Morals -- relative or absolute.

Originally posted by Halitose
[b]A) Why does the "electrical" activity that is thought have to have a prior cause?

Firstly, natural science (which discovered the "electrical activity" ) assumes causality by definition. Would you say this brain activity is the "uncaused" exception?

Secondly, it has philosophical ramifications -- allow me to quote from Lewis's "Miracles":

[i ...[text shortened]... r reason, because it has no basis for internalist (ground-and-consequent) inferences.[/b]

That is why I have little use for philosophy of any kind. The argument is question begging and merely a means to get to a preordained end i.e. some sort of supernatural.

Do dogs have a soul because they have a brain capable of creating thought, Hal?

Originally posted by no1marauder
Please stop the nonsense. A) Why does the "electrical" activity that is thought have to have a prior cause? and B) In your theology, does a dog have a soul too since it has "electrical" activity in its brain?

Nonsense is not employed on my end. You, however, are positing that the thing being registered (electrical and/or chemical surges) are the very cause of the thing being registered. That, sir, is nonsense.

By your reckoning, when a person reads a book, has the writer's thought (electrical surge) become dormant and somehow transmorgified onto the written page, where it waits like a vagrant rail-rider, hoping for a bundle of nerve endings to happen by?

Originally posted by Starrman
Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Oops! Come on. I know you can do better than this. You wouldn't want to have the reputation of being the Dan Rather of TimeForChess, now would you?

If you can't post what you mean and instead post what you don't mean, how is anyone expected to hold meaningful discourse with you?

Given our inability t e that thought and your idea of a soul have a necessary connection, it is meaningless.

If you can't post what you mean and instead post what you don't mean, how is anyone expected to hold meaningful discourse with you?
I posted precisely what I intended, and it is as clear and concise now as it was then, on record for anyone bored enough to go back and read it. You, on the other end, purposely cut off half of the sentence in order to make it sound as though I were saying something other than what I actually said. That's what is known as a misquote. By you.

We looked for a cause using science,
A cause? A cause for what? Something which did not exist until such time as we could define it scientifically?

Electrical impulses due to a flow of ions across chemical gradients, triggering certain receptors and initiating further electrical processes, I'd imagine.
Perhaps you and No1 have been drinking from the same well. You seem to both be of the mindset that there exists no independent thought. Is that your position, or is it just your electrical/chemical surges talking?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
I posted precisely what I intended, and it is as clear and concise now as it was then, on record for anyone bored enough to go back and read it. You, on the other end, purposely cut off half of the sentence in order to make it sound as though I were saying something other than what I actually said. That's what is known as a misquote. By you.

The entire post then: By no means am I inferring that we should remain ignorant. Science should always attempt to increase our understanding of creation. That being said, if at all possible to detect using physical instruments, it is but a matter of time before the soul is 'announced' via scientific means. The Bible (again) simply announced it first.
If the soul is detectable by scientific instruments it is not of supernatural origin, but of natural origin. This leads us back to my question of what you will do when your notion of an immortal soul is made redundant.

A cause? A cause for what?

A cause for the movements of air we now call wind; a naturally occurring thing with a natural explanation.

Something which did not exist until such time as we could define it scientifically?

No, you still failing to take into account what I have posted before. The wind existed, we just defined it.

Perhaps you and No1 have been drinking from the same well. You seem to both be of the mindset that there exists no independent thought. Is that your position, or is it just your electrical/chemical surges talking?

It is just my electrical/chemical surges talking, why should it or could it be anything else? We may not know exactly how it works, but scientists continue to examine the link between consciousness and the natural makeup of the brain, hopefully one day we will have a definition of consciousness that lays in the natural world. Show me a necessary connection between thought and the supernatural soul and I shall happily discuss it at great length. Until then there is nothing to debate here but your unsupported insistance that one exists.

Originally posted by Starrman
Nonsense, you clearly have a very poor grasp of logic. I hold god in exactly the same regard as I do pink flying dogs. I assign a mu value to them both, they don't get a 1 or a 0, there is no faith used here, none. There's no reason to consider them even a possibility.

Yep you assign a value, the one you believe is correct.
Kelly

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Nonsense is not employed on my end. You, however, are positing that the thing being registered (electrical and/or chemical surges) are the very cause of the thing being registered. That, sir, is nonsense.

By your reckoning, when a person reads a book, has the writer's thought (electrical surge) become dormant and somehow transmorgified onto the writte ...[text shortened]... e, where it waits like a vagrant rail-rider, hoping for a bundle of nerve endings to happen by?

No, fool, I'm positing that there is no "cause" in the way you are using the term. Because in the end you will simply assert that everything that occurs in the natural world has a supernatural "cause". This is, of course, question begging to the issue whether anything "supernatural" exists - something you are supposedly trying to "prove".

I have no idea what your second paragraph means. A writer's thought exists when he is thinking it, not for all eternity in some unseen ether. If the thoughts are transmitted to the written page they exist as a writing. What does that have to do with anything?

Why do you continue to duck and dodge the issue of a dog's "soul"? Surely if the thoughts of a man "prove" the existence of a Man soul, the thoughts of a dog prove the existence of a Dog soul. Are you so unwilling to admit the logical consequences of your assertions or is this something that was not covered in your brainwashing?

EDIT: Yes, Freaky I am saying that there is no evidence of thought existing independently of the workings of a brain or similar device.

Originally posted by Starrman
Originally posted by FreakyKBH
I posted precisely what I intended, and it is as clear and concise now as it was then, on record for anyone bored enough to go back and read it. You, on the other end, purposely cut off half of the sentence in order to make it sound as though I were saying something other than what I actually said. That's what is kno ...[text shortened]... Until then there is nothing to debate here but your unsupported insistance that one exists.

If the soul is detectable by scientific instruments it is not of supernatural origin, but of natural origin.
Really? How so? Matter simply created itself, then? Is not all of creation of supernatural origin?

The wind existed, we just defined it.
The soul exists, we simply have not been able to gauge it with scientific tools, save the movements of it.

We may not know exactly how it works,
Exactly. Ergo, sciencedunnit.

Until then there is nothing to debate here but your unsupported insistance that one exists.
With such a logically impossible threshold to cover, it is highly unlikely you will concede any supernatural entity until you are face-to-face with Him.

Originally posted by no1marauder
No, fool, I'm positing that there is no "cause" in the way you are using the term. Because in the end you will simply assert that everything that occurs in the natural world has a supernatural "cause". This is, of course, question begging to the issue whether anything "supernatural" exists - something you are supposedly trying to "prove".

I have ...[text shortened]... nce of thought existing independent of the workings of a brain or similar device.

At some point you are going to have to rest on something you
believe has no cause yet is. He is pushing you to find the bottom
line and does that bother you for some reason?
Kelly

Originally posted by no1marauder
No, fool, I'm positing that there is no "cause" in the way you are using the term. Because in the end you will simply assert that everything that occurs in the natural world has a supernatural "cause". This is, of course, question begging to the issue whether anything "supernatural" exists - something you are supposedly trying to "prove".

I have ...[text shortened]... e of thought existing independently of the workings of a brain or similar device.

Yes, Freaky I am saying that there is no evidence of thought existing independently of the workings of a brain or similar device.
Therefore, logic is a construct of the brain. Likewise, math. Likewise, justice, truth, righteousness, etc., etc. Love's probably in there, as well, right?

And when the writer has a thought, it dies in his brain, despite the fact that he transmitted the thought to a page. No one else can get that thought, so therefore, this conversation is pointless--- if conversation there be.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]Yes, Freaky I am saying that there is no evidence of thought existing independently of the workings of a brain or similar device.
Therefore, logic is a construct of the brain. Likewise, math. Likewise, justice, truth, righteousness, etc., etc. Love's probably in there, as well, right?

And when the writer has a thought, it dies in his brain, d ...[text shortened]... can get that thought, so therefore, this conversation is pointless--- if conversation there be.[/b]

Why stop there? Why not just throw in the entire physical world?

Just because brains think, it does not follow that nothing exists outside of thought.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
And when the writer has a thought, it dies in his brain, despite the fact that he transmitted the thought to a page.

Modern literary theory concurs! (See Roland Barthes "The Death of the Author". No, don't. Walk away...

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]Yes, Freaky I am saying that there is no evidence of thought existing independently of the workings of a brain or similar device.
Therefore, logic is a construct of the brain. Likewise, math. Likewise, justice, truth, righteousness, etc., etc. Love's probably in there, as well, right?

And when the writer has a thought, it dies in his brain, d ...[text shortened]... can get that thought, so therefore, this conversation is pointless--- if conversation there be.[/b]

Why does it bother you soooooooooooooo much that things in physical reality have their basis in that reality?

What about that Dog soul, Freaky?

Originally posted by KellyJay
At some point you are going to have to rest on something you
believe has no cause yet is. He is pushing you to find the bottom
line and does that bother you for some reason?
Kelly

You are incorrect that A) I "have" to rest on something that has no "cause" (whatever that means); or that B) It "bothers" me. What "bothers" me is when people make unsupportable assertions and pretend they are absolute fact. It also "bothers" me when people refuse to address points bearing directly on their "argument" as Freaky is refusing to do by ignoring the "Dog Soul" issue.

Originally posted by no1marauder
That is why I have little use for philosophy of any kind. The argument is question begging and merely a means to get to a preordained end i.e. some sort of supernatural.

Do dogs have a soul because they have a brain capable of creating thought, Hal?

That is why I have little use for philosophy of any kind. The argument is question begging and merely a means to get to a preordained end i.e. some sort of supernatural.

Not quite. Here's two links which propound Lewis's Argument from Reason (AFR) in more lucid terms than I can:

http://go.qci.tripod.com/Reppert-interview.htm
http://apologetics.johndepoe.com/afr.html

Let me just emphasis that I don't think the AFR is sufficient as proof for the existence of God, but it does give the materialist view of the mind a blow or two to think about.

Do dogs have a soul because they have a brain capable of creating thought, Hal?

The question is rather complex. I don't think all brain activity can be classified as abstract thought and more specifically reason as opposed to conditioning or sensory processing. In my humble opinion, reason, rather than mere mental activity is the product of the soul.

Originally posted by Halitose
Lewis’s argument presses that naturalism (an "electrical" based reason) entails epistemic skepticism of our reason, because it has no basis for internalist (ground-and-consequent) inferences.

If anything, it's an argument against absurdly reductive physicalism.

(Incidentally, Lewis is not taken particularly seriously as a philosopher.)