Forced to choose between a lackluster incumbent President and the womanizing governor from Arkansas, many Americans during the autumn of 1992 were willing to consider a third option: Ross Perot. The enthusiasm for the Dallas billionaire was highest when few people knew where he stood on the issues. Once he started to clarify his positions, though, the initial popularity waned. As the election season continued and Perot had more opportunities to express his opinions it became abundantly clear that he was a barking lunatic.
Unlike Perot, Tom Clark, the director of the Center for Naturalism, is not crazy. In fact, he seems to be not only sane but intelligent, decent, fair, and open-minded. But like the former Reform Party candidate, Tom presents a point of view that is attractive when poorly understood but becomes considerably less appealing when the implications are made clear.
To his credit, though, Tom is one of the few proponents of naturalism I’ve ever known that has been willing to follow the logic where it leads. He denies, for example, the existence of contra-causal free will. If naturalism is true then there certainly is no room for free will. The idea that some naturalists could believe otherwise seems rather odd, if not absurd. On this point, Tom and I are in agreement.
But while I appreciate his willingness to uses Occam’s razor to cut away the cord of free will, I’m still unclear why he doesn’t take the next step and shave off the unnecessary explanations of mental states. Why shouldn’t naturalists embrace eliminative materialism? And, assuming that naturalism is true, how do I know that Tom isn’t a zombie?
[Note: This portion of the post was originally written in July 2004.]
After recent discussions on the question of whether naturalism is self-refuting, I’ve developed a bizarre concern: I’m worried my neighbors might be zombies.
Don’t laugh. It’s certain possible. For the zombies I’m talking about aren’t the type found in horror movies like 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead and they don’t (at least as far as I know) eat people’s brains. These zombies, as they are defined in the field of philosophy, are beings that behave like us and may share our functional organization and even, perhaps, our neurophysiological makeup without having conscious experiences.
So defined, zombies are rather tricky. You can’t tell by looking at someone whether they are a normal sentient person or an unconscious creature. It also does no good to directly ask them. Some people who are not zombies will claim they are simply because they are eccentric. And some zombies will claim they are people even though they will deny the attributes necessary for consciousness.
There is, however, one reliable feature that might be useful. Zombies appear to have a peculiar attachment to what is often referred to as physicalism or materialism, the idea that everything that exists is, in some sense, physical and that nothing nonphysical exists at all. These odd creatures generally come in two basic forms:
Epiphenomenalist zombies believe that mental events are caused by physical events in the brain, but have no effects upon any physical events.
Eliminativist zombies claim that our ordinary, common-sense understanding of the mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the mental states posited by common-sense do not actually exist.
The eliminativist perspective is the easiest to dismiss since it is inherently self-refuting. For example, one of the claims made by these types of zombies is that is impossible to make an assertion about anything. This leads to the question of how it is possible to make an assertion that it is impossible to make an assertion? The eliminativist will say that while it is true that they are making such an assertion, it really has no meaning since assertions can’t be made.
As you might imagine, these zombies aren’t taken too seriously. Unfortunately, most other zombies do not realize that when they say that science will one day be able to prove (or at least explain) how consciousness is purely physical this is what they are talking about. This puts them in the rather peculiar position of claiming that science will one day present a hypothesis that hypotheses don’t exist.
The other, more common variety of zombie is the epiphenomenalist. They are the types that claim that emergent properties (such as the mind) ‘arise’ out of more fundamental entities (the physical body) and yet are ‘novel’ or ‘irreducible’ with respect to them. In essence their argument is that when the right physical properties are combined just so, a new, completely distinct, nonphysical property emerges. (Think of it as a “God did it” explanation with “matter” filling in for “God.”)
To restate this idea in a another form, we can say that from a complex physical system P (i.e., P is a human body) arises an emergent property or substance M (i.e., M is the human mind). According to the argument, matter alone does not have the ability to produce M unless it is arranged in the form of P. (This is merely a complicated way of saying that matter can’t “think” unless it is formed into a brain.)
So far there’s nothing that most non-zombies would necessarily have to disagree with. The controversial assumption, however, is not so much whether P can cause M but whether events that originate in M can cause events in P.
Let me provide an example of what I mean. Imagine that after touching a red spot on an electric stove and burning my hand, I form a belief that touching a stove will burn me. In the future, this belief causes me to pull back my hand when I get close to a hot stove.
What has happened is that a physical event in P (getting burned) causes an event in M (my mind feels pain). M produces an M event (a belief that anytime I touch a hot stove I will get burned) that causes P* (an automatic reaction in which I pull my hand back anytime I get close to a stove).
We can put this in diagram form as follows:
M--->M*
| |
P P*
The epiphenomenalist, though, will disagree with my claim. Since, in their view, mental events are caused by physical events in the brain, but have no effects upon any physical events, my belief could not have affected my behavior.
Instead my behavior is caused by muscles that contract upon receiving neural impulses, and neural impulses are generated by input from other neurons or from sense organs. Or something like that. The important part, in the epiphenomenalist view, is that my mental events played no causal role in this process.
Their position could be diagrammed as follows:
M M*
| |
P --> P*
My brain (P) produces my mind (M) but my reaction (P*) is not caused by a mental event (M*).
In our example, event M* would be considered a supra-natural, preternatural, or even supernatural event. (Because of the connotation associated with supernatural, I recommend we use supra-natural.) But, according to our zombie neighbors, there are no supra-natural events, only physical ones. This leads to what philosopher Todd C. Moody calls “conscious inessentialism”:
Conscious inessentialism clearly entails that any given behaviour could also occur without conscious accompaniments. The only reason why one would suppose that certain behaviours do require conscious accompaniments is that the behaviours in question appear to require mental activity of some sort. Since conscious inessentialism tells us that no mental activity requires conscious accompaniments, it follows that no overt behaviour requires them either. So if conscious inessentialism is true, zombies are possible. Indeed, if conscious inessentialism is true, it is quite possible for an entire world of zombies to evolve, which is the premise of the current thought experiment. It is behaviours, after all, and not subjective states, that are subjected to evolutionary selection pressures. If those behaviours do not require consciousness, then evolution is indifferent to it. That the zombie problem may have significant metaphysical implications is concluded by Robert Kirk in a paper on the topic: `it is hard to see how any intelligible version of Materialism could be reconciled with the logical possibility of Zombies, given that we are sentient'.
But is our neighbor actually a sentient being or a zombie? If conscious inessentialism is true, then it’s possible that sentient beings could have a zombie twin. Their twin would be exactly like them in every respect (physically and behaviorly) except for one: they would not be conscious. It’s also possible that zombie twins may have a propensity to kill their sentient counterpart, hide their body, and assume their life, without anyone being able to tell the difference.
I have to confess that the idea of non-sentient beings living in my neighborhood kind of creeps me out. No doubt they are decent…creatures, but I’d still like to know. That’s why I’ve devised a test to help determine the probability that a person is a sentient being rather than a physical, behavior-driven drone.
Starting from myself, I can establish a number of relevant criteria. I know that I have a mind because I use it to think (though rather poorly) and to form beliefs. I also know that since my beliefs can affect my behavior, that my mind is distinct from my physical body.
On this point I am either right or I am wrong. If I am wrong then I am unable to tell if I myself am a zombie and the test is moot since everyone could – and most likely would – be zombies also. If I am right, though, I can assume that other minds would function like mine since, as most philosophers concede, the problem of “other minds” can only be solved by analogy.
Other people, who truthfully claim that they believe mental events can cause physical events, would have minds that function much the same as mine. It’s the people that deny this claim, though, that are suspect. If they claim that the only events that can exist are physical events then there is no way to distinguish them from their zombie twins. Their behavior would be identical in every respect and they would both claim to truthfully believe that mental events do not cause physical events. Consistency would also require them to admit that consciousness really wouldn’t matter anyway; they would be, with respect to all relevant functions, just like zombies.
This leads us to conclude that anyone who claims to believe in materialism is either a zombie twin or a person who believes in “zombie functionalism.” We are not only unable to tell the difference, we can’t really know why such a difference would matter. Sure they may not try to eat our brains. But you never know when they might try to eat our qualia.
Note: My use of the term “zombie” is similar to but not exactly the same as the way it is used in the philosophical literature. Most uses of the term refer to the potential existence of such creatures in other worlds. Admittedly, the fact that people with PhD’s write academic papers on whether zombies can exist is quite amusing. But few would go so far as to suggest, as I do, that our neighbors could be zombies.
Some philosophers do use zombies as an argument against materialism:
The general structure of the zombist's argument is, as follows:
(1) Zombies are possible.
(2) If zombies are possible then materialism fails.
(C0) Therefore, materialism fails.
It's that simple. Clearly, the materialist is embarrassed by this argument. It is not that he cannot answer to the zombist’s challenge. He has even more than one objection to it. Still, the zombist has the upper hand in this game: He can offer an easily comprehensible and appealing idea (and we all like simple but powerful ideas) and the only thing the materialist can do is-as it seems-to hover on the details.
Related: The Center's latest newsletter talks about my Naturalism for Dummies post and the lengthy discussion that ensued.
Owen Barfield believed that consciousness gave rise to matter rather than the other way around. His idea is since all of our sense impressions of matter occurr in the three pounds of graymatter between our ears, and not 'out there' in the material universe his idea of the relationship between consciousness and matter explains the metphysics of existence better than the materialist's theories.
His theory, if true, also explains why God so dissaproves of idolatry.
The hand-on-stove example probably needs to be tweaked somewhat since the jerking of one's hand away from a hot stove after being burned is reflexive, not reflective. Learning takes place as connections between neurons form and make it easier for them to reform in the future. Some learned behaviours never make it to the conscious level. And other learned behaviours are so well learned they become automatic.
I think there is some room for Evangelical Christian's to buy into something akin to epiphenomena. The gray matter between our ears is a network of neurons whose "programming" is an intractible tangle of interconnects. At a physical level, all that is happening is electro-chemical exchanges between simple cells. Yet something radically different emerges from those simple units.
Consider John Conway's game (I learned it in 6th grade) of Life, a simple cellular automata played with graph paper and pencil. Years later, about the time I was at Cedarville, John Gosper figured out how to build a "glider gun" and someone else (or maybe he) figured out that if you arrayed glider guns just so, you could build NAND gates, and from them you could build a computer. (At least in concept.) Guaranteed, Dr. Conway never imagined his little game had such potential.
(Cellular automata theory may have application in figuring out how God made a lot of creation work out.)
I think something analogous is going on in our neural networks. And I think the Christian can recognize the mind as an emergent property of a sufficiently complicated neural network. If so, the manner in which the soul survives disruption of the brain's circuitry in death requires conjecture.
Get Ockham's razor ready, but don't cut just yet...
Suppose matter is more-than-four dimensional and label the four dimensions we experience as "material" dimensions and the supposed extra dimensions "spirit" dimensions. If every partical of our body has an extent into both of these subspaces, it's possible for the "spirit" subspace projection to retain pattern integrity while the material pattern is disrupted. This conjecture synthesizes a many-dimensional monism with a cartesian dualism, BUT instead of mind and body being parallel worlds, they're perpendicular and touch at every point.
Is there any shred of evidence to support this conjecture? Not that I know of.
Please apply Ockham's razor now.
I'm afraid of zombies.
Eric & Lisa-
Where some people see zombies as shambling, poorly dressed monsters who want to eat human brains, others (probably republicans) see them as a source of cheap labor.
You're overlooking something important, Joe.
Consciousness, including specific thoughts and beliefs, could be a purely physical phenomenon.
My thinking about the red hot oven and the pain could just be some kind of physical activity in my brain. So if the thought or belief causes a physical result, then there is no contradiction and no problem with naturalism.
Being the Sartre junkie I am (and Sartre radically rejecting both God and determinism), I've never fully understood how naturalism entails determinism. Can someone give me the short version or a link to an explanation?
Joe,
So, you're saying that physicalists believe that consciousness is just matter "turned up to eleven?"
Steve
DOUBLE TOOTHPICKS
I know it's a common claim that contra-causal free will is inconsistent with naturalism, but I think they're entirely separate issues. I should point out that I deny both contra-causal free will and naturalism, but I think you can hold both consistently. Naturalism is about whether there are any entities beyond the natural world. Contra-causal free will is sometimes associated with dualism about the human mind and body, wherein the mind causes physical events in the brain. Some people try to maintain contra-causal free will by such a view. It doesn't work. The problems with contra-causal free will in the natural world arise there too (infinite regress problem, etc.), which I've detailed elsewhere.
At the same time, if there's a solution to those problems, it doesn't seem as if it would need to require entities besides the natural world. All it would need is that the natural laws not be deterministic, which is consistent with there not being anything beyond the natural world, and that whatever kind of non-deterministic events there are would be more than chance that's outside our control. I don't think that can be done, but I don't think it can be done with dualism either. I just don't see why the naturalism issue is relevant. If these problems can be solved, it won't be by appeal to non-natural causes, because that would be either determinism or chance one way or the other. The only way around them is compatibilism, which most naturalists accept and for some odd reason hardly any dualist has ever accepted (G.W. Leibniz and Jonathan Edwards as notable exceptions), but that doesn't mean contra-causal free will is any better with dualism than it is with naturalism.
I should also say that I don't think the zombie worry is anything special for physicalism. If the physical apparatus of the human machine could continue as normal with just physical causes, with a mind in addition, then how would we know which human organisms have those minds? Physicalists commonly use this as an argument against dualism. Since they deny that zombies are possible, they don't think it's a problem for physicalism, but dualists who believe mental properties are additional to the physical properties don't have a way to know that anyone else isn't a zombie.
I don't think this is a good argument anyway, but most philosophers take it to go the opposite way of what you've stated.
How do you know if some people are not really zombies who don't have a mind but just 'simulate' have one? How could one simulate having a mind without really having one? Perhaps it is impossible to create a true zombie without also creating a true mind...even if that mind exists in a computer simulation rather than a physical brian.
everything that exists is, in some sense, physical and that nothing nonphysical exists at all. These odd creatures generally come in two basic forms...
I can think of ways to do that that don't fit into these categories...
how it is possible to make an assertion that it is impossible to make an assertion?
It's done tentatively, phenomenologicaly, "bracketing" those things about which an absolutist assertion would be absurd.
In essence their argument is that when the right physical properties are combined just so, a new, completely distinct, nonphysical property emerges. (Think of it as a “God did it” explanation with “matter” filling in for “God.”)
Or Void or sunyata...logically it works the same way...
To put what you're trying to say yet another way, and one that's near and dear to my heart, systems may or may not be controllable and observable.
These terms mean that if a system is in a given state, (which we can loosely define as a given quantity such that if no further inputs to the system are made, the behavior of the system is completely determined). Observability can then be defined as the ability to determine the state at a given time from observations of its outward behavior over time. Controllability means that given a state exists at some time t0, then there exists an input such that the system can be put in another given state at time t1 later.
If human beings are examined in such a way, it quickly becomes obvious that at least today, human beings states lack controllability and observability except for very gross and course characterizations of state: if a guy is awake and I smash his brains in with sledgehammer, naturally he will cease to be concious.
But in a system with billions of neurons, in which closing off sensory inputs affects the ssytem, it is pretty much impossible to affect the complete control of the system, except for doing gross and catastrophic things.
So from an engineering perspective, we can say that it "appears" that we have free will, but we can't really test the hypothesis either way.
I know that neither satisfies die hard free-willists or behaviorists, but as my Grandma used to say, "There you are."
Jeremy Pierce:
Somebody may have to educate me a little more about the defintion of contra-causal free will - but didn't you just decide to post this; and exactly what you wanted to say; look at it to see if it said what you wanted - and hit post. In all that process, you believe you were not acting from contra-causal free will - and that your words will have no lasting impact on the world.
Now on my part - I had the choice of writing my first sentence; or picking up a dictionary; or going online to Stanford. Now I choose to let someone else respond - because I am enlightened by the dialogue and it is a chance to communicate. I could have done it because I was lazy. Or in a hurry.
Now I can understand the "you did all that because of the state of your brain physically and the experiences you had as a child (material) impacted your neurons, etc which have programmed you to respond and think as you do". Yea, I was a Marxist for awhile and rejected metaphysics .
But examine yourself - isn't it counter-intuitive to your whole vision of yourself to believe (just to open myself up to all the stupid cheapshots) "you are what you eat". I can look at myself and say "I didnt like what I just did" - not because someone called me on it but because it struck me as selfish, hurtful, harsh, unloving, etc. And I can resolve to reprogram myself - and seek the material inputs that will help do that. Don't you think that rises above materialism?
Really. Reject religion. For that matter (I am not saying you have to) reject morality. But don't you know that your mind and consciousness transcends the sum of the parts?
We already know matter is more than the sum of its parts. Look at a car, for example, it is just stuff if you break it in pieces but only in the correct arrangement does it become a unique piece of matter that is a working machine.
I'm skeptical of the claim that materialism implies athiesm. One idea we explored on this list before was that the brain is a bit like a computer that is running a video game. The game can be frozen and 'saved'. A higher beign can restore the video game at the point it was saved on a different computer even if the original one was destroyed. The game cannot be found in any particular atom or atoms in the original computers hard drive.
It's not illogical for to wonder if God created a material universe that includes not only bodies but also souls based solely in matter as well?
Boonton,
I even implied the car thing. No, a higher level than that. The car and computer are not self-aware.
Now again you can believe that self-awareness is a function of the number of neural links/synapes/whatever - but isnt it counter-intuitive that sciencific brilliance, philosophical brilliance, mechanical brilliance, etc. (You know, those sparks of insight. Those times you realized the sum was 4 before you even knew you had 2+2) that those are a construct of matter only.
I think a materialist conception of God would be very difficult to manage. Perhaps the "create the universe, push a button, and stand back" kind of God - you could manage that. A personal, present God continuing to affect the universe and whisper "4" in your ear. No - you cannot manage that I do not believe.
Okay Boonton
Found you on the currently active thread. Cf below continuing from this AM.
Joe and others,
Pardon my continuing into a third thread, just to finish off a key point.
On the theme for this thread, seems to me that our experienced free will is inconsistent with any form of determinism, whether driven by blind natural forces or by chance forces and boundary conditions. {THis was thrashed out at length in the Natural ism thread starting April 7 or so.]
But if one simply acknowledges that INFLUENCE is not control, then one can see where various factors can be necessary but not determinative conditions [e.g. having a functioning conscience] for freely chosen behaviour.
A simple comparative model: a fire needs fuel, heat and oxidiser to initiate and to sustain, so these are three necessary causes. Remove any by the willful act of a fireman, and the fire collapses. Thus we see necessary causes, each of which can block but not trigger a fire: necessary not sufficient conditions. The sufficient condition is the COMBINING of the three, maybe by someone wanting to cook dinner, or by an arsonist; orsince the case is simple, by chance. (The molecular chemistry of life is too complex to be reachable by random searches in a cosmos on the scale 13.& By since singularity, ~ 10E 80 atoms commonly entertained by the cosmologists, as discussed in the below: BOON, you have had an effect! But also note that your alternative reopens the cosmological form of ID with a vengeance!]
I add that I would as a reasonable default accept as true till shown false the intuition that we have real choices. For the alternatives are self stultifying.
The basic problem with the naturalistic view as articulated say by Tom Clark et al, is that it ends up with an epiphenomenon, pragmatic view of the mind, as shaped by natural selection rewarding reproductively successful behaviours.
But, as Plantinga showed in his argument Naturalism Defeated, that is not at all coupled causally to the inner mental states: the cause-effect bonds are stimuli to response, not mind to action. Thus, naturalistic accounts of the mind beg a lot of questions and self-stultify.
Okay, hope this redeems my using this thread to carry forward from a closed off session.
Sorry Joe
Gordon
++++++++++++
Boonton
I found the Dawkins thread [http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/001314.html#more ] locked, so I will draft a comment for whenever there is an open thread in which you are a participant, or if this one reopens by the time I check back.
1] A few further points on the Sci Am article:
This article has been a bit of a puzzle as it has been significantly outside the context of discussion of the BB theory I have seen over the past 30 years: expansion from a singularity, and/or an ensemble of singularities [including even Hoyle’s minority view revised QSS, [ http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/stdystat.htm ]which is also counter-emprirical]. But I think I may be seeing some relevant points:
-- > First, observe an implication for a cosmos that starts infinitely wide 13.7 BYA, with a cosmos-spanning physics and a common physical process: this model begins and so it has a cause, one capable of acting in a coherent fashion across an infinite spatial extent, and generating a cosmos with a fine-tuned physics. That lends itself to opening the question of an eternal – i.e. extra- spatiotemporal -- designer, aka, God in whom we live, move and have our being. [Cf Ross’ notes on cosmic fine tuning [ http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/design.shtml ]] That is, if this theory is taken seriously, it leads to an argument to God. But, I am not at all sure that it should be, for:
-- > Second, there is a discussion in Wiki on CONTINUED cosmic expansion from the singularity to superluminal speeds [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_universe ] :
-- > Note the context for this summary of more or less prevailing consensus opinion: continued accelerating expansion from the singularity possibly leading to far flung regions passing beyond our horizon. That is, the cosmos is presently viewed as expanding from the singularity of 13.7 BYA, and finite, the context of the numbers on scale, density, time and numbers of atoms cited in earlier threads: 13.7 BY, ~ 10E 80 atoms.
-- > Further, if the cosmos is instead viewed as having been expanding more or less forever, we should have arrived at that envisioned heat death by now.
-- > But also, let us observe how far we have now come: in an attempt to find time and space for the proposed spontaneous origin of life, you have had to make a claim that we have an infinite, expanding cosmos with regions beyond observation and indeed observability – in principle, not just in praxis. But in doing that, you have implied a cosmos that demands an extra spatio-temporal cause capable of causing an infinite consequence; very reasonably God. And, if you end up with God anyway, why not simply cut to the chase and conclude that the design of the cosmos and of life is best explained directly by God, no need for an unobservably infinite universe?
Okay, now on your further points:
2] Points raised just before thread closeoff:
a] It isn't a certain mass that is required but a certain mass density. Let us say that Omega is larger than 1 & the universe is finite. What will happen? Gravity will overcome the expansion and the galaxies will start to collapse into each other.
-- > That is exactly the point at debate: we are pretty nearly at OMEGA being unity “now”, and have had to infer that it was unity to better than 1 in 10E15 to get to the cosmos we have, with stars and galaxies at 13.7 BY. And, as noted, the general cosmological discussion is in a context where it is CONTINUED accelerated expansion that may take us beyond the horizon. Finite extent by measurable density yields finite mass and number of atoms.
b] Let's say that the universe is 1,000 times larger than what is visible. Just because we can only observe matter in 1/999th of the universe does not mean that the rest of the universe can be dismissed
-- > First ,of course, the proposed extension tot he cosmos is outside the main context of discussion as observed above. And, the model leads to a cosmological argument to God that is pretty seriously unanswerable. So, I would be perfectly willing to accept an infinite cosmos that began at an identifiable time [if the evidence so leads . . . and unobservable entities do not provide empirical data] – and the old model that had it stretching back to infinity past failed, and its reincarnation as QSS also failed – as it ends in the same place. It also makes the point of the proposal moot: why bother with an infinite unobsevable cosmos if that leads to needing a Cosmic Designer from beyond Space and Time?
-- > Secondly, As just observed, I am not so much dismissing the “rest of the universe” idea as I have pointed out that it pointlessly multiplies hypotheses – note my earlier point that the proposal opens up the cosmological form of ID and indeed the classic cosmological argument with a vengeance. By Occam it is unnecessary, and by virtue of needing a cause for such an entity, it leads straight back to God.
-- > Third, I do not think it is a fair summary of the state of cosmology to pass this model off as the consensus of the physicists, which the Sci Am article does. The view that Wiki summarises, i.e. the mainstream consensus, leads to a singularity and a finite expanding cosmos that has not yet reached to a scale where an event horizon is an issue.
c] You've never explained what the issue is with these supposed 'implications' [of an actual infinite] are.
-- > I did in fact comment on the first one: that if the hotel is full and an infinite number of new guests shows up, moving guests over from rooms 1,2,3,4 . . . to 2, 4, 6, 8 . . . opens up infinite new capacity: an evident physical contradiction. Then, if guests in 1,3,5, 7 . . . leave, there will still be infinitely many guests but if those in 7, 8, 9 . . . leave [which is plainly physically possible] – which is demonstrably the very same number – then the hotel is practically empty! There are many other weird consequences.
d] despite all the dancing you've done you have yet to show that thereis any physical law that prevents the universe from being infinite. At best your argument seems to be the math will get really hard with an infinite universe, true but it ain't that easy with a finite universe either!
-- > As just pointed out, the difference is chalk to cheese. With transfinite numbers, you aren’t even allowed to subtract in mathematics, but guests in a hotel can leave physically.
e] Even rare Earth scientists believe that life has probably developed at least a handful of times in the galaxy. If your calculations were accepted and an infinite universe was being proposed as an explanation for life then scientists would be deeply skeptical of finding life of even the most basic types in even one other place in the galaxy.
-- > This expectation arises from their commitment to naturalism rather than to any basic fault in the calculation. Note, the calculation on enzymes was made by the same Hoyle we have been discussing. He then went on to assert that any hyp with a probability in excess of 1: 1*10E40,000 was superior, and proposed panspermia, ending up with suggestign the INSECTS are the culprits!
-- > Besides, acceptance of a calculation that has been made several times in several ways by a ranfge of workers on both sides of the issue – always with the same general result -- is not the issue: agreement is an act of will. The issue is, is it a fair summary of the statistical thermodynamics. TO that, I have added a simple in principle test: randomise a floppy enough times, testing each time to see if an intelligible result arises.
f] No one has proposed any reason why the portionof the universe beyond 13.7BY should be any different than the one inside that visible horizon.
-- > Ignoring the “ball” story again, note that this opens up the issues of a cosmic cause capable of creating a coherent, fine-tuned result across an infinite extent. Discussed above.
-- > In other words, the reason why ensemble arguments to date have randomised the physics across the range of sub-cosmi is to escape such a common cause for a fine-tuned physics. As linked earlier they have repeatedly run into trouble.
g] Indeed but this is speculation . . . How do we know there aren't multiple infinite universes and this universe is the lottery winner and the 3rd rock from Sol in the Milky Way is the lottery winner
-- > First, here is the infinite ensemble idea, with a vengeance. First problem: what begins has a cause, so we need a sufficiently powerful cause for an infinitely extensive event at 13.7 BYA, on your model. See above on this.
-- > Second, we have again got to the situation of galloping hypotheses uncontrolled by empirical data: this is speculative metaphysics, not science. And, in that context, there is a far simpler hypothesis to hand: In the beginning God . . .
-- > In short, if insistence on a naturalistic origin leads to this much metaphysical speculation uncontrolled by empirical data, in order to get a chance of life spontaneously originating, then naturalism has reduced itself to absurdity.
h] Interestingly you note that the universe began as a singularity
-- > Not just me. That is the point of citing Wiki: it sums up the generally accepted view of the origin of the cosmos. Cf. above on the point that the horizon you mention is not envisioned as an existing phenomenon.
-- > Beyond that, the big bang concept is that of an expanding radius of curvature for the cosmos in a Riemannian space, rather than a ball expanding into a wider void.
Okay, enough for now.
Gordon
+++++++++++
Again, Joe
Pardon
Boonton,
I have said things to people that transcended "what I knew" and looked back and said - "Wow, where did that come from?". Again, just a qualitative leap at the end of a series of quanitative changes?
Naw, those kind of moments transcend matter.
Joe wrote:
I've got a paper coming out in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, "Killing the observer" which attacks mind-body dualism by challenging the notion of private, first person facts about experience presented to an inner observer. A longer, web version of it is at http://www.naturalism.org/kto.htm. Drawing on the work of Thomas Metzinger (Being No One), I don't eliminate qualia, but try to explain them as a matter of our instantiating a representational architecture which can't represent its own first-order representations. This might explain why qualia *seem* intrinsic and functionally arbitrary first-person facts. Explaining the "seemings" of consciousness is of course Daniel Dennett's move, but I don't deny the existence of phenomenal consciousness as he does, so I don't give comfort to zombists. Rather I affirm the existence of phenomenal consciousness as the outcome of being creatures with our sorts of representational capacities. Any creature that does what we do cognitively will necessarily *not* be a zombie, on this view. This has ethical implications for how we treat artificial intelligence, and bears on the question of whether we should even try to create such a thing. See the last chapter of Metzinger's Being No One on this, and I recommend the book unreservedly to anyone serious about consciousness studies.
Sorry, meant to quote Joe in the post above and the darn bracket marks deleted it.
Joe wrote:
"But while I appreciate his willingness to uses Occam’s razor to cut away the cord of free will, I’m still unclear why he doesn’t take the next step and shave off the unnecessary explanations of mental states. Why shouldn’t naturalists embrace eliminative materialism? And, assuming that naturalism is true, how do I know that Tom isn’t a zombie?"
Now again you can believe that self-awareness is a function of the number of neural links/synapes/whatever - but isnt it counter-intuitive that sciencific brilliance, philosophical brilliance, mechanical brilliance, etc. (You know, those sparks of insight. Those times you realized the sum was 4 before you even knew you had 2+2) that those are a construct of matter only.
Well here's a problem. We know those 'sparks of insight' effect the real world. George Lucas, for example, watched some Japanese movies one day and noted that a sci-fi story incorporating them would be really interesting. Spark in the head turns into writing a script and 30 years later he is sitting on a multi-billion dollar brand.
So these sparks translate themselves to physical actions. This means if the spark is coming from 'somewhere else' it has to interact with physical matter. It has to get the brain to tell the body to take actions. To date we have not found any evidence that the brain is being changed by anything other than the ordinary rules of physics and chemistry.
Found you on the currently active thread. Cf below continuing from this AM.
Oh no, Gordon has found me!!!!! just kidding....
This began as an argument over ambiogensis (not evolution). Gordon presented, again, his argument that with so many atoms in the universe the chances of an enzyme forming 'by chance' was so small as to be effectively impossible...even considering how many chances the universe has to offer with all its planets, stars etc.
I pointed out that Gordon was limiting himself to the visible universe. The universe is probably infinite meaning that it has a lot more atoms than we can find in what we can see.
This has been going back and forth but:
1. The consensus appears to be that the universe is larger than the visible universe. This means that there are more atoms than if we simply limited outself to the visible universe.
2. There is no good reason to rule out an infinite universe. This does not contradict the singularity that existed before the Big Bang.
There's no evidence that the universe could have even been designed. I think you're confusing multiple dimensions with an infinite universe. The laws of the universe may simply be the laws of the universe leaving no room for anyone to have created a designer universe by adjusting laws at the beginning.
As I've pointed out many, many, many times no one has proposed an infinite universe in order to explain the spontaneous origin of life. If that was the case then scientists would scoff at the notion that we could hope to find life elsewhere in our solar system or even galaxy. The size of the universe is a seperate field than the origin of life and theories about it are not based on evolution or spontaneous generation.
Your probability estimates are not generally accepted. As I stated before I suspect you are leaving things out unintentionally leading you to a false conclusion. However, even if your estimates are correct that does not get around the point that in order to figure out the true probability that something would happen you have to know how many 'shots' it gets to happen. This leads you, not biologists, directly into the topic of exactly how big is the universe.
This doesn't make any sense. If your calculation is accepted then a naturalist would NOT expect to see life anywhere in this galaxy. Just like I would not expect to see four people win the lottery from the same office four days in a row. You can't have it both ways, if the infinite universe was supposedly invented to explain the origin of life then your 'naturalist' enemies cannot also expect to see life anywhere else in the galaxy.
As I pointed out, these theories are mathematical so it is dangerous to stretch popularizations of them too far. The actual mathematics is most likely beyond both of us so we would really need input from someone to whom these theories are more accessible. I do not think the singuarity that the Wiki article talks about is the same thing as what we think of as a black hole or a point in Eculidian 3-D space. Instead I believe what is meant is that what we observe of the universe today (a ball 13.7B LY radius) was once a singularity that has now spread out 13.7B LY. If you traveled back 13.7B years, though, you would find an infinite universe but one with a huge density. The part that would later become what we see of the universe would be just a point.
These may be weird but they are not contradictions. It just so happens that there are an infinite number of integers. There are also an infinite number of odd numbers. It may seem 'sensible' that there be twice as many integers as odd numbers but that is simply not the case. An infinite universe may seem weird to you but there's good reasons to think a finite universe is rather weird. It seems silly to limit God, though, to a universe that not only makes sense but fits your feelings about what is 'normal'.
Dawkins did this nicely with a computer program that generated random text but 'selected' results that were closer to "To be or not to be.." We can do this with a thought experiment as well. If I had two puzzle pieces and I tossed them around in a bag we all know there is a chance that they might fall out together. No law of thermodynamics prevents that 'information' or 'order ' or whatever arriving.
My apologies for continuing an off thread post however I wonder how off thread it really is? We are, again, discussing whether it is fitting that science have such a naturalist bent to it. Why not bring the ID side into the discussion?
Joe: You might want to look at some exchanges I have been having on the Internet Infidels Discussion Board under "Richard Carrier's Sense and Goodness Without God."
Victor Reppert
I need some help to even understand what this conversation is about.
Joe, your essay seems to assume two different kinds of things: mental states (M) and physical states (P) where M is made up of something very different than P, and P is made up of neurons, their interconnections, chemical and electrial attributes, and the like.
Am I correct so far?
Then we have different cases for the interaction of the two types:
(1) M ----> P (read: mental states can cause physical states)
(2) M --/--> P (read: mental states can NOT cause physical states)
(3) P ----> M (read: physical states can cause mental states)
(4) P --/--> M (read: physical states can NOT cause mental states)
and cases for causality within a type:
(5) M ----> M (read: mental states can cause mental states)
(6) M --/--> M (read: mental states can NOT cause mental states)
(7) P ----> P (read: physical states can cause physical states)
(8) P --/--> P (read: physical states can NOT cause physical states)
Epiphenomenalism then entails:
(2) M --/--> P (read: mental states can NOT cause physical states)
(3) P ----> M (read: physical states can cause mental states)
(6) M --/--> M (read: mental states can NOT cause mental states)
(7) P ----> P (read: physical states can cause physical states)
This is contrary, I think you would say, to our common understanding which entails:
(1) M ----> P (read: mental states can cause physical states)
(3) P ----> M (read: physical states can cause mental states)
(5) M ----> M (read: mental states can cause mental states)
(7) P ----> P (read: physical states can cause physical states)
The zombie is like the epiphenomenalist without any M at all entailin only this:
(7) P ----> P (read: physical states can cause physical states)
(4) P --/--> M (read: physical states can NOT cause mental states)
Is this a fair representation? (If not can you correct?)
Boonton
I see your response, and in fact you are right that all of this ties together.
Coming out of the gate, the claim "The universe is probably infinite meaning that it has a lot more atoms than we can find in what we can see . . . . The consensus appears to be that the universe is larger than the visible universe" is significantly off the mark.
First, infinite means not just big but unlimited: for any assigned number of atoms in the cosmos, the true number is arbitrarily and unlimitedly larger.
Indeed, if ACTUALLY infinite, it is so large that the true number can be put into one-to-one correspondence with the atoms in an arbitrarily ruled off half-universe; say those reflected in a mirror [which through the law of reflection defines a virtual half-universe]. But, we just saw a physical impossibility: we have unambiguously defined a half-universe physically,and yet it has the same cardinality as the universe as a whole: half the atoms has the property of being one to one assigned with all the atoms. See discussion below for more on this sort of problem. [I actually think the physics comes to the rescue, but let us think for now that we have infinite time to carry out the process . . . for physicists who may be lueking; in infinite time, there will be time for the mirror to reflect ALL the atoms in the front of the reflecting surface!]
Further, as I have summarised from Wiki, a reasonable source on what the mainstream thinking is, in sum: the cosmos is generally believed by physical cosmologists to have begun at a singularity some 13.7 BYA and that it has expanded since, i.e. its radius of curvature is growing, indeed currently accelerating; consequently multiplying in size so that the cosmic blackbody background radiation has cooled with that increase to some 2.7 K. That should be quite evident from the last excerpt cited above. (THis leads to the estimates for the numbers of atoms I have learned of over the past 30+ years of studying physics, ~ 10E 79 to 80; a large but quite finite number. That number plus the time available plus statistical thermodynamics make the assertion of spontaneous abiogenesis, i.e. life origin through chemical evolution, very improbable, cf. the Thaxton et al calculation [ http://www.ldolphin.org/mystery/ ]; as say Hoyle and Wickramasinghe also calculated. This makes the typical estimates in the Drake equation on numbers of life-bearing planets with advanced civilisations implausible at least.)
However, you are going on the strength of a Sci Am article, which in effect claimed that an infinite, expanding cosmos began 13.7 BYA, i.e. they expand the singularity to an infinite spatio-temporal sheet. That of course gives you room to say in infinte space and matter anything can happen, but opens up several challenges: (1) this is an exotic cosmology, not the mainstream consensus; (2) it is not being presented in a peer reviewed context [by contrast with even Wiki's open source, go to the debate pane approach]; (3) the physical existence of an actual, as opposed to a mathematical or potential infinite is quite questionable, starting with the properties of Aleph Null; (4)the concept of a coherent process of expansion and common laws of physics beginning at a definable time and ocurring simultaneously across a spatiotemporal sheet of infinite extent BEGS for a cause that is extra-spatio-temporal and having the power to initiate such at a finite time, i.e. the personal God in whom we live, move and have our being.
In short, you have not provided a fair summary of the case.
On specifics:
1] There's no evidence that the universe could have even been designed.
-- > THis is simply ignorance masquerading as certainty. For decades now, due to the astonishing series of discovereis of cosmis finetuning of the physics, there has been a lively debate on the ANthropic principle.
--> A good summary from a peer reviered journal as at 1999, which also shows the consistent fate of the resort made to evade the implication of design, a near-infinite ensemble of sub-universes, is: http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/ultimatequestion.html
All
Oops, seems I have had an extra blockquote tag in there that I missed on preview. Sorry -- and for the usual typos; I really should have paid more attention in that typing course way back.
GEM
Boonton
I have now cited the WLC review article on cosmology and its limitations [ http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/ultimatequestion.html ] several times. Have you ever looked it up?
If not, then how can you say there is no evidence for a sesigner of the cosmos; and that no-one has proposed near-infinite ensembles of sub-universes?
If you HAVE, then how can you say something your eyes will have told you is not so?
SImilarly, I put up the Hugh Ross link [ http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/design.shtml ] yesterday, and he has made a decades long ministry as an astrophysicist-apologist precisely out of assessing the theistic implications of the cosmological data.
Kindly resolve this dilemma for me.
Grace
Gordon
Boonton
Worth noting, to document several points from a peer reviewed publication. Here is an excerpt from the WLC paper:
Okay, that is a summary of the core BB model, as presented in a review paper in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. It is also taken from the same article I have been asking you to look at several times now.
Grace
GEM
I read someone once wrote, quite appropriately: "Whatever consciousness is, it appears to be strictly tied to the continuous flow of oxygen-rich blood to the brain, and the brain remaining within a very narrow range of operating conditions (temperature, pressure, G force, etc.). If consciousness had some independent existence apart from the physical operation of a brain, we would expect there to be some clear sign of it."
Boonton, contra-causal free will is supposed to be whatever sort of freedom violates the laws of nature. I don't think such a thing is possible. I don't think we're not free. I said I'm a compatibilist, not a hard determinist. Freedom doesn't require something that seems to me can only make sense with random chance. Random chance is not freedom. If no one is responsible for why it occurs, then how can it be within my control? Chance events don't make any sense of the notion of freedom. The fact that an action stems from my beliefs, thoughts, desires, etc. will explain why it was freely my choice. If it's an action contrary to those things, then it's not my action but some random thing. Freedom thus requires being predetermined by things within me. So we aren't free if our actions aren't at least largely predetermined by facts about us before we act.
I don't understand this business about having no lasting impact on the world. Even hard determinists (who deny free will) believe our actions will have lasting impact on the world. After all, our actions will cause further things. What they deny is that our actions are free, but non-free actions still cause things. I don't even deny freedom. I just deny that our freedom is based in some notion of metaphysical independence from the natural order of cause and effect (which doesn't require believing in naturalism, because the natural laws include laws regarding the interactions between mental and physical events, is dualism is true, as I indeed believe).
This has nothing to do with Marx, and it does have everything to do with metaphysics. If you reject metaphysics, then you have no business engaging in this discussion, because it very much falls under that topic.
Half of your post directed to me seems to me to be incomprehensible, so I'm wondering if perhaps you've assumed a number of false things about me. I'm not sure if you're sarcastically saying that it would be ok for me to reject religion (as if I did) but not other things or if you really think I should (but don't). I don't get the references to atheism or materialism either. So in case you're just assuming false things about me, I am a Christian, theist, dualist, compatibilist (which means I believe in free will), and all the things that you seem to think I don't believe in, which makes me think you didn't pay much attention to what I posted. My point is that you don't need to reject dualism to reject contra-causal free will and that you don't need to reject materialism to believe in contra-causal free will. Those things are not about the same thing. I then said that I believe in neither materialism nor contra-causal free will, which means I'm not a materialist.
By the way, materialism doesn't imply atheism. Mormons are theists and materialists. They believe God is purely physical. Most theists who consider themselves materailists are just materialists about human beings. They don't believe God is physical. But Mormons and Jehovah's witnesses do.
Indeed, if ACTUALLY infinite, it is so large that the true number can be put into one-to-one correspondence with the atoms in an arbitrarily ruled off half-universe; say those reflected in a mirror [which through the law of reflection defines a virtual half-universe]. But, we just saw a physical impossibility: we have unambiguously defined a half-universe physically,and yet it has the same cardinality as the universe as a whole: half the atoms has the property of being one to one assigned with all the atoms. See discussion below for more on this sort of problem. [I actually think the physics comes to the rescue, but let us think for now that we have infinite time to carry out the process . . . for physicists who may be lueking; in infinite time, there will be time for the mirror to reflect ALL the atoms in the front of the reflecting surface!]
This isn't a problem. You can't split an infinite universe in half anymore than you could tell me how many intergers there are divided by two.
I understand the distinction between very large and infinite. Whether the universe is infinite or just larger than what is visible the implications are the same, your probability estimates have to be understated...it is only an argument of how much. I'm not going to address your contention that Scientific American isn't a valid source but Wikipedia is. As I stated before, these theories are mathematical so we have to be careful trying to work with popularizations of these theories. Unfortunately we have little choice since the math is most likely beyond all of us here.
--> This is simply false, your own citation of Sci Am is a case in point. That is, You yourself are currently citing a claimed infinite cosmos by two astroneomers in Sci Am to evade implications of calculations such as Thaxton et al, Yockey, Hoyle and mothers have made. Further to this, the notion of a near-infinite array of sub-universes has been made to get away from the implications of a highly and multiply fine tuned cosmos.
True you have me here. I, however, am not a respected authority on either evolution or cosmology. The current theories of the universe were not developed to give me a leg up in the comment threads of Evangelical Outpost.
--> As I have said, the estimates fed into the Drake equation are driven by a commitment to naturalism rather than any sober assessment of the calculation.
Yet you claim an infinite (or larger than 13.7BLY) universe was invented in order to satisfy the probability issues you raised! You mean scientists were sober enough to realize they needed an infinite universe to make ambiogensis work yet got drunk when they started playing with the Drake equation later in the day?
--> Oddly, SETI gives away the game: they are looking for a specified complex signal, and hope to infer it as proof that there is intelligent life out there. But, in an infinite cosmos, such a signal can be just a random occurrence; so the behaviour is a denial that there is an infinite cosmos out there to generate such at random.
Probability still works in infinite universes. If you flip a coin an infinite number of times you will eventually get a series 100 heads in a row. Yet the fact remains that every flip is a 50-50 shot. It is possible that an alien TV signal we pick up might actually be random noise that happened to form a particular pattern. That can happen in an infinite or finite universe. Yet if we did pick up such a signal the odds are still against it being random noise. In other words, if you have an infinite number of lottery drawings sooner or later everyone in the state of NJ will have the winning ticket. IT remains rational, however, to bet against it happening on any one drawing.
--> As, e.g. the WLC article above shows in several diagrams and its discussion in a peer reviewed, professional source, they ARE talking of in effect a point source: that is what "singularity" is about. (Indeed, a debate surrounding Hawking about 20 - 30 years back was on rounding off so we never get to the singularity, by using the device of imaginary time.)
Ok, let us say that 13.7BYA everything we can now see of the universe out to about 13.7BLY was in a single point. Where was that point? Why right here since we have compressed 13.7BLY from every direction (up, down, left, right etc). What if we were 0.1BLY over to the left? Why our visible universe would contain 0.1BLY that is currently invisible in one direction and in the other direction we would have 0.1BLY that is no longer visible. Where was that singularity? Why right there, but there is not here & the matter contained in the first 'visible universe' is not exactly the same as the second.
--> Boonton, this shows plainly that I am up against the fallacy of the closed mind; as the other thread shows, just a few days ago I pointed out the gtoss error in Dawkins' clever rhetorical case study
The objections have been answered numerous times. I'll do it again:
1. The PC was intelligently designed but the program was simulating a non-intelligent environment. Are you going to tell me that PC's cannot simulate non-intelligent laws because they happen to be intelligently designed?
2. The mutations were generated randomly but the selection criteria was not. It's the two working together that counts.
finally I'll say that I never proposed that the universe had an infinite existence (in other words, there was no big bang). It is generally accepted that the universe is much larger than what is visible if not infinite. Mathematics do not rule that out (if they did, then it could be asserted a priori that there universe is NOT infinite). Will you at least concede that the chance of an enzyme forming using your probability estimates must be twice as high if the universe has twice as many atoms as you estimate? Three times as high if its 3x and so on???
Jeremy
Missed your post in the midst of the Boonton/mullings thing (and you addressed it to Boonton not me)
Why? I mean largely this is true - we are going to act out of beliefs, thoughts, desire, etc.; and it may be 100% true. But why if we acted outside of that would it not be free will? I think it is quite possible to be going down the wrong road, thinking it is right, and have an epiphany: "Wow, suddenly I think I am going the wrong way". I think you can turn around even if you are not sure that is right. God can whisper in our ears.At that point you can choose to ignore the whisper and continue on the path your beliefs, thoughts, and desires have led you on - you have that choice. But turning around against your beliefs, on a hunch or by intuition, doesn't negate free will. Of course, we can argue the hunch or intuition also comes from other beliefs, etc. But I am talking about inspiration.
Now again, not being a philosophy major (and not knowing what a compatibilist or a hard determinist are) I may be misunderstanding you once more - but I love correction.
The question of free will is not really one of naturalism. It crops up even (perhaps especially) when we consider a supernatural POV. Newcomb's Paradox (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox for a description).
If the future is determined (whether by natural law or supernatural will/knowledge) then free will appears in danger. If the future is indeterminate then it would appear free will has an escape hatch.
This brings to mind a discussion of time machines I read about in some book that is currently being displayed at Barnes & Noble. The gist of the discussion was the grandfather paradox...if you can travel back in time what if you kill your grandfather before he conceives your father? The resolution proposed was that all space-time moments exist at once. No paradox exists because whether or not you can travel back in time you did not kill your grandfather. Hence when while you may intend to do that when you step into the machine you will not.
If your soul is the state of your brain then IMO that is your free will. What I mean by that is it is silly to talk about whether you have the freedom to choose other than what your brain would choose as determined by the laws of nature. You are your brain, there is no other you out there inside your head trying to do something else. Does this mean your future choices might be determined by a beign with infinite knowledge? Sure. But such a beign would have to be outside the laws of nature since such a beign could not exist inside the normal universe and have perfect knowledge of every atom in your brain.
In other words, does Joe Carter have the freedom to be Joe? Yes he does since he is Joe. He doesn't have the freedom to be Andrew Sullivan, though, because he just isn't. Can Joe's soul be improved upon or neglected and allowed to decay? Sure just as Joe's body can be toned up with exercise or get flabby by sitting around the computer monitor too long.
Boonton,
If anyone is still interested in the mind/body problem as posed in the current post, I have a question.
If mental states are not physical (i.e. you are a dualist) then by what mechanism do they affect the physical world? The crux of Plantinga's challenge to the materialist is rather like this in that he asks how do the content of your beliefs affect the world and claims that failing to answer is a defeater for the materialist.
True however a radio's behavior can be determined at a macro level. I believe changes at the quantum level might be enough to alter a brain's state so unlike a radio it's too much to predict a brain's behavior down to the microlevel even if you build it yourself.
Boonton,
I said you weren't GOD. Besides, God doesn't predict your behavior - He stands outside space and time and SEES your behavior. You have free will because even though he stands outside of time - he doesn't STOP your behavior.
AndyS
Mental states (dualist or not) affect the world by your actions, speech, etc - which are going to be a physical and material reality to whatever you affect. Whether you write the book by inspiration or some other higher cognitive state, or as an effect of your material state - everybody else still just reads it. So, to the rest of the world it doesn't matter why you did it - materialist or metaphysical
Ross Perot is himself an argument against Naturalism. It's quite likely that the elder george Bush would've won in '92 if it weren't for the whims of an eccentric billionaire.
(Luckily, it didn't work for George Soros in '04).
Boonton
I first of all ask again, have you read the WLC article? If so/no, kindly explain your recent posts in that light.
To bring out the relevance of the point to this thread's focus, I now add another excerpt therefrom, essentially a component of the kalaam cosmological argument that was a part of Dr Craig's thesis -- the part that is based on the implications of the cosmogenetic singularity of 13.7 BYA:
Now, it is evident that your behaviour in this thread to date has been driven by your naturalistic beliefs. I have pointed out that the cosmology you have advocated [an infinite spatiotemporal sheet originating 13.7 BYA based on a Sci Am article], implies support for the cosmological argument, and now I have shown that the classic BB theory also does. Now, here is the challenge:
I have yet to hear a cogent response on this from the naturalists in this blog's threads.
++++++++++++++
SUPPORTIVE SIDEBAR:
Now, on points you have made:
1] This isn't a problem. You can't split an infinite universe in half anymore than you could tell me how many intergers there are divided by two.
--> Clearly, you have not tracked my argument:
2] Whether the universe is infinite or just larger than what is visible the implications are the same, your probability estimates have to be understated... these theories are mathematical so we have to be careful trying to work with popularizations of these theories. Unfortunately we have little choice since the math is most likely beyond all of us here.
--> Singularity due to a spatiotemporal curvature that increases without limit as we track back in time to 13.7 BYA is not a very difficult concept: curvature and radius of curvature come down to being more or less reciprocals.
--> The inference is: curvature up without limit means radius trending towards a limiting value of zero. Recall, WLC was here summarising the uncontroversial claims accepted by most current cosmologists. (That is, the Sci Am article is out of step; as well as open to the inference that it leads to a similar cosmological argument to GOd, as I have highlighted.)
3] Yet you claim an infinite (or larger than 13.7BLY) universe was invented in order to satisfy the probability issues you raised! You mean scientists were sober enough to realize they needed an infinite universe to make ambiogensis work yet got drunk when they started playing with the Drake equation later in the day?
--> THis confuses three different threads of argument:
--> The three are logically connected, but plainly psychologically very separate. The solution seems to be that there are two ID-related arguments and a cosmological argument involved. Often, the need to deal with all three is neglected: so, the Australian astronomers created an infinite spatial startpoint for the cosmos, but that opens up the point that such an entity requires a causal explanation.
--> The infinite array of sub-universes proposal hoped to anwer to the anthropic principle, but it has been again repeatedly on the wrong side of the empirics, as summarised, and lends itself to being shaved away by Occam: unobserved, perhaps unobservable entities to explain a phenomenon that absent naturalisitc presumptions, has a much easier and simpler explanation: that which began has a cause, and intelligent signals imply intelligent sources. That brings up . . .
4] It is possible that an alien TV signal we pick up might actually be random noise that happened to form a particular pattern. That can happen in an infinite or finite universe. Yet if we did pick up such a signal the odds are still against it being random noise. In other words, if you have an infinite number of lottery drawings sooner or later everyone in the state of NJ will have the winning ticket. IT remains rational, however, to bet against it happening on any one drawing.
--> THANK YOU!
--> So, if the signal in question is now not electromagnetic, but rather MOLECULAR, are you then not now willing to see that the inference to design is the best and simplest explanation?
--> If not, why then the inconsistency on SETI? WOuld not an eagerness to infer ETI on receiving an elecromagnetic signal whilst refusing to see the ID implications of a vastly complex and specified molecular signal, not then reflect question-begging, selective hyperskepticism and even possibly the fallacy of a closed mind?
5] Ok, let us say that 13.7BYA everything we can now see of the universe out to about 13.7BLY was in a single point. Where was that point? Why right here since we have compressed 13.7BLY from every direction (up, down, left, right etc). What if we were 0.1BLY over to the left? Why our visible universe would contain 0.1BLY that is currently invisible in one direction and in the other direction we would have 0.1BLY that is no longer visible. Where was that singularity? Why right there, but there is not here & the matter contained in the first 'visible universe' is not exactly the same as the second.
--> Cf the WLC citation and the above description of what curvature and radius of curvature mean.
--> The point is, that the GTR equations describing the cosmos -- not just what we can see -- on backtracking the timeline, have an increasing curvature to the point of ONE singularity as the curvature at 13.7BYA increases without limit. Thus, we have a temporally defined beginning to space-time, a moment of creation ex nihilo if you will: IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED . . .
--> On the cosmological form of ID, as WLC, Toss and many others have pointed out -- and as the eagerness with which the SS alternative was seized upon and reluctance of letting it go reveal [the emotional/volitional terms are deliberate and justified by many relevant statements at the time] -- it is that beginning and the finetuned cosmos that call for explanation.
--> And note the gap to the Sci Am claims: as Wiki summarises the passing beyond the event horizon is envisioned as happening if the acceleration of mutual recession associated with decreasing curvature of the cosmos continues long enough.
6] Dawkins case: . The PC was intelligently designed but the program was simulating a non-intelligent environment . . . . The mutations were generated randomly but the selection criteria was not. It's the two working together that counts.
--> Kindly look again at the comparative points I made: (1) the PC is analogous to the RNA-Ribosome-Enzyme machinery that processes the information in the cell; (2) the floppy is comparable to the DNA.
--> In spontaneous, chance-directed abiogenesis, BOTH have to come into existence sor the system to work, driven by chance processes.
--> I simply put forward analogous chance processes:
(1) a tornado in a parts bin or PC parts junkyard assembling the PC through random stirring up of available components [probably far fewer in number than those for a cell . . .],
(2) a noise signal generating the formatting and an intelligible data set and/or program code on the floppy [probably far less complex than that of DNA].
(3) The ability to be processed on a PC substitutes for natural selection.
--> My argument is that if we generously grant (1) by saying let's use a PC, what are the odds of genertating a formatted floppy with a coherent information signal in any defined PC data format? [Here, we have 3-letter GCAT codons and a code for DNA, where the codons and introns in chain with special start-stop codons specify the sequence for a protein chain.]
--> Further to this, in the previous thread, I gave a practical scenario for running a year-length test on 1 M PCs, as a way to empirically falsify the molecular complexity ID argument.
--> I am pretty sure that this was plain enough to begin with, and also that it shows why Dawkins' program was a rhetorical trick not a serious scientific test. For,it persuades those inclined/vulnerable to be so persuaded, without actually addressing the serious question Thaxton et al and Hoyle et al among others long ago raised.
--> Mumon is still an I and C engineer, and Andy is a Computer Scientist. There are over 1 mn old PCs tossed per year, and there are well over that of committed naturalists in the US. Why not do the experiment, just as so many are doing the SETI experiment? [And, if you do succeed, remember that still leaves the Cosmologfical ID argument to deal with.]
SO, I ISSUE A FALSIFICATION CHALLENGE.
7] Infinite universe in time:
--> Since the Sci Am article opens up the infinite cosmos in space, I have felt it necessary to address the SS and QSS theories on principle; not at all as inferring that you hold either.
8] It is generally accepted that the universe is much larger than what is visible if not infinite. Mathematics do not rule that out (if they did, then it could be asserted a priori that there universe is NOT infinite). Will you at least concede that the chance of an enzyme forming using your probability estimates must be twice as high if the universe has twice as many atoms as you estimate? Three times as high if its 3x and so on???
--> Problem here is of course that the finitude is implicit in the mainstream discussions, to the point where way back in 5th form physics closer to 30 years back than I like to remember, 10E79 atoms was announced as a pretty matter of fact estimate. In short, over the past thirty years or so, I am not at all sure where that "generally" comes from.
--> Similarly, for instance, in Stat Thermod, the argument would run: well, we see odds of 1:10E200 or whatever, and at a shuffling rate of 10E12 per second, with 10E18 s avaiable back to BB, and X matter [usu much less than 10E79 - 80] available, this is so unlikely to happen even once that the Stat thrermod result effectively reduces to the classical one: entropy is at least constant in an isolated system.
--> In short, in my experience of studying and reading and sometimes doing physics over the past 30 years or so, the concept that the cosmos is effectively infinite on matter just wasn't there as a mainstream, "generally accepted" concept. That is part of why I think Wiki is more on target than Sci Am here, apart from the comparative impact of the peer review approaches.
--> More on the point, consider the sorts of odds in view: 1: 10E 200 - 300 or more, even 40,000 in the Hoyle case. A mere doubling or tripling of the universe or even scaling up 1,000 times does not begin to shave the gap: 1,000:1 is an exponential factor of 10E3:1, i.e. there are dozens or hundreds or event housands of powers of ten to go. [10E40,000 is a number written out in place value notation as one followed by 40,000 zeroes; maybe 20 pages worth of zeroes? Trillions of trillions of trillions of trillions of . . . trillions. say about two pages worth of "trillions of".]
--> And, all of this is a sidebar: the Sci Am article leads directly to the need for a cause capable of creating an infinite cosmos with a common physics and physical process of expansion at the moment of the "infinite-singularity." Arguably, the best explanation for that is: God.
++++++++
And that brings us back to the focus for this thread: why should we entertain "no free-will" apart from natutalism, and why should we accept such naturalism at all, given the implications of evident design and causation at cellular and cosmic levels?
Grace to all
Gordon
Hi Andy
You have aptly summarised the issue of Mind-body interaction.
I do note that not having a defined scientific theory of M/B interaction is not at all the same as not experiencing it, so let us keep the categories separate.
Further, the overall issue is plainly analogous to the cosmological argument addressed above: if the spacetime cosmos came into being a certain identifiable finite interval ago, then it is not a necessary being.
As such, it is a contingent being: one that could possibly not exist.
It was therefore caused, and came into being. That cause, obviously, was not physical as it is ontologically prior to space-time. Thus, the BB and aftermath provide evidence that our intuition that our minds influence our bodies and the external world is not a delusion.
For, if we are made in God's image why should not that which is of eternal order in us not affect the spatio-temporal order, similar to the way in which in the beginning God, interalia an Infinite and Eternal Mind, created the heavens and the earth, stretching them out -- as Hugh Ross is fond of pointing out, as a BB enthusiast! -- as he did so?
So, Boonton, you are very right, it all ties together after all. If mind can affect matter to bring it into existence, then maybe mind can affect matter in out circle of experience too. And that is what our common sense intuitions and experiences attest.
So, why should I deny these things in order to accept a metaphysical theory which is self-stultifying and counter-intuitive as well as is running into trouble on ID issues?
Grace to all
Gordon
All:
Materialist conceptions of deity run into problems with the BB and cosmological implications, not to mention the contingency of matter.
THeological determinism is also in my opinion self-stultifying.
So, maybe we really need to open up the debate???
GEM