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Quote (Stu @ Dec. 18 2009,16:20) Why does it not prove the existence of Shiva?
Oh right, that is why the world should write off any belief in God and why it shouldn't be an option. Because men cannot make their minds up about who is God, that negates any merit that there is a God.Uh huh! Really logical Stu. Right on.
While we are at it, lets say that September 11 terrorist attack never happened because some say the American government orchestrated the attacks and some say it was Islamic fundamentalists. So due to the difference of opinion, lets write off the event altogether.
Hey what else can we write off with this logic?
Your turn.
t8
Quote Oh right, that is why the world should write off any belief in God and why it shouldn't be an option. Because men cannot make their minds up about who is God, that negates any merit that there is a God. Uh huh! Really logical Stu. Right on.
So how is consciousness not evidence for the existence of Shiva?Quote While we are at it, lets say that September 11 terrorist attack never happened because some say the American government orchestrated the attacks and some say it was Islamic fundamentalists. So due to the difference of opinion, lets write off the event altogether. Hey what else can we write off with this logic?
If the TV news had flashed up pictures of the Twin Towers completely intact and undamaged, and then a reporter eyed up the camera and asked the world who had committed this great atrocity, the world would be asking “What atrocity?”. That is how your analogy applies to this situation.We are having difficulty attributing non-existence to the right god, but there is no evidence that any of them exists.
Are you saying that our perception of consciousness proves the existence of your god or not?
Stuart
Quote (Stu @ Dec. 18 2009,17:45) Are you saying that our perception of consciousness proves the existence of your god or not?
I am not sure that I have said that, but if I was to hedge my bets, then I would say that the cause or origin of something would have the attributes or ingredients of that which it spawned.I don't really hold to that nothing can do something belief.
Quote (t8 @ Dec. 18 2009,18:37) Quote (Stu @ Dec. 18 2009,17:45) Are you saying that our perception of consciousness proves the existence of your god or not?
I am not sure that I have said that, but if I was to hedge my bets, then I would say that the cause or origin of something would have the attributes or ingredients of that which it spawned.I don't really hold to that nothing can do something belief.
If we follow this logic, when the president's dedicated secretary thinks of him toiling away all hours in the Oval Office and she lovingly makes him a cup of coffee prepared to his particular tastes, but when delivering it to him accidentally spills some on the nuclear button which shorts out and starts World War III, it is because the secretary had “something of World War III about her”?Natural selection is entirely blind and reactionary and it has resulted in things (us) that possess foresight.
Your argument suffers from being the fallacy of composition.
Stuart
Quote These are metaphorical terms invented by people who had no means of determining the biochemistry and mathematical processes of the human brain. You may as well ask me to comment on how the removal of Adam's rib to make Eve fits into the scientific model of evolution by natural selection. Previously, you were quite happy to run with the definition of consciousness from the Oxford's dictionary. Now, Oxford's is subject to mythological taint?
Quote Emotions are electrochemical events and character is the set of responses to various situations that have by repetition or genetic effect become typical for that person. Those are rather bold assertions. Can you actually show any evidence for those claims?
Quote (WhatIsTrue @ Dec. 19 2009,06:18) Quote These are metaphorical terms invented by people who had no means of determining the biochemistry and mathematical processes of the human brain. You may as well ask me to comment on how the removal of Adam's rib to make Eve fits into the scientific model of evolution by natural selection. Previously, you were quite happy to run with the definition of consciousness from the Oxford's dictionary. Now, Oxford's is subject to mythological taint?
Quote Emotions are electrochemical events and character is the set of responses to various situations that have by repetition or genetic effect become typical for that person. Those are rather bold assertions. Can you actually show any evidence for those claims?
Regarding Oxford: What? It is the words and, the concepts that they describe that are METAPHORICAL (where did you get mythological from?) not the dictionary definitions of them. What kind of a dictionary would give metaphorical definitions?Re the genetic basis to character (apart from considering the similarities between your own character and those of your parents, if you are able to do that), read about the Minnesota Twin Study, especially the section on twins reared separately:
In 1979, Thomas Bouchard began to study twins who were separated at birth and raised in different families. He found that an identical twin reared away from his or her co-twin seems to have about an equal chance of being similar to the co-twin in terms of personality, interests, and attitudes as one who has been reared with his or her co-twin. This leads to the conclusion that the similarities between twins are due to genes, not environment, since the differences between twins reared apart must be due totally to the environment.
(Found hereHoly Wikipedia entry)
Regarding repetition, BF Skinner wrote:
We can trace a small part of human behavior and a much larger part of the behavior of other species, to natural selection and the evaluation of the species, but the greater part of human behavior must be traced to contingencies of reinforcement, especially to the very complex social contingencies we call cultures.
The Encyclopedia Britannica discusses it :
Reinforcement encourages the repetition of a behaviour, or response, each time the stimulus that provoked the behaviour recurs. The behaviour becomes more automatic with each repetition.
Back to the Oxford Concise, where we see this definition:
character
1. the collective qualities or characteristics, esp. mental and moral, that distinguish a person or thingCharacteristics are the behaviours that people display in different situations. From the moral point of view that monifests itself in the ethical decisions people make (biochemical cognitive processes) and what behavior is expressed as a result.
Emotions are electrochemical events:
In “How the Mind Works” the experimental psychologist Steven Pinker writes:
“The amygdala, an almond-shaped organ buried in each temporal lobe, houses the main circuits that color our experience with emotions. It receives not just simple signals (such as of loud noises) from the lower stations of the brain, but abstract, complex information from the brain's highest centres. The amygdala in turn sends signals to virtually every other part of the brain, including the decision-making circuitry of the frontal lobes.”
And what is the means by which these signals are transmitted? It is an electrochemical process.
Read about it:
Stuart
Stu,
I was on vacation, etc. for a few weeks so I didn't get a chance to respond, although to some extent, I think that we are at an impasse anyway.
While I agree that the twin study indicates a genetic component in personality, it certainly does not fully explain an individual's personality. There are certainly other factors.
As for the electrochemical process you referenced, it's a chicken-N-egg scenario. Does the electrochemical process happen as a result of one's emotions, or does it cause one's emotions. I vote for the former, while you seem to be arguing for the latter.
In any case, you are not likely to accept my explanation for things and I am not inclined to the views you have described thus far, so we could do this dance endlessly. I will simply leave it with my own subjective thoughts on the matter.
I think that near death experiences have not been fully explained as biological processes and, in fact, indicate that consciousness inhabits the body and is not created by it. See here. There are serious studies afoot to look at such things, so I remain somewhat skeptical. But, in general, my survey of the evidence, (circumstantial and anecdotal), moves me to believe that it could very well be true.
WIT
It is when you read sentences like THIS (from your link):
It is evidence such as this, if scientifically controlled, that can provide absolute scientific proof that consciousness can exist outside of the body.
That you should suspect pseudoscience. Just like creationism, water divining and iridology the author is abusing science in an attempt to associate his nonsense with the credibility of real science. That appears to be the case this time too.
There is a further link on the page to “Scientific proof of god”, so we can be pretty sure we are dealing with the scientifically illiterate here. Near death experience research may be a legitimate field of investigation, but making supernatural conclusions from it requires supernatural assertions to be made first, none of which are justified.
Regarding your chicken and egg question, that is answered by the reciprocal nature of the cognitive mechanism that gives us a sense of consciousness. Emotions are almost always stimulated by sensory input and I suppose there follows a kind of snowballing effect in which associations are made throughout the brain as the regression proceeds to the point of what we recognise as consciousness.
Stuart
My apologies. I agree with you that the statements you highlighted indicate a pseudo-scientific approach by the author. I should have explained that I only intended the link as a quick resource to documented NDEs. Each cited NDE has a link to further documentation of the incident. Ignoring the author's claims about what conclusions should be made, if the documentation can be trusted, then these NDEs seem to indicate phenomena that are not easily explained by mere neurobiology. That was the main point I was trying to make with that link.
I also agree that NDEs don't have to be supernatural to be true, but they would indicate a further dimension to reality that we do not currently perceive.
Quote Emotions are almost always stimulated by sensory input and I suppose there follows a kind of snowballing effect in which associations are made throughout the brain as the regression proceeds to the point of what we recognise as consciousness. While your explanation is somewhat reasonable, I just don't buy it. This goes back to the idea that we are merely highly complex machines and that our emotions are perfectly predictable, (i.e. deterministic), based on the workings of a given machine. In my opinion, we are more than the sum of the physical processes that take place in our body.
WIT
You are right to say these things are not straightforward to explain, but I would hasten to add that (because it is the point that started this conversation) it is only for want of better scientific techniques in order to get better data. This is far from an impossible area of study, especially given what we already know about the electrochemistry of the brain. I guess there are practical problems: I don't know how terminally ill people would feel about spending their last seconds in an MRI machine. What you would be looking for, I imagine, is the last area of the brain to turn off at death, and discover the function of that part of the brain during life.
I used to own a car that was a (moderately) complex machine and there was little that was predictable about when it would decide to break down, and which of its failings would be exposed on that occasion. We are discussing the most complex machine we know of, the human brain, and like weather forecasting there are so many variables that I think predicting the nuances of emotional response is going to be a bigger task than even the brain itself would be capable of. That is certainly what is evident in the interactions of humans on a daily basis.
Regarding near death experience research, I am not very up with that field, but I find some interest in the research on the effect on perception of a failing blood supply to the brain. I believe one way to get anecdotal evidence from subjects is to put them in one of those fighter pilot training centrifuges and spin them until they pass out through poor cerebral circulation, then ask them what their experiences were. I understand what they say correlates with other stories of being near death.
Must find our more about it. I'm afraid I am yet to be convinced that supernatural effects are anything more than wishful thinking on the part of the religious.
Stuart
Quote We are discussing the most complex machine we know of, the human brain, and like weather forecasting there are so many variables that I think predicting the nuances of emotional response is going to be a bigger task than even the brain itself would be capable of. Agreed. But, in the end, you are saying that we are no different than your car: a complex machine that may act in ways that seem unpredictable to us but is actually perfectly predictable given an appropriately complex model. Again – and this is certainly not a scientific assertion – that just doesn't ring true to me.
Quote I believe one way to get anecdotal evidence from subjects is to put them in one of those fighter pilot training centrifuges and spin them until they pass out through poor cerebral circulation, then ask them what their experiences were. I understand what they say correlates with other stories of being near death. Also, certain anesthetic drugs seem to give a similar effect, although I think both experiences tend to be far less vivid that what NDE survivors report. Again, to me, the real question lay in how to explain some of the NDE experiences that seem to defy physical limitations, (i.e. accurately reporting events from a different location, describing emergency procedures that occurred while there was no brain activity, etc.). If these things actually happened, and can be rigorously documented, then the question of what causes an NDE is probably not as interesting as coming up with a sufficient explanation for the NDE phenomena themselves.
Keep me posted on what you find. I know that I can count on you for a skeptical view.
Quote (Stu @ Jan. 10 2010,12:15) I used to own a car that was a (moderately) complex machine and there was little that was predictable about when it would decide to break down, and which of its failings would be exposed on that occasion. We are discussing the most complex machine we know of, the human brain, and like weather forecasting there are so many variables that I think predicting the nuances of emotional response is going to be a bigger task than even the brain itself would be capable of. That is certainly what is evident in the interactions of humans on a daily basis.
You admit the brain is a machine. Is that as close as you come to acknowledging the hidden engineer behind the machine?Your highly complex machine (brain) as you call it, is somehow not the result of design. No intelligence was involved in its creation. It just out does all man-made machines even though those were designed by intelligent beings. Zero IQ outdoes the combined IQ of man throughout history.
Not logical Stu.
Quote (t8 @ July 15 2010,17:01) Quote (Stu @ Jan. 10 2010,12:15) I used to own a car that was a (moderately) complex machine and there was little that was predictable about when it would decide to break down, and which of its failings would be exposed on that occasion. We are discussing the most complex machine we know of, the human brain, and like weather forecasting there are so many variables that I think predicting the nuances of emotional response is going to be a bigger task than even the brain itself would be capable of. That is certainly what is evident in the interactions of humans on a daily basis.
You admit the brain is a machine. Is that as close as you come to acknowledging the hidden engineer behind the machine?Your highly complex machine (brain) as you call it, is somehow not the result of design. No intelligence was involved in its creation. It just out does all man-made machines even though those were designed by intelligent beings. Zero IQ outdoes the combined IQ of man throughout history.
Not logical Stu.
Hi T8,Good illustration of how Stuarts brain shuts off to logic,
where 'his faith' in nothingness is concerned!God bless
Ed J (Joshua 22:34)
http://www.holycitybiblecode.org
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