as disproven. You see the Christian God ,understood as infinite, omnipresent, outside of space and time. as being unable to reach us. Such a God would be the source point equal distant from every point. At that location he is closer to your mind than your nose and mouth are. He would have no difficulty following your actions or communicating.

Of course I understand you do not believe that that Christian God is real. You are more inclined to see a deist God. I suspect that is more a result of the lack of an observed pattern of intervention from God than by any proof that such a God is not possible.

huckelberry,

The Christian God changes depending on who you ask. In my discussions with theists, I have had a hard time pinning down his attributes because they seem to conveniently change to counter the latest counter argument presented.

From the Nicene Creed we have the creator God:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And it has just gotten more magical and fantastical over time. Nowadays, the Christian God could be any one or more of: uncreated, creator of all, eternal, omnipotent, existing outside of past and time, able fill the universe and still dwell in your heart, etc. and all this while being the angry, jealous and genocidal maniac of the Old Testament, or even the anthropomorphic being of flesh and bone as believed by Mormons. It all depends on who you talk to. And that is just the Christian God. There are thousands of others.

Whether God is disproven, or simply unconfirmed, depends on what set of attributes one chooses. For example; eternal, or outside of space and time would make God impossible, given any other attributes. Space and time in this universe are not eternal (they have been around for only about 13.8 billion years) and as I have explained many times before, if he is outside of space and time there is no way that he could have any influence in this universe.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

So, if we have to resort to the Simulation Theory in order to understand consciousness or metaphysics aren't we still constrained by the physicalism on the system and coding through which our 'program' is running? Additionally, if we're constrained by the 'program' then isn't the argument for a Simulation Theory moot? We still have rules and laws by which we're governed, and thus far the rules and laws by which we're governed are manifestly physical.

- Doc

[Guest]

https://np.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comme ... ?context=3

A good post from Reddit in context of this discussion. The brain and conciousness.

All your perceptions get filtered through your unconscious brain. It forms associations, puts them in context, assigns them emotional valence (how important are they for you, do they deserve notice). It makes decisions, entirely without conscious input, as far as anyone has been able to show. It forms your thoughts (explanations of your thoughts and behaviors that fit into your personal and cultural worldview; this system probably evolved as a way to explain our behavior to others more than to actually reflect our real decision-making and thinking process). Then, all of this is dumped into your consciousness post hoc. Your conscious mind does not have a chance to influence anything; it has already happened, it is about 100-300 milliseconds too late.

Now, there is a part where you are almost correct. There is a completely subconscious level, which decides purely on heuristics, and which very quickly integrates an incredible amount of data. This is the level of the brain that allows you to catch a ball thrown at your face - imagine if you had to consciously calculate the trajectory, and decide where to put your hand before the ball reached you. This system provides you with most emotions, gut feelings or split-second impulses.

Then, there is the slow and very limited thinking process which appears to occur within the purview of consciousness. This is the level where you are thinking through the steps, and using your working memory, step by step. Figuring out a math problem you aren't familiar with works at this level. And most skill acquisition as well: driving starts at this level, then (as we gain experience) slowly sinks into the domain of instincts and learned automatic behaviors (we become able to lead a conversation or pay attention to other things while driving; we no longer have to consciously remember and pay attention to where exactly our hands and feet are, etc.). So far, this kind of fits the theory you have been building.

However, consciousness is actually kind of illusory even at this second level; "self" is constructed completely "in the past." Thinking and decision-making still happens before consciousness; decisions and thoughts get dumped into awareness after they have already formed (i.e. you become aware of what "you" are thinking or deciding after the thought has already been produced, and after the decision of how to move your body has already gone one to your muscles). The main difference between two processes is that in the second case, the steps through which the process goes also enter awareness - unlike the "fast" system, which only makes the (vague) product available, but keeps the steps and important factors completely beyond the conscious mind.

It is completely unknown (at least I haven't seen anything, and I follow the literature pretty religiously) why this process is connected to consciousness at all. There are many theories about it, but very little data. It could be simply that the second, evolutionarily newer system is cross-wired with the self-referencing neural networks which (most likely) allow the phenomenon of consciousness to exist. Who knows? FFS, we don't even have a workable definition of consciousness, much less a way of approaching the problem of its construction in any meaningful way. It is the last true complete mystery of neuroscience; for everything else, we have at least a set of decent basic ideas.

To finish up, let's go back to OP's original question. We actually don't have much trouble conceptualizing how abstract behaviors occur. For instance, there is nothing particularly (conceptually) mysterious about a student solving a calculus equation - while the process is very different from what we see in a computer, the essential principle is that incoming sensations (reflections of the numbers and letters on a page as perceived by retinal cells) get filtered and shunted through tens of billions of steps into a set of behaviors (hand and arm movements) which produce a result (a solution written on that same pencil). While it would be difficult, a good engineer could today write a neural network simulation that would do the same thing (at least for a particular, narrow set of problems) - input a picture of a mathematical problem into a camera, and a robotic arm writes out the result. Practically difficult, but conceptually we are already there.

But if I read the question correctly, that is not what the OP asked about. The question is why is this process conscious. Why are we aware of the calculations and steps we are going through while solving the problem? Why is there thought, instead of just senses and behavior?
And this is a question that does not have an answer. You don't have it, Dennet doesn't have it, Hofstadter doesn't have it (although I admire the latter two immensely, and highly recommend their books). We are lacking an essential puzzle piece, and until we find it, we can't really even attempt to answer this.

- Doc

[_Chap]

So I'm supposed to join in some supposed contest between realism and idealism? Because why? I don't have any problems with existing in the world. I don't have any problems that require your contest in their solution.

You can festoon the world with labels, mikwut. It won't change what people do in laboratories and operating rooms because you're acting in a microverse, a subculture, a self referential activity by people who don't have to be accountable or produce anything....

Er, yes, on the whole.

I'm interested in science. I don't see anything in the discussions that have occupied several pages of this thread that would actually lead to different practical decisions about how to do scientific research on the brain in relation to consciousness. It's essentially all about what words one might use when talking about consciousness. Fine for those who are interested.

When in 1663 Robert Hooke drafted statutes for the Royal Society, the world's first scientific society, he put in these words about what the society would do - and what it would not do:

"To improve the knowledge of natural things, and all useful Arts, Manufactures, Mechanic practices, Engines and Inventions by Experiments (not meddling with divinity, Metaphysics, Morals, Politics, Grammar, Rhetoric or Logic)."

Hooke's methodological suggestion turned out to lead in directions infinitely more interesting than much of what the best minds of humanity had spent their time on in preceding centuries. And that's the point, so far as it can be stated in a short post on a discussion board such as this. Doing science is interesting. Talking about philosophy is interesting, but in a different way. So far I have not seen (or at least failed to perceive) anything on this thread that amounts to something interesting that philosophy has to suggest to brain scientists about the way they might actually do their research.

If there is something interesting that philosophy, as represented in this thread, has to suggest to brain scientists about the way they might actually do their research, I'd like to hear it.

[_spotlight]

Hi Mikwut,
I don't want to assume what you believe according to your paradigm so I'll ask you. What handles the job of memory in your paradigm? Thanks.

[_spotlight]

Philosophy is fine, in a historical context. I see it more as a protoscience, as a transitional stage in the development of modern science. I will be happy to consider philosophical breakthroughs but I will be more impressed by results than by someone decrying my ignorance and lack of education.

I've recently been reading about the planetary theories of Immanuel Kant, for example. I give him a lot of credit for operating in the mid 18th century. But he confidently stated that all of the planets were inhabited, by races of beings who became more advanced the farther they were from the Sun.

In his time these "fruits of philosophy" were worth considering. But as instrumentation improved and data increased, the philosopher took back seat to the astronomer. For all of the disdain of science as mere technology, it has also multiplied our powers of perception and analysis to vastly broaden what is--and can be--known.

Hi Mak,
I thought you were referring to this article at first but no it is something different.

I want to change the subject. I admit I am pleased that you agree that "why is there something rather than nothing" is a question best addressed by scientists. But I claim more generally that the only meaningful "why" questions are really "how" questions. Do you agree?

Let me give an example to put things in context. Astronomer Johannes Kepler claimed in 1595 to answer an important "why" question: why are there six planets? The answer, he believed, lay in the five Platonic solids whose faces can be composed of regular polygons – triangles, squares, etc – and which could be circumscribed by spheres whose size would increase as the number of faces increased. If these spheres then separated the orbits of the planets, he conjectured, perhaps their relative distances from the sun and their number could be understood as revealing, in a deep sense, the mind of God.

"Why" was then meaningful because its answer revealed purpose to the universe. Now, we understand the question is meaningless. We not only know there are not six planets, but moreover that our solar system is not unique, nor necessarily typical. The important question then becomes: "How does our solar system have the number of planets distributed as it does?" The answer to this question might shed light on the likelihood of finding life elsewhere in the universe, for example. Not only has "why" become "how" but "why" no longer has any useful meaning, given that it presumes purpose for which there is no evidence.https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... nce-krauss

I am more impressed by Immanuel Kant here. The further from the sun the colder so the lifeforms need to be more warm blooded which makes them them increasingly superior.

[_DrW]

This is a side comment to the thread. It was motivated by reading again the very straightforward, single sentence, description of the Christian concept of God as set forth in the Nicene Creed. It is assumed that these beliefs were based on the considered understanding of Old Testament and New Testament scriptures, as available to the clergy, at that time.

It seems to me that the attributes of God have become progressively more complex, fantastical, and even magical, since the time of this early documented statement of Christian belief. As others have mentioned, this is no doubt, and in large part, an attempt to justify religious belief in the face of humankind's increasing scientific knowledge. God' gaps continue to shrink.

This idea has been discussed here before. However, given Mikwut's description of idealism, his personal God, and the magical, non-field creating, mental force that characterizes this being, I thought the concept was worth bringing up again on this thread.