Scientific Proof For The Existence of God/ Heaven

FrumiousBandersnatch

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I just think it's interesting that I choose whether or not to create the paradox.
Sure, that's what we experience. You chose to create the paradox (or at least to pose the question - if you had known at the time it was paradoxical you'd have seen that it couldn't be answered under any conditions), but the determinist would say that was the result of your mental state at the time, and for you to have chosen not to create it, your mental state would have had to have been been different; and that the state that led to you asking the question was either a consequence of, i.e. caused by, prior events - or not a consequence of prior events, i.e. random.

Another way to view it is that you either had a reason for your choice, or no reason (the choice was random or pseudo-random). If you had a reason, there were also reasons for that reason, and so-on. Reasons are explanatory causal connections.

As Isaac Bashevis Singer memorably said, "We must believe in free will - we have no other choice".

I mentioned the abilitiy to pick and choose from, or reject entirely, what they've chosen to absorb.
That ability depends on other personality or character traits, such as a disposition to conform, or rebel, that are themselves a product of genetics, development, and life experiences; how strongly they apply in a particular circumstance will depend on a host of other variables, but even so, if we know their personality traits, we can often predict the likely choices people will make.

Just showing it's not necessary.
Sure; one shouldn't expect to see the group cooperation of social species in non-social species...

Even humans cooperate when they want to and don't when they don't want to.
Sure; it's not mandatory, it's a predisposition.

You mentioned a lot about how individual attitudes and opinions vary, which tells me we're not all that hard-wired, I guess. But maybe I'm missed your point.
We're not all that hard-wired; that's what brain plasticity implies. The genome provides a 'recipe' for the architecture and gross wiring of the brain. When this recipe is followed during development, it is subject to all kinds of external influences that ensure that even the brains of identical twins with identical genomes develop slightly differently. Throughout life, the fine details of the wiring are influenced by life experiences, from nutrition to education, parental care to social encounters; and there is major restructuring work during adolescence.

What does "according to one's motives' specifically mean?
It means there's a dependence on the things you expect to find rewarding, or that you expect will minimise unpleasantness that's unassociated with reward.

I don't understand compatibilism - how a thought being determined by physics can be also said to be free.
I thought I explained this... Most compatibilist positions hold that the freedom in 'free will' is only coherent as freedom of choice, e.g. freedom to exercise, or act according to, your will (which is deterministic). This is often expressed as freedom from coercion or constraint.

My position is based on a pragmatic experiential view - what it feels like to make a choice, whether you can act on it or not. It seems to me that this is how most people experience what they call free will, and so the concept is entirely subjective and is not robust, i.e. you can think that you made a free choice, when in fact there were no alternatives (e.g. "pick a card, any card..."). If you discover such a situation, you may change your mind about whether you really did make a free choice; i.e. you may feel your choice was constrained or coerced although you didn't know it at the time.

Objectively, under determinism, it seems to me that there are no choices, only the (subjective) appearance of choices.

I agree they propose a mysterious third option. But I think compatibilism proposes two contradictory options.
It's a question of what you mean by the 'free' in 'free will'.

Incompatibilists say it's meaningless, compatibilists say it's a concept that is well-established in human society, so why not try to find a coherent definition for it?

It's not really quite that simple, because there is a range of compatibilist positions, some of which claim free will really is 'free' even under determinism - I'm not sure what they mean by this, I haven't looked into to it in detail. The other problem is that common popular usage of free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral and legal responsibility, which would therefore seem questionable under determinism (although again, some compatibilists claim their views allow for moral responsibility).

If you think we have free will but not in the compatibilist sense, maybe you can explain what you mean by it? You said you couldn't explain how we make decisions, and if free will is expressed in terms of the decisions we make, that might suggest you can't explain what free will is, and that seems problematic when such potentially important concepts as moral and legal responsibility rest on it...
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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Why are you making such a nice argument for the intelligent design of biological brains? ;)
Why can't you drop the teleological blinkers? ;)

In one sentence, you say it's not a belief, then say some people "like to think" otherwise, opposed to what you "like to think". Belief isn't a dirty word.
I said 'some people like to think that it is part of a greater purpose', not 'some people like to think it's a belief'.

Belief isn't a dirty word, but it is often used to mean absolute confidence in the truth of something, and also absolute confidence in the truth of something despite a lack of, or insufficient, evidence to support that level of confidence. I don't wish what I say to be mistaken for that, so I prefer to use more provisional terms.

I was referring to the first sentence about plants acting due to chemical responses, and I think I was going to make the point that we do the same.
OIC - well if you can accept that our behaviours are mediated by chemical responses, that ought to make intentionality less mysterious - as ultimately a set of chemical responses that have a particular class of effects... ;)

Many people disagree with you. Maybe we should leave it at that.
OK, but the people who do the research to obtain and collate the empirical evidence are of the same opinion, i.e. I'm agreeing with them. If you can point me to alternative models based on the empirical evidence, I'd be interested to see them.

I can't believe you'd say that. Does "inference" have some different definition in the field of biology?
I don't know of one. The Cambridge English Dictionary says to infer means "to form an opinion or guess that something is true because of the information that you have". It seems to me that a mouse freezing or running when a shadow appears is the simplest example of a guess that something is true, i.e. imminent danger, given certain information, i.e. the shadow. So simple, in fact, that its logic can be behaviourally hard-wired. But like I said, I'm happy to accept the more high-level logic-engine versions as 'true' inference.

But you can't infer the color and shape of an apple if you've never seen one. There'd be nothing to infer from.
Not sure how that's relevant - if you've never seen an apple and one appears in your visual field, it will just be a vague blob of colour until you look directly at it and get a decent image of it.

Unsolved but they have suggestions. Well I'm not going to place any wagers on this just yet. ;)
If everything was solved, scientists would have to find another job.

Only black drivers show growth?
Drivers of black cabs...
black76816554_DFER6K_Bl_3523767b_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpJliwavx4coWFCaEkEsb3kvxIt-lGGWCWqwLa_RXJU8.jpg



Okay, you can take that up with the neuroscientists who say otherwise.
Such as whom?

I was at some lectures recently by Kevin Mitchell, associate professor of genetics & neuroscience at Trinity College, Dublin, who studies genetic influences on brain wiring, and Emma Cahill, lecturer in neurophysiology at University of Cambridge, a who studies memory and how memories are made, and it was clear that they, and the field in general, share that view. I don't really see how one could make sense of neuroscience without it - can you explain?

In your example, your prediction is wrong. And as for the outcome, you would have demonstrated something, but you would not have falsified that personality and moral values exist, or that there existed an external source of same.
I didn't say it would falsify the existence of personality or moral values, but the receiver hypothesis. Why do you think the prediction is wrong, do you think messing with the receiver can change the content of the broadcast?

These days, we're very respectful of indigenous peoples. We say we shouldn't interfere with them and their ways, even if we might consider them "primitive", so as not to cause any change or disturbance. Personally I think we should take the same approach with humanity as a whole. Or at least I hope we keep a few real, natural men in a museum somewhere.
I don't think of indigenous peoples as 'primitive', we're all the same species, and very similar; lacking in genetic diversity because of a recent genetic bottleneck - it's said there's less genetic diversity among humans as a whole than between two gorilla troops.

Given a choice between hunter-gather communities, living in relative balance with their environment, and modern technologically advanced communities, trashing the environment with consumption and growth, I know which I consider the more 'civilised'...

I've heard biologists admit they don't understand the "will to live", you know, the "why does life want to live" question.
Which biologists? in what field?
Maybe they don't understand evolution, which seems unlikely, or maybe they mean they don't understand the exact mechanisms involved. The 'will to live' is an interpretation of behaviour using the intentional stance (e.g. teleological, anthropomorphic, or metaphorical); the vast majority of creatures don't have a brain, so it seems they have nothing to 'want' with. Natural selection weeds out those without self-protective behaviours.

If you refer to anything as an illusion, I want to ask "an illusion as opposed to what?"
As opposed to not being an illusion; i.e. being a perception corresponding to some actual state of affairs rather than a misperception corresponding to some counterfactual state of affairs. I thought the McGurk effect and phantom limb examples would be sufficient, but here's another, the Rotating Mask illusion:

Also, when you refer to something as "experientially real", to what is that in opposition?
I say "experientially real" to emphasise that it does not necessarily correspond to some state of affairs in the world. Again, I refer you to phantom limb syndrome.

There exists nothing but experience. The measurements you mention above, and all "hard science", and all your thoughts and feelings about hard science, are your experiences. So how do you then say that your conclusions about reality are "really real"?
As Descartes discovered, and Hume pointed out, we can't know anything for sure about reality. But going beyond that is a long and winding philosophical road.

We don't even know how water got on Earth.
We have a pretty good idea, but need more data to be sure.
 
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Chesterton

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Sure, that's what we experience. You chose to create the paradox (or at least to pose the question - if you had known at the time it was paradoxical you'd have seen that it couldn't be answered under any conditions), but the determinist would say that was the result of your mental state at the time, and for you to have chosen not to create it, your mental state would have had to have been been different; and that the state that led to you asking the question was either a consequence of, i.e. caused by, prior events - or not a consequence of prior events, i.e. random.

Another way to view it is that you either had a reason for your choice, or no reason (the choice was random or pseudo-random). If you had a reason, there were also reasons for that reason, and so-on. Reasons are explanatory causal connections.
Again, if reasons are causal connections, they are causal connections which stretch back to the Big Bang, and are marching forward through time on their own. Any statement you make, has to be made. This is why you cannot claim to have a true thought, nor make a true statement. Any thought you have would be merely an "event", like a rainfall, which cannot be true or false. Useful, perhaps, but not true. And the word "emergence" does not perform magic.
That ability depends on other personality or character traits, such as a disposition to conform, or rebel, that are themselves a product of genetics, development, and life experiences; how strongly they apply in a particular circumstance will depend on a host of other variables, but even so, if we know their personality traits, we can often predict the likely choices people will make.
Fair enough.
Sure; one shouldn't expect to see the group cooperation of social species in non-social species...
That's beside the point.
We're not all that hard-wired; that's what brain plasticity implies. The genome provides a 'recipe' for the architecture and gross wiring of the brain. When this recipe is followed during development, it is subject to all kinds of external influences that ensure that even the brains of identical twins with identical genomes develop slightly differently. Throughout life, the fine details of the wiring are influenced by life experiences, from nutrition to education, parental care to social encounters; and there is major restructuring work during adolescence.
When you say "during development", you're referring to after being born, to infancy?
It means there's a dependence on the things you expect to find rewarding, or that you expect will minimise unpleasantness that's unassociated with reward.

I thought I explained this... Most compatibilist positions hold that the freedom in 'free will' is only coherent as freedom of choice, e.g. freedom to exercise, or act according to, your will (which is deterministic). This is often expressed as freedom from coercion or constraint.

My position is based on a pragmatic experiential view - what it feels like to make a choice, whether you can act on it or not. It seems to me that this is how most people experience what they call free will, and so the concept is entirely subjective and is not robust, i.e. you can think that you made a free choice, when in fact there were no alternatives (e.g. "pick a card, any card..."). If you discover such a situation, you may change your mind about whether you really did make a free choice; i.e. you may feel your choice was constrained or coerced although you didn't know it at the time.

Objectively, under determinism, it seems to me that there are no choices, only the (subjective) appearance of choices.
Yes, you explained it, and when you did I noted that we likely could not have a fruitful discussion about free will because we disagree on the definition. Compatibilism as stated simply sounds like determinism.
It's a question of what you mean by the 'free' in 'free will'.

Incompatibilists say it's meaningless, compatibilists say it's a concept that is well-established in human society, so why not try to find a coherent definition for it?

It's not really quite that simple, because there is a range of compatibilist positions, some of which claim free will really is 'free' even under determinism - I'm not sure what they mean by this, I haven't looked into to it in detail. The other problem is that common popular usage of free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral and legal responsibility, which would therefore seem questionable under determinism (although again, some compatibilists claim their views allow for moral responsibility).

If you think we have free will but not in the compatibilist sense, maybe you can explain what you mean by it? You said you couldn't explain how we make decisions, and if free will is expressed in terms of the decisions we make, that might suggest you can't explain what free will is, and that seems problematic when such potentially important concepts as moral and legal responsibility rest on it...
Earlier I said free will was "the ability of the mind to freely choose among available options of thought and action". You responded by saying it is "being able to experience making choices according to my preferences, wants, needs, desires, etc." Maybe I can clarify my meaning a little by contrasting our definitions, with this example: you ask me if you can borrow a pound. I say yes, I'll go in the house and get it. I tell you that I have two identical pound coins, one in one bedroom and one in another bedroom, and you have to tell me which one you want.

This would seem to eliminate the need for the part of your definition where you say "according to my preferences, wants, needs, desires, etc." You could still make a choice without preferences, wants, etc. And I'd also find it hard to imagine any programming, either genetic or environmental, which could have any influence on a decision which doesn't matter in the slightest. But you could still make a decision.

And yes, we haven't really touched on the moral/legal question. If it were actually establised that we don't have free will, I'm sure we'd still have to imprison people to protect society. But it would be very immoral to punish a man for something he didn't choose to do; for just being a helpless puppet of "unconscious processes". It'd kinda be like punishing a one month old baby for pooping in its diapers. But maybe that's not a problem since the word "moral" would have lost its meaning anyway. Evolutionary biologists and psychologists have pretty much already redefined it to just mean "utilitarian" anyway.
 
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Chesterton

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OIC - well if you can accept that our behaviours are mediated by chemical responses, that ought to make intentionality less mysterious - as ultimately a set of chemical responses that have a particular class of effects... ;)
It doesn't make intentionality less mysterious, it eradicates it.
OK, but the people who do the research to obtain and collate the empirical evidence are of the same opinion, i.e. I'm agreeing with them. If you can point me to alternative models based on the empirical evidence, I'd be interested to see them.
I already told you I believe there's something supernatural going on, so it would be foolish to think it could be examined with natural instruments. I'd remind you though, that the word "empirical" is from the Greek empeirikos (experienced); a form of empeiria (experience; mere experience or practice without knowledge). So I experience a "me" almost every waking minute of my life, and so do you. That's good empirical evidence to me.
I don't know of one. The Cambridge English Dictionary says to infer means "to form an opinion or guess that something is true because of the information that you have". It seems to me that a mouse freezing or running when a shadow appears is the simplest example of a guess that something is true, i.e. imminent danger, given certain information, i.e. the shadow. So simple, in fact, that its logic can be behaviourally hard-wired. But like I said, I'm happy to accept the more high-level logic-engine versions as 'true' inference.
Oxford says an inference is "a conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning". Wiki says "Inferences are steps in reasoning, moving from premises to logical consequences;". But maybe you're a Cambridge man (or woman), I don't know. :)
Drivers of black cabs...
Whoops. :D Over here they're usually yellow. I thought you might be taking us into a whole different debate.
Such as whom?
Schwartz, Eben Alexander, and a few others listed on this page. But I assume this probably has the same problem Many Worlds has - I doubt "serious" institutions want much to do with what they consider "woo". Alexander was rather meanly attacked when he wrote his book, so it could be a lot of people want to just "go along to get along".
I was at some lectures recently by Kevin Mitchell, associate professor of genetics & neuroscience at Trinity College, Dublin, who studies genetic influences on brain wiring, and Emma Cahill, lecturer in neurophysiology at University of Cambridge, a who studies memory and how memories are made, and it was clear that they, and the field in general, share that view. I don't really see how one could make sense of neuroscience without it - can you explain?
It could be because they're starting with the same simplistic, shallow assumptions, and so making the same type of interpretations.
I didn't say it would falsify the existence of personality or moral values, but the receiver hypothesis. Why do you think the prediction is wrong,...
Because you're predicting that you wouldn't change qualitative content if it was a receiver.
...do you think messing with the receiver can change the content of the broadcast?
Of course. Why do you think it wouldn't?
I don't think of indigenous peoples as 'primitive', we're all the same species, and very similar; lacking in genetic diversity because of a recent genetic bottleneck - it's said there's less genetic diversity among humans as a whole than between two gorilla troops.

Given a choice between hunter-gather communities, living in relative balance with their environment, and modern technologically advanced communities, trashing the environment with consumption and growth, I know which I consider the more 'civilised'...
I agree. A little surprising to hear this from you, though, because I often hear "bronze age" used as an insult from atheists.
Which biologists? in what field?
Maybe they don't understand evolution, which seems unlikely, or maybe they mean they don't understand the exact mechanisms involved. The 'will to live' is an interpretation of behaviour using the intentional stance (e.g. teleological, anthropomorphic, or metaphorical); the vast majority of creatures don't have a brain, so it seems they have nothing to 'want' with. Natural selection weeds out those without self-protective behaviours.
I don't remember names. It's just something I've come across in general reading most of my life.
As opposed to not being an illusion; i.e. being a perception corresponding to some actual state of affairs rather than a misperception corresponding to some counterfactual state of affairs. I thought the McGurk effect and phantom limb examples would be sufficient, but here's another, the Rotating Mask illusion:
I was referring to your comment about processes behind the conscious self creating illusions and anomalies, which is a weird comment because you tell me that the conscious self is itself an illusion. So, what is not an illusion, and how do you know?
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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Again, if reasons are causal connections, they are causal connections which stretch back to the Big Bang, and are marching forward through time on their own. Any statement you make, has to be made. This is why you cannot claim to have a true thought, nor make a true statement. Any thought you have would be merely an "event", like a rainfall, which cannot be true or false. Useful, perhaps, but not true. And the word "emergence" does not perform magic.
I take the position that a statement is true if it corresponds to a state of affairs in the world, so thoughts and statements are true iif they match that criterion. Thoughts are processes, not events; i.e. they're sequences of events.

That's beside the point.
In that case, I'm not sure what your point was.

When you say "during development", you're referring to after being born, to infancy?
No, I'm referring to the whole process, from neurulation onwards. There is plenty of scope for variation (and even error) in the way the genetic 'recipe' is followed in the structural development of the brain, and even before birth it is subject to both maternal and external influences.

Yes, you explained it, and when you did I noted that we likely could not have a fruitful discussion about free will because we disagree on the definition. Compatibilism as stated simply sounds like determinism.
You don't have to agree on the definitions to discuss their implications. That's one of the ways we can come to change our views of the world.

Compatibilism and determinism are two different things. Determinism is a causal view of the world, the idea that all events are the result of (caused by) prior events. Compatibilism is the view that there is a coherent conception of free will that is compatible with determinism.

Maybe I can clarify my meaning a little by contrasting our definitions, with this example: you ask me if you can borrow a pound. I say yes, I'll go in the house and get it. I tell you that I have two identical pound coins, one in one bedroom and one in another bedroom, and you have to tell me which one you want.

This would seem to eliminate the need for the part of your definition where you say "according to my preferences, wants, needs, desires, etc." You could still make a choice without preferences, wants, etc. And I'd also find it hard to imagine any programming, either genetic or environmental, which could have any influence on a decision which doesn't matter in the slightest. But you could still make a decision.
Sure. In that situation, I'd probably say, "Pick whichever is easiest", because I would like the transaction to involve minimal effort for both of us; i.e. that's a deciding criterion. If you said, "No, you choose", I'd pick 'at random', i.e. whichever I happened to be thinking of at the time.

This kind of 'choice paralysis' where you have no clear preference, yet are required to choose, is pretty common (in my experience), and there appears to be a 'time-out' mechanism that kicks in that stops us getting stuck in a Buridan's ass paralysis, by ramping up the sense of frustration until a tipping point is reached, at which time the option currently in the focus of attention is selected. The time-out varies according to the perceived urgency.

And yes, we haven't really touched on the moral/legal question. If it were actually establised that we don't have free will, I'm sure we'd still have to imprison people to protect society. But it would be very immoral to punish a man for something he didn't choose to do; for just being a helpless puppet of "unconscious processes". It'd kinda be like punishing a one month old baby for pooping in its diapers.
Yes, this is an interesting social question. Some of the Scandinavian countries take this kind of approach - they try to treat crime as a maladaptation or a health issue (although strictly speaking, in evolutionary terms, it probably isn't), and look to minimise future harm by finding a way (if possible) to rehabilitate the offender while respecting their rights and dignity so as to minimise resentment that might hamper rehabilitation. So they are housed in humane conditions and given training and resources to help their rehabilitation.

This pragmatic, realist view takes into account the limited efficacy of punishment as a deterrent - but requires the public at large to buy-into the philosophy, so that they, especially victims of crime, instead of feeling hatred, anger and a desire for punishment and retribution, grieve their losses as unfortunate circumstance, and feel some sympathy for the offender as another victim of circumstance - and not inevitable circumstance, because by studying the circumstances, it might be possible to make it less likely in future.

It's a policy that works, as the statistics show, but for countries who'd like to emulate that system, the difficult question is, 'how do we get there from here?'.

But maybe that's not a problem since the word "moral" would have lost its meaning anyway. Evolutionary biologists and psychologists have pretty much already redefined it to just mean "utilitarian" anyway.
I think what's happened is that some evolutionary biologists and psychologists have explained the foundations of moral values as "utilitarian" in an evolutionary sense. The moral values of cultures are built on utilitarian fundamentals. Game theory supports the notion that what we see as praiseworthy social behaviours, such as Generous Tit for Tat tend to be effective, if not optimal, strategies.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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It doesn't make intentionality less mysterious, it eradicates it.
That depends on your viewpoint. The physicist & philosopher Sean Carroll makes what seems to me a good point, that it's a mistake, in metaphysics, to mix levels of description, as different levels have different concepts, descriptive languages, and behaviours. These levels can be seen as levels of abstraction, or emergence, or simply scale. As already described, the concepts, language, and behaviour of atoms & molecules is irrelevant at the level of bulk materials, and vice-versa. It makes no sense to mix the concepts, language, and behaviour of binary digits and logic gates when talking about an entertaining video game, nor does it make sense to talk about the chemistry of intentionality. They're at vastly different levels of abstraction/emergence/scale.

I already told you I believe there's something supernatural going on, so it would be foolish to think it could be examined with natural instruments. I'd remind you though, that the word "empirical" is from the Greek empeirikos (experienced); a form of empeiria (experience; mere experience or practice without knowledge). So I experience a "me" almost every waking minute of my life, and so do you. That's good empirical evidence to me.
But empirical evidence of what? What prediction of the supernatural hypothesis is supported by subjective self-experience? How is it a 'better' explanation than, for example, magic, or alien simulation, or whatever? Given the progress neuroscience is making unpicking the construction of self (see Damasio's 'Self Comes to Mind'), the supernatural hypothesis looks increasingly like the 'supernatural of the gaps'.

Oxford says an inference is "a conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning". Wiki says "Inferences are steps in reasoning, moving from premises to logical consequences;". But maybe you're a Cambridge man (or woman), I don't know. :)
That's a problem with relying on dictionary definitions, they vary, and they can be circular - for example, Merriam Webster defines reasoning as, "the power of comprehending, inferring, or thinking ..."; so perhaps inference is reasoning, reasoning is inference... I guess one can either reject the point because the word usage is debatable, or try to understand the point being made.

The point was that reasoning or inference consists of (potentially complex) sequences of relatively simple logical steps, so need not, in principle, be mysterious. It's true that neural networks are not digital computers, but their pattern matching and associative storage make them pretty good inference engines. If you disagree, maybe you can suggest some reasoning that you feel simply can't be deconstructed this way.

Whoops. :D Over here they're usually yellow. I thought you might be taking us into a whole different debate.
Oops indeed! I should write out 100 times, "cultural context is important..."

Schwartz, Eben Alexander, and a few others listed on this page. But I assume this probably has the same problem Many Worlds has - I doubt "serious" institutions want much to do with what they consider "woo". Alexander was rather meanly attacked when he wrote his book, so it could be a lot of people want to just "go along to get along".
That's rather comparing apples and oranges. QM interpretations are a relatively small area of theoretical physics, but have their mainstream supporters - because they're considered relevant and/or potentially useful, if only as aids to grasping the implications of the formalism.

The dreamstate stories of NDE experiencers are of little interest to mainstream science - except, perhaps, neuropsychology, because they're just fantastical anecdotes with no theoretical or practical foundations, and no supporting evidence. If they contained some scientifically interesting or useful ideas, those ideas could be evaluated on their scientific merits, but AFAIAA, they don't.

It could be because they're starting with the same simplistic, shallow assumptions, and so making the same type of interpretations.
Or it could be because they're experts in their fields and have empirical experience of brain function that armchair speculators don't.

Because you're predicting that you wouldn't change qualitative content if it was a receiver.
...do you think messing with the receiver can change the content of the broadcast?
Of course. Why do you think it wouldn't?
Seriously? you think that if I mess with my TV or radio I can change content of the signal that's broadcast to it? How would that work?

I agree. A little surprising to hear this from you, though, because I often hear "bronze age" used as an insult from atheists.
I expect that's used to contrast differing levels of technical knowledge of how the world works.

I was referring to your comment about processes behind the conscious self creating illusions and anomalies, which is a weird comment because you tell me that the conscious self is itself an illusion. So, what is not an illusion, and how do you know?
Perhaps I wasn't clear; I tried to distinguish between the claim some people make that the conscious self is illusory, i.e. not real, a figment, and the idea that aspects of the conscious self are illusory, in that they are not what they appear to be from the POV of the experiencer.

The former seems rather incoherent - we have an experience of self which we call the conscious self, and if there was no such experience, we wouldn't have a word for it. There is strong neurological evidence for the latter, and perceptual illusions allow us to directly experience the way our perceptual heuristics can be mistaken or deceived.

We know there is a misperception or illusion when we have conflicting experiences of some phenomenon.

None of this should be surprising - the brain is fully enclosed in the bony skull and it's entire access to the outside world is via nerves carrying neural pulse trains that it decodes or translates to construct a predictive model of the world. It does an amazing job of keeping this model accurate enough for our model of self to navigate it in synchrony with the outside world, but the heuristic short-cuts and optimisations that make this possible mean that both inside and outside, things are not always what they seem.
 
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I take the position that a statement is true if it corresponds to a state of affairs in the world, so thoughts and statements are true iif they match that criterion.
How is this vaunted correspondence excluded or exempt from the cause-and-effect chain of events?
Thoughts are processes, not events; i.e. they're sequences of events.
Rainfall is also a sequence of events, a process, and an event. I don't see the distinction.
No, I'm referring to the whole process, from neurulation onwards. There is plenty of scope for variation (and even error) in the way the genetic 'recipe' is followed in the structural development of the brain, and even before birth it is subject to both maternal and external influences.
A little off-topic, but I'm curious, what external influences reach into the womb?
You don't have to agree on the definitions to discuss their implications. That's one of the ways we can come to change our views of the world.
Sure, but I can't begin to discuss implications until I understand what's being talked about, and I can't understand the contradiction of "physically caused, yet free". It means "not free" is compatible with "free".
Compatibilism and determinism are two different things. Determinism is a causal view of the world, the idea that all events are the result of (caused by) prior events. Compatibilism is the view that there is a coherent conception of free will that is compatible with determinism.
If determinism is the idea that all events are caused by prior events, how does compatibilism differ?
Sure. In that situation, I'd probably say, "Pick whichever is easiest", because I would like the transaction to involve minimal effort for both of us; i.e. that's a deciding criterion. If you said, "No, you choose", I'd pick 'at random', i.e. whichever I happened to be thinking of at the time.

This kind of 'choice paralysis' where you have no clear preference, yet are required to choose, is pretty common (in my experience), and there appears to be a 'time-out' mechanism that kicks in that stops us getting stuck in a Buridan's ass paralysis, by ramping up the sense of frustration until a tipping point is reached, at which time the option currently in the focus of attention is selected. The time-out varies according to the perceived urgency.
What do you mean "thinking of at the time"? At what time? You choose the time frame, I'm certainly not going to rush you to borrow my money. There's no need for a randomness generator.
Yes, this is an interesting social question. Some of the Scandinavian countries take this kind of approach - they try to treat crime as a maladaptation or a health issue (although strictly speaking, in evolutionary terms, it probably isn't), and look to minimise future harm by finding a way (if possible) to rehabilitate the offender while respecting their rights and dignity so as to minimise resentment that might hamper rehabilitation. So they are housed in humane conditions and given training and resources to help their rehabilitation.

This pragmatic, realist view takes into account the limited efficacy of punishment as a deterrent - but requires the public at large to buy-into the philosophy, so that they, especially victims of crime, instead of feeling hatred, anger and a desire for punishment and retribution, grieve their losses as unfortunate circumstance, and feel some sympathy for the offender as another victim of circumstance - and not inevitable circumstance, because by studying the circumstances, it might be possible to make it less likely in future.
I didn't know Scandinavians were prone to hate and anger. We're much more civilized over here. We only have bloodthirsty mobs calling for vengeance over the most serious and heinous offenses, like misusing a pronoun or smirking. ;)
It's a policy that works, as the statistics show, but for countries who'd like to emulate that system, the difficult question is, 'how do we get there from here?'.
I watched a documentary about prisons in Norway, I think. By the end of it, I wanted to go to prison there! The place was nicer than where I live, lol. And that one mass murderer files complaints that, although he has a video game system, he doesn't always get all the games he wants. Yeah I think committing a crime in Norway might be a good retirement plan for me.

But seriously, I'm a proponent of prison reform here in America, and I know things are even worse in developing countries. I wish criminals to be treated as humanely as possible, and rehabilitated to whatever extent possible. However, I tend to agree with this short essay by C. S. Lewis, The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment.

You know how much I like thinking things are "real." In human affairs, I think the concept of Justice is somehow more real than abstract. You work your job, you deserve a paycheck, you make some extraordinary scientific breakthrough, you may deserve a Nobel Prize, and if you do something bad, you deserve something bad. And depending on specific circumstances, the thought of a bad man doing bad things and not experiencing bad himself can be a repugnant idea.
I think what's happened is that some evolutionary biologists and psychologists have explained the foundations of moral values as "utilitarian" in an evolutionary sense. The moral values of cultures are built on utilitarian fundamentals. Game theory supports the notion that what we see as praiseworthy social behaviours, such as Generous Tit for Tat tend to be effective, if not optimal, strategies.
As I mentioned before, if there were an external basis of morality, doing the "right" thing should and would have good results in this life. An action can be both right and useful. Scientists should seek the truth. Materialist types who would deny any transcendant meaning of "right" because of their beliefs are subtracting some truth about reality, not adding any.
 
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Chesterton

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That depends on your viewpoint. The physicist & philosopher Sean Carroll makes what seems to me a good point, that it's a mistake, in metaphysics, to mix levels of description, as different levels have different concepts, descriptive languages, and behaviours. These levels can be seen as levels of abstraction, or emergence, or simply scale. As already described, the concepts, language, and behaviour of atoms & molecules is irrelevant at the level of bulk materials, and vice-versa. It makes no sense to mix the concepts, language, and behaviour of binary digits and logic gates when talking about an entertaining video game, nor does it make sense to talk about the chemistry of intentionality. They're at vastly different levels of abstraction/emergence/scale.
Carroll is wrong there. Mixing levels of description is metaphysics; it's in the etymology of the word "meta-physics" itself. It's the goal of any truth-seeker to find explanations which coherently unify various levels and various views of what reality might be.

Having said that, yes, I completely understand that there's some magic which takes place, which allows me to write a beautiful poem about a beautiful woman, that I could not write about the molecules which comprise her. :)
But empirical evidence of what?
Just what I said - experiential evidence of experience. I experience a "me", therefore there is a "me", by your definition. You say "a statement is true if it corresponds to a state of affairs in the world". How can you arbitrarily decide that the experience of "2 + 2 = 4" is a true state of affairs, but the experience of the "you" which experiences it is not?
What prediction of the supernatural hypothesis is supported by subjective self-experience?
I don't know that the supernatual hypothesis makes any specific prediction. The scientific method is useful for examining aspects of reality, not reality itself. If you're a man trapped inside a windowless building, you can examine everything inside it, but you won't be able to see what surrounds and supports the building.
How is it a 'better' explanation than, for example, magic, or alien simulation, or whatever?
I didn't say it was better than those things.
Given the progress neuroscience is making unpicking the construction of self (see Damasio's 'Self Comes to Mind'), the supernatural hypothesis looks increasingly like the 'supernatural of the gaps'.
Sorry, but my typical CF posts are one or two sentences. I can't read every book recommendation you give me for purposes of responding to you in this wordy thread. But the book synopsis says he has at least one "radical hypothesis", which is always a red flag that I'll likely be getting some non-science passed off as science. :)

Anyway, I could just as easily make this a "science-of-the-gaps" issue: we may be able to explain it with God in the future, which will show you to be wrong then, therefore you are wrong now.
That's a problem with relying on dictionary definitions, they vary, and they can be circular - for example, Merriam Webster defines reasoning as, "the power of comprehending, inferring, or thinking ..."; so perhaps inference is reasoning, reasoning is inference... I guess one can either reject the point because the word usage is debatable, or try to understand the point being made.

The point was that reasoning or inference consists of (potentially complex) sequences of relatively simple logical steps, so need not, in principle, be mysterious. It's true that neural networks are not digital computers, but their pattern matching and associative storage make them pretty good inference engines. If you disagree, maybe you can suggest some reasoning that you feel simply can't be deconstructed this way.
It can't be deconstructed as you described. Set aside complexity. Before you can have any "simple logical steps", you have to have axiom from which to build logical steps. It's the ability to magically "see" and understand how and why a thing is or is not self-evident. If you're going to insist that mice or any animals have this ability, I think the burden is on you to show that.
That's rather comparing apples and oranges. QM interpretations are a relatively small area of theoretical physics, but have their mainstream supporters - because they're considered relevant and/or potentially useful, if only as aids to grasping the implications of the formalism.

The dreamstate stories of NDE experiencers are of little interest to mainstream science - except, perhaps, neuropsychology, because they're just fantastical anecdotes with no theoretical or practical foundations, and no supporting evidence. If they contained some scientifically interesting or useful ideas, those ideas could be evaluated on their scientific merits, but AFAIAA, they don't.
It's one thing to say something is of little interest, it's another to denounce it as wrong.
Or it could be because they're experts in their fields and have empirical experience of brain function that armchair speculators don't.
But the empirical evidence does not support any one interpretation to the exclusion of others. Hypothetically, if there come to be consistent experiements where a subject's brain is actually shown to make a decision, even seconds rather than milliseconds, before the subject was aware of the decision, that still would not prove anything one way or another. Let me give you a passage from C. S. Lewis:

And suddenly all was changed. I saw a great assembly of gigantic forms all motionless, all in deepest silence, standing forever about a little silver table and looking upon it. And on the table there were little figures like chessmen who went to and fro doing this and that. And I knew that each chessman was the idolum or puppet representative of some one of the great presences that stood by. And the acts and motions of each chessman were a moving portrait, a mimicry or pantomime, which delineated the inmost nature of his giant master. And these chessmen are men and women as they appear to themselves and to one another in this world. And the silver table is Time. And those who stand and watch are the immortal souls of those same men and women.

Now that is just a fantasy dream vision, but the point is this: even if our brains appear to have made a decision before "we" do, that does not at all imply that "we" didn't make the decision. I'm not asking you to accept this vision, I'm just asking you to be scientific; to not rule out what the evidence does not rule out.
Seriously? you think that if I mess with my TV or radio I can change content of the signal that's broadcast to it? How would that work?
I didn't say you could change the content of the signal.
I expect that's used to contrast differing levels of technical knowledge of how the world works.
Yes, and I think it's a misplaced insult. It varies some from religion to religion, but apart from the creation story, the Jewish and Christian scriptures express no interest in "how the world works".
Perhaps I wasn't clear; I tried to distinguish between the claim some people make that the conscious self is illusory, i.e. not real, a figment, and the idea that aspects of the conscious self are illusory, in that they are not what they appear to be from the POV of the experiencer.

The former seems rather incoherent - we have an experience of self which we call the conscious self, and if there was no such experience, we wouldn't have a word for it. There is strong neurological evidence for the latter, and perceptual illusions allow us to directly experience the way our perceptual heuristics can be mistaken or deceived.

We know there is a misperception or illusion when we have conflicting experiences of some phenomenon.

None of this should be surprising - the brain is fully enclosed in the bony skull and it's entire access to the outside world is via nerves carrying neural pulse trains that it decodes or translates to construct a predictive model of the world. It does an amazing job of keeping this model accurate enough for our model of self to navigate it in synchrony with the outside world, but the heuristic short-cuts and optimisations that make this possible mean that both inside and outside, things are not always what they seem.
But everything you've said so far could just as easily lead to the conclusion that "consciousness is fundamental". And doesn't your materialist view lead to solipsism? If your brain can produce your experience of your self, it could also produce your experience of me, and this conversation, and your chair, and everything.
 
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Before you start claiming that something is a false dichotomy, you had better be able to come up with a third option.

First, why the universe has the constants it has isn't a known. We don't know why universes have constants or what the options for them actually are. The "science" that tells us there are other stable configurations for the universal constants are at best highly theoretical. The idea that we could predict with any accuracy what would happen with a universe with different constants is absurd. We don't even quite know how this one is held together yet.

Second, a magical being that has the power to create universes isn't really an explanation because we don't have any more information about how exactly that would be accomplished than before we proffered such an explanation.

So, there's no dichotomy. The answer to the question of why the universe has the constants it has is unknown, and we definitely don't have enough information to limit it to two possibility's.
 
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variant

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but you are thinking in terms of weak- narrow AI....like a video game character which has programmed to exhibit traits of human consciousness....it is only mimicking consciousness....true artificial intelligence will be self-aware and conscious in the same way that humans are

At this point we would only accomplish this by accident, as we don't know why humans experience what we call consciousness.
 
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I heard the part about how he claimed that Dawkins was wrong and miracles are not actually violations of any physical laws.

But if miracles can happen without violating physical laws, what do you need God for? Surely, any miracle, since it obeys physical laws, can be explained WITHOUT God!

A God that obeys the laws of the natural universe but simply has control over them would still be possible.

God's don't really have definitions. It's part of the problem of figuring out if one of them would ever exist.
 
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In what way does it cease to fall under the category of a simulation?

It would be someone else running a simulation that you are an unknowing participant in.

You would classify it as "reality" not a simulation, and it really wouldn't matter at that point.

Simulations can also be part of reality in that all abstract thought can be. Part of what our brains do is run simulations on what we think will happen if we take any given action and we also have to run a sort of sensory reconstruction of our environment to interact with it at all.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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How is this vaunted correspondence excluded or exempt from the cause-and-effect chain of events?
I don't understand what you're getting at - a correspondence isn't a chain of events, it's a fact about the world. We apprehend correspondences via cause-and-effect chains of events.

Rainfall is also a sequence of events, a process, and an event. I don't see the distinction.
Thoughts don't make the grass wet ;)

But seriously, I wasn't expecting you to equate events and processes (although, ironically, I'm currently on a course about process philosophy!). I don't really follow your point about truth. As I said, I see truth as accordance with facts about the world, so representations of facts about the world can be true or false to the extent that they are in accordance with those facts. So a rainfall can't be true but some representation, e.g. statement, of fact about a rainfall can be true. Thoughts are very often representations of facts about the world, e.g. perceptions, so thoughts can be true or false in that sense.

A little off-topic, but I'm curious, what external influences reach into the womb?
Sound, vibration, some light, acceleration... and lots of maternal influences, many of which will also be influenced by external factors.

Sure, but I can't begin to discuss implications until I understand what's being talked about, and I can't understand the contradiction of "physically caused, yet free". It means "not free" is compatible with "free".
As I keep explaining, my usage of free in this context concerns our experience of making choices that we perceive to be free of constraint or coercion. Most compatibilists express it in terms of physical freedom (from constraint or coercion) to act according to their wishes, i.e. freedom of expression of will through action. In these models, the will is deterministic, i.e. there are reasons for our choices, whether we're aware of them or not.

If determinism is the idea that all events are caused by prior events, how does compatibilism differ?
As I said previously, compatibilism is a position on (or definition of) free will - in (compatible) relation to determinism.

What do you mean "thinking of at the time"? At what time? You choose the time frame, I'm certainly not going to rush you to borrow my money. There's no need for a randomness generator.
Choice paralysis is when you can't make up your mind between options, because there are too many, or they are too closely matched, or you don't care which is chosen. That's when the timeout mechanism may come into play. AIUI, it selects the option under consideration when it becomes active. It isn't random, although the outcome may be unpredictable.

You know how much I like thinking things are "real." In human affairs, I think the concept of Justice is somehow more real than abstract.
That may be because our sense of justice derives from our innate sense of fairness, so is, in a sense, a foundational concept of our worldview.

You work your job, you deserve a paycheck, you make some extraordinary scientific breakthrough, you may deserve a Nobel Prize, and if you do something bad, you deserve something bad. And depending on specific circumstances, the thought of a bad man doing bad things and not experiencing bad himself can be a repugnant idea.
Yes, an intuitive response may prompt for punishment, retribution, and/or retaliation, but given that some cultures can take a more humane and effective approach to harm reduction, it seems that the intuitive response can be changed or suppressed, given the right circumstances.

As I mentioned before, if there were an external basis of morality, doing the "right" thing should and would have good results in this life. An action can be both right and useful. Scientists should seek the truth.
Those are perennial problems of ethical philosophy - how do we know what's 'right', i.e. what does that mean? and what is a 'good' result? Most people want a system that generally satisfies their sense of fairness, but no ethical system is entirely satisfactory, and people don't agree on which provides the best solution overall, because they don't agree on what's 'best'. On what moral/ethical grounds do you choose your system of morals/ethics? It's a bit of a catch-22.

Materialist types who would deny any transcendant meaning of "right" because of their beliefs are subtracting some truth about reality, not adding any.
I don't see how a transendent meaning of moral right bears on truth about reality. Can you elaborate?

But regardless of metaphysical philosophy, most people have some pragmatic sense, or ethical belief or opinion, of what they think is right (or, at least, fair), but the problem is that there is not universal agreement. So there are a lot of questions, such as, where or what is this transcendent meaning of "right"? How is it justified, and by whom? How is it applied in each circumstance? How do we know it has been applied correctly? What if a majority feel that it's unfair or unjust? What if everyone feels it's unfair or unjust? What if different cultures have conflicting answers to these questions? and so-on.
 
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AV1611VET

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I don't know how many of you are familiar with writings of Frank Tipler but his Omega Point Theory has been really important to me when it comes to understanding the Bible from a strictly scientific perspective.
What is it with people who have to bring the Bible and science to the same table?

That's like bringing the Apostle Paul and Bill Nye together.

Amos 3:3 Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

You're just asking for it.
 
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It would be someone else running a simulation that you are an unknowing participant in.

You would classify it as "reality" not a simulation, and it really wouldn't matter at that point.

Simulations can also be part of reality in that all abstract thought can be. Part of what our brains do is run simulations on what we think will happen if we take any given action and we also have to run a sort of sensory reconstruction of our environment to interact with it at all.
Yes, but as Radrook says, that is still a simulation. If I am arrogant, narcissist, but believe myself to be a humble person, deeply concerned for the welfare of others, I remain an arrogant narcissist.
 
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Kylie

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A God that obeys the laws of the natural universe but simply has control over them would still be possible.

God's don't really have definitions. It's part of the problem of figuring out if one of them would ever exist.

If God has no definitions, then he doesn't exist. Something which is indefinite can't definitely be anything. So God can't "definitely" exist if God is required to be indefinite. And if he doesn't definitely exist, then everything required could have come about without him (because if it couldn't, that would be a definite quality about God, which you said he doesn't have). Thus, God is not required, and we have no reason to believe in him.

Congratulations, you've just defined God out of existence.

(Or should I say, UNdefined God out of existence?)
 
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What is it with people who have to bring the Bible and science to the same table?

That's like bringing the Apostle Paul and Bill Nye together.

Amos 3:3 Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

You're just asking for it.

It's almost sad that we totally agree on this philosophical point but approach its consequences from nearly opposite directions.
 
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