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Originally posted by stellspalfie
[b]Would you like to volunteer as our first experimental guinea pig to see if we can pull out the thoughts from your brain and place them somewhere to be studied ? You'd be greatly advancing science
millions of people have their brain scanned and their thoughts recorded as data each year. you can get computer generated cg real-time movies of yo ...[text shortened]... haven.
a question for you -
when you say consciousness do you really mean self-awareness?[/b]
millions of people have their brain scanned and their thoughts recorded as data each year. you can get computer generated cg real-time movies of your thoughts. there are computer games and hardware that read your thoughts and translate them to movements on a screen. xbox are launching a home device for translating brain waves to control the console. you think left and the avatar on the xbox goes left, you think volume up and the volume goes up. so human thought exists with in the brain. do you disagree.
I would say that in the same way directions to drive, which way, how fast, are in me first and then secondarily in my automobile so the relationship between my mind and my brain.
Now no doubt, if my car has a mechanical problem, it may not do as I tell it to do. But that I sit in the car and direct its major actions does not mean that I am my car.
Would you link me to a video or something demonstrating thought induced lowering or raising of speaker volume ?
sonship:
Do you think that this kind of belief is Atheist friendly ?
absolutely. why would you think otherwise?
I think otherwise for the reasons I wrote.
If you think evolution could produce human consciousness why assume that it stopped there ?
So your atheistic physicalism evolving matter to be conscious has no reason that it should stop at human consciousness. Your process in theory, given enough time, could have already produced a consciousness which for all intents and purposes to you, could be a god. And you and everything else you are aware of could be being dreamed up. And there is nothing you could do about it.
sonship:
How do you know then that there is not some HUGE, BIG, THINKER and we are not being brought into existence in the same way ?
there is no evidence to suggest there is a big thinker.
Special pleading. You are quick to say " We cannot do thus and such YET." So why can't you also say "We find no evidence YET" ?
sonship:
Do you assume that evolution stopped with human beings ?
If you want to argue that the brain became thus so complex that consciousness just had to come into existence, how do you know that evolution could not also produce a God ?
i do not assume evolution has stopped.
I have not yet seen your explanation of matter combining so as to develop the capacity to be conscious.
i do not suggest consciousness had to come into existence, only that it did.
What threshold of arrangement of matter brought about the emergence of consciousness ?
i don not know that evolution could not produce a god, only that there is no evidence that it can.
That depends on definitions. If you say evolution has not stopped then a being 100,000 times more able than human is theoretically a possible product of you magic process.
Furthermore, your magic process may have already produced a virtual super mind. This is especially possible if you postulate an infinite number of universes in a multiverse.
Some super evolved being from your magical evolutionary process could conceivably migrate over from one of these other universes to be your virtual god in this one.
The wild latitude and scope you imagine for your evolutionary process is not at all any safe guard against the emergence of a virtual god.
My point is made that you imagine no such refuge against a deity from existing. I see no need to argue that point any further.
matter is not turned into consciousness, consciousness is made of matter.
In the wildest imaginings of some strains of Quantum mechanics, maybe it is theorized so. But as I browse through some science thinkers on the subject matter, I notice that far from everyone science and technology friendly agrees with your physicalism.
I am noticing quite a few modernistic techno thinkers out there who would not agree with you that consciousness is matter. And they are not Bible believing people.
Do you think your physicalism opinion represents some kind of majority consensus ? I think you'd have your hands quite full convincing other agnostic techno thinkers who would not agree with you that consciousness is matter.
did i say anything that remotely suggested that thought provides a safe haven against a deit????? i dont believe in a deity, if there were a deity i have no reason to think my thoughts could provide security.....i dont see where you got this from or where you are going with it.
Explicitly you did not say so. Implicitly, and consistent with your enthusiasm for all things "God denying" on this forum, ascertain, and I think correctly, that you think your physicalism is another bulwark against Theism.
its a possibility, but no evidence suggests this so it would be folly to believe it.
You have no copyright on evidence either.
There is historical evidence that a miracle could have conceivably be the explanation for first century Jews suddenly by the thousands, abandoning several centuries of Jewish monotheism to believe in a Father - Son - Holy Spirit God - (monotheistic, yet more mysteriously manifested).
You may strut about boasting of evidence. I as a Christian have evidence also. That is evidence that Who Jesus believed and taught about Who He was with absolute conviction conceivably was true.
Please do not think you have some monopoly on this thing called evidence. I may not have "proof" of God and His Son. I do have evidence.
there is a mountain of solid evidence and a bunch of technology that functions and relies on thought being located in the brain......there is no evidence of a deity.
There is evidence that Jesus was Who He believed He was and taught He was. The argument that no evidence of this exists I count as fanatical denial.
And there are huge problems with your concept that thought and consciousness are physical.
And it should come to no comfort to an atheist, who is trying to enshrine some invincible physicalism capable of virtually anything, to be informed that it is therefore also capable of emergent theism.
a question for you -
Instead of asking me, you could make your point by going to the lab, extracting your question, put it in a test tube or under a thin plastic slab, and sending it to me in the mail. That is if thought is matter.
If you say you cannot do it YET, then I would say you have YET no evidence that thought is matter either.
when you say consciousness do you really mean self-awareness?
I include self awareness. I am reasonably certain that other attributes could be included as well.
A question then for you:
If the atoms and molecules in my body are entirely different today then they were say seven years ago, how can I be the same person I was seven years ago?
And if that is the case, should I be held responsible for a crime that, say, the person seven years ago committed ?
Could I not make the defense that that matter of seven years ago was not ME ?
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Originally posted by sonshipI would say that in the same way directions to drive, which way, how fast, are in me first and then secondarily in my automobile so the relationship between my mind and my brain.
[quote] millions of people have their brain scanned and their thoughts recorded as data each year. you can get computer generated cg real-time movies of your thoughts. there are computer games and hardware that read your thoughts and translate them to movements on a screen. xbox are launching a home device for translating brain waves to control the console. ...[text shortened]... tted ?
Could I not make the defense that that [b]matter of seven years ago was not ME ?[/b]
are you saying you thing the brain is a conduit for thought coming from the soul? is that all thought or just some types of thought?
Would you link me to a video or something demonstrating thought induced lowering or raising of speaker volume ?
https://www.google.co.uk/#q=thought+control+headset+gamining
heres a list on google of sites showing thought reading tech that can do way more than just change speaker volumes.
If you think evolution could produce human consciousness why assume that it stopped there ?
atheists dont assume evolution has stopped.
So your atheistic physicalism evolving matter to be conscious has no reason that it should stop at human consciousness. Your process in theory, given enough time, could have already produced a consciousness which for all intents and purposes to you, could be a god
this not a problem for atheists. evolution could possibly lead or maybe already has to a 'god'......but there is zero evidence that it has or is likely.
Special pleading. You are quick to say " We cannot do thus and such YET." So why can't you also say "We find no evidence YET" ?
when i have sated we cannot do 'x' 'YET' its because the evidence implies that 'x' is going to be possible. 'we find no evidence yet' can be illogical as the 'yet' implies knowing that 'x' will happen, without any evidence that it will. i will conceded though that there are some senarios where it can make sense.
I have not yet seen your explanation of matter combining so as to develop the capacity to be [b]conscious.[/b]
i think all living things are conscious in varying degrees. i see it more of a greyscale than black and white. science has observed in the animal kingdom that the bigger the cerebral cortex the more self aware the animal is. once again indicating that it happens in the brain.
my personal opinion on what consciousness is that just like when we think of an image we feel like we have seen an image that what it feels like has happened isnt the reality of what has happened. i do not think consciousness is especially special. i think its a part of the brain that observes whats happening in the brain and registers as a thought what it has seen. so we feel we are aware of what we have just thought....but its all just a function of our brains. the bigger the cerebral cortex the more awareness we can feel.
That depends on definitions. If you say evolution has not stopped then a being 100,000 times more able than human is theoretically a possible product of you magic process.
Furthermore, your magic process may have already produced a virtual super mind. This is especially possible if you postulate an infinite number of universes in a multiverse.
Some super evolved being from your magical evolutionary process could conceivably migrate over from one of these other universes to be your virtual god in this one.
yes this is all potentially possible (not sure why you have started using the word 'magic' though) but as of yet there is no evidence that it has happened. the evidence we do have indicate that it would be unlikely.
In the wildest imaginings of some strains of Quantum mechanics, maybe it is theorized so
'wildest imaginings' is that your definition or theirs. i pretty sure the guys at m.i.t. would consider it much more than a wild imagining.
I am noticing quite a few modernistic techno thinkers out there who would not agree with you that consciousness is [b]matter. And they are not Bible believing people.[/b]
put up some links, id be interested to hear what they say, its why i started the thread.
Do you think your physicalism opinion represents some kind of [b]majority consensus ? I think you'd have your hands quite full convincing other agnostic techno thinkers who would not agree with you that consciousness is matter. [/b]
i think the majority would agree, especially the techno thinkers. all things are made of matter.....although id like to clarify that i was including electricity as matter and not all will agree that it is.
You have no copyright on evidence either.
this is true. what is also true is that you have no real evidence of god or miracles. to suggest otherwise is blatantly wrong. if your religion is faith based why would it require evidence?
You may strut about boasting of evidence.
interesting how you describe me, is that how you imagine me, is that the tone in which you read my posts?
Instead of asking me, you could make your point by going to the lab, extracting your question, put it in a test tube or under a thin plastic slab, and sending it to me in the mail. That is if thought is matter.
i dont have a lab 🙁
as of yet its impossible to do as you ask. however being able to slice up thought and send it in the post is not a prerequisite of proving that though occurs in the brain. seeing it happen with our own eyes on brain scans is evidence.
If the atoms and molecules in my body are entirely different today then they were say seven years ago, how can I be the same person I was seven years ago?
you are the same person because of how we as a society judge what a person is defined by and because you changed very gradually, you were never completely different from one moment to the next. you are a continuation of you rather than a brand new you. there are other reasons, but i dont really see the point of this, its not about who 'you' are but what is the difference between a soul and a brain....which you are yet to actually focus on.
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Originally posted by stellspalfie
are you saying you thing the brain is a conduit for thought coming from the soul? is that all thought or just some types of thought?
Two questions there.
I think all I really need to say is that there is a correlation going on between the mind states in abstraction and brain states in the physical world.
I don't claim either consciousness or brain is fully understood. But that there is a dualism of the material and the non-material is, I think, common sense.
If you do not believe so, then according to your own theory, you don't believe so for not for any rational reason. Your belief is caused only by physical processes. Then natural laws only deterministically how your brain will behave, since there is no soul to act upon what's true.
https://www.google.co.uk/#q=thought+control+headset+gamining
heres a list on google of sites showing thought reading tech that can do way more than just change speaker volumes.
Interesting ads that I will finish looking at latter.
Personally, I prefer reaching out and turning a knob without having to have my skull hooked up like Darth Vader just to listen to music.
sonship:
I have not yet seen your explanation of matter combining so as to develop the capacity to be [b]conscious.
i think all living things are conscious in varying degrees. i see it more of a greyscale than black and white. science has observed in the animal kingdom that the bigger the cerebral cortex the more self aware the animal is. once again indicating that it happens in the brain.
There is no explanation of how matter arranged itself to give rise to consciousness in this paragraph so far.
my personal opinion on what consciousness is that just like when we think
According to your view I understand the phrase "we think" to mean that purely neurological and electrical activity is causing thought.
The machine is fissing its atoms. That's what your "we think" means to me according to your own physicalism. Otherwise you seem to be borrowing briefly from a immaterial / material dualism. But you are trying to convince me that the "we" is only physical and mechanistic.
of an image we feel like we have seen an image that what it feels like has happened isnt the reality of what has happened. i do not think consciousness is especially special. i think its a part of the brain that observes whats happening in the brain and registers as a thought what it has seen. so we feel we are aware of what we have just thought....but its all just a function of our brains. the bigger the cerebral cortex the more awareness we can feel.
How did matter become self aware ?
I think you are blurring the gradation of levels of evolution only to avoid explaining how matter became self aware.
sonship:
Some super evolved being from your magical evolutionary process could conceivably migrate over from one of these other universes to be your virtual god in this one.
yes this is all potentially possible (not sure why you have started using the word 'magic' though) but as of yet there is no evidence that it has happened. the evidence we do have indicate that it would be unlikely.
I use the word magic because up to this point you still have consciousness appearing from matter like a rabbit popping out of a magician's hat.
If it is even logical that there could be a dualism of consciousness / soul and matter / brain then it is not a irrational idea. It has been intuitive for probably thousands of years that this dualism of some kind exists.
If a soul's disembodied existence is even logically possible (which I think most mankind has either consciously or unconsciously assume ) then this dualism cannot be dismissed as irrational. Without logical contradiction, we can conceived of being disembodied. And a number of examples of near death detachment from physical body are recorded.
The fact that in some cases near death people had knowledge of things occurring in details that they could not have possibly been cognizant of in the physical conditions that they were in at the time, makes this immaterial / material dualism hard to dismiss.
We can imagine living in another person's body, or imagine living in another time, or imagine living in another culture, having another person's skin pigmentation, etc. My point is that these little thought experiments do not change the imaginer's identity. He imagines experiencing new things for himself in a different body from his own. We intuitively accept as plausible, at least, the metaphysical possibilities. As long as such metaphysically plausible scenarios are logically possible, we cannot rule out that a body / soul dualism exists.
Go back to the ancient Egyptians. I do not mean that all they did to prepare the souls of kings for an afterlife to place as they imagined down to every superstitious details. But for that long it has been intuitive to mankind that this dualism of soul and body existed. We cannot so easily rule it out as part of the reality of universe.
In the wildest imaginings of some strains of Quantum mechanics, ...
'wildest imaginings' is that your definition or theirs. i pretty sure the guys at m.i.t. would consider it much more than a wild imagining.
Okay, but my point is that so called freethinkers quite unsympathetic to biblical theology, are not out of hand dismissing non-material / material dualism of man. This I mention just in case you are making any case that to physicalism is the only up-to-date and modern way to think.
sonship:
I am noticing quite a few modernistic techno thinkers out there who would not agree with you that consciousness is matter. And they are not Bible believing people.
put up some links, id be interested to hear what they say, its why i started the thread.
The Extended Mind: Recent Experimental Evidence
The man says the mind is beyond the brain.
He sounds like no fundamentalist Christian to me.
i think the majority would agree, especially the techno thinkers. all things are made of matter.....although id like to clarify that i was including electricity as matter and not all will agree that it is.
this is true. what is also true is that you have no real evidence of god or miracles. to suggest otherwise is blatantly wrong. if your religion is faith based why would it require evidence?
That's silly and hardly worth a comment because it is wishful thinking on your part. My faith is a historically based one with reasons to believe sunk firmly in history.
The existence of the universe and why there is something rather than nothing is miraculous. Matter, energy, motion, space, time came in a so called "Big Bang" in which no previous nature existed.
And when it comes to the New Testament, one of the reasons we Christians are so affirmed that the Gospel is true is because what we could not do for ourselves, though we deeply desired so, was done in us once we received the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
The liberation, the breaking of chains of sin, the inward healing has led many of us to believe we are on the right track to trust the Son of God. He said that He would come to us in the form of the Spirit of reality and abide in us and manifest Himself to us.
The working of this Spirit in our lives is evidence.
Just because it is absent in your experience does not mean we have no evidence.
And outwardly we have evidence as well.
It is your wishful thinking that our faith is a purely blind leap.
It is a faith based on evidence which we interpret as God being faithful to His word.
sonship:
You may strut about boasting of evidence.
interesting how you describe me, is that how you imagine me, is that the tone in which you read my posts?
I'll tone it down a bit.
However, glibbly dismissing 2,000 some years of Christian belief as having no evidence is cavalier and a tad arrogant.
sonship:
Instead of asking me, you could make your point by going to the lab, extracting your question, put it in a test tube or under a thin plastic slab, and sending it to me in the mail. That is if thought is matter.
i dont have a lab
I don't have a microscope.
as of yet its impossible to do as you ask. however being able to slice up thought and send it in the post is not a prerequisite of proving that though occurs in the brain. seeing it happen with our own eyes on brain scans is evidence.
You have no lab.
What you saw was indications of electrical activity.
Once again, all the DREAMERS dreaming had to be WOKEN UP and ASKED - "What were you dreaming of? ".
In other words the observers had no clue as to what the sleepers were thinking. So it is disingenuous at worst or simply mistaken that THOUGHT was seen by anyone. The sleepers had to be made to awake so that the THOUGHTS could be described.
If they saw them then why did they have to ASK the people what the thoughts WERE ?
sonship:
If the atoms and molecules in my body are entirely different today then they were say seven years ago, how can I be the same person I was seven years ago?
you are the same person because of how we as a society judge what a person is defined by and because you changed very gradually, you were never completely different from one moment to the next. you are a continuation of you rather than a brand new you. there are other reasons, but i dont really see the point of this, its not about who 'you' are but what is the difference between a soul and a brain....which you are yet to actually focus on.
If a Naz...
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If a Nazi responsible for crimes against humanity runs off to Argentina for decades, and is discovered, we know it is the same guilty person. Though his physical body has completely changed by renwal of all his molecules every seven years or so, there is a unifying something preserving his identity.
Dualism explains this better, I think, then physicalism.
We would not take him seriously if he said that we had the wrong person.
We would not take him seriously as innocent because he says he is nothing more than his body. And since he is only his body the atoms making up his body have undergone a complete change since that body was in Hitler's Germany.
He is not off the hook because what he did was the result of causes mechanistically and deterministically going back to the Big Bang. Nor is he off the hook because the person he is when caught is an entirely different physical body and physical brain from decades ago.
I think a more intuitively and common sense explanation is that a unifying immaterial SOUL has identified that body as the same person. Massive physical changes have not produced a new identity. He is responsible for his crimes of long ago.
Another reason I think a better explanation of man's being is a soul / body dualism is that we fear the future. Or we prepare for the future. If in the future I will be gone and another person will be there because of massive physical renewal of my brain, why should I at all be concerned for the distant future ?
My immaterial SOUL knows that I will still be ME and will be in existence. This is common sense. And I think it is better explained by dualism than pure physicalism.
Originally posted by sonshipIf I backup my data, and copy it to a new hard drive, the data itself does not change. This is perfectly consistent with what you call "physicalism".
If a Nazi responsible for crimes against humanity runs off to Argentina for decades, and is discovered, we know it is the same guilty person. Though his physical body has completely changed by renwal of all his molecules every seven years or so, there is a unifying something preserving his identity.
Dualism explains this better, I think, then physicali ...[text shortened]... ence. This is common sense. And I think it is better explained by dualism than pure physicalism.
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Originally posted by sonshipI think all I really need to say is that there is a correlation going on between the mind states in abstraction and brain states in the physical world.are you saying you thing the brain is a conduit for thought coming from the soul? is that all thought or just some types of thought?
Two questions there.
I think all I really need to say is that there is a correlation going on between the mind states in abstraction and brain states in the physical world.
I don't claim either cons ...[text shortened]... between a soul and a brain....which you are yet to actually focus on. [/quote]
If a Naz...
is the 'mind state in abstraction' what you think of as a soul or part of the soul?
if you can I would also like you to expand on what you mean by 'correlation'. do you mean one effects the other, do they always correlate, can the brain have a though without a correlation with the soul?
If you do not believe so, then according to your own theory, you don't believe so for not for any rational reason.
I think you are slightly wrong here. i have rational thought because of the structure and development of my brain. there was no rational decision to end up thinking rationally.
Personally, I prefer reaching out and turning a knob without having to have my skull hooked up like Darth Vader just to listen to music./b]
me too.
[b]There is no explanation of how matter arranged itself to give rise to consciousness in this paragraph so far.
okay, i think consciousness evolved as life evolved. a light sensitive cell good be viewed as an distant relative of consciousness. as cells combine making more complex organisms that has more and more cells that respond to outside stimulus, nervous systems develop that start to link these cells together until we have a creature that can feel and sense many things at the same time and combine them process them and form a reaction. self awareness is trickier to explain as ive said i think its like having a second brain monitoring what the other brain is doing and triggering real-time events to give the impression of sound and images. this is all we are.
According to your view I understand the phrase [b]"we think" to mean that purely neurological and electrical activity is causing thought.[/b]
essentially yes, the world around effects our senses our senses feedback to our bodies and brain, causing chemical changes and synapses to fire, which adjust our brain patterns, changing the way we think and issuing new thoughts.
But you are trying to convince me that the [b]"we" is only physical and mechanistic[/b]
i think its is only physical (including electricity as physical)
I think you are blurring the gradation of levels of evolution only to avoid explaining how matter became self aware.
i think ive explained consciousness a few times. i have also admitted twice that its harder to explain self awareness. ive given my thoughts above about self awareness.
If it is even logical that there could be a dualism of consciousness / soul and matter / brain then it is not a irrational idea.
its irrational as their is no evidence that their is a soul and no reason to think that the brain itself could not make us function.
And a number of examples of near death detachment from physical body are recorded.
near death experiences are not evidence of a soul or anything extra to the body and brain. near death experiences have not been proven as real.
The man says the mind is beyond the brain.
He sounds like no fundamentalist Christian to me.
this guy is a parapsychologist.....an area of study that has come up with zero. hence why james Randi has never had to hand over a million dollars.
The fact that in some cases near death people had knowledge of things occurring in details that they could not have possibly been cognizant
these cases are myths and legends. people believe the stories because they want to. has there been one single case that has ever been proven?
But for that long it has been intuitive to mankind that this dualism of soul and body existed. We cannot so easily rule it out as part of the reality of universe.
we have believed many wrong things for very long periods of time. its not good ground to base as evidence. we shouldn't rule it in until we have evidence.
The existence of the universe and why there is something rather than nothing is miraculous
how do you know its miraculous? what proof to you have that it is miraculous?
called "Big Bang" in which no previous nature existed.
you don't know that no previous nature existed. why assume it?
glibbly dismissing,cavalier,tad arrogant
ha! thanks for toning down.
its not arrogant. there is no evidence of god, its a fact not arrogance. give me one shred of solid evidence.
What you saw was indications of electrical activity.
Once again, all the DREAMERS dreaming had to be WOKEN UP and ASKED - "What were you dreaming of? "
In other words the observers had no clue as to what the sleepers were thinking. So it is disingenuous at worst or simply mistaken that THOUGHT was seen by anyone. The sleepers had to be made to awake so that the THOUGHTS could be described. .
i never mentioned sleepers and dreams. im talking about brain scans on people who are awake. we can ask them questions and see a real-time response. we can ask a bunch of people the same questions and see if the same parts of the brain light up.....which it turns out they do, that's why we know which parts of the brain deal with what type of emotion and thought....that's why we know we have a logical side to our brain and a creative side.
question for you. if our thought consciousness, self awareness and personality comes from outside of the brain. then why does the shape and chemical make up of our brain seem to have such a fundamental effect on who we are?
If they saw them then why did they have to ASK the people what the thoughts WERE ?
they don't, you've invented some sort of sleep experiment, i never mention it.
im sure using scans that there are many times where people are asked what they are think. scans do not read specific thoughts, but more the type of thought. so a scan could tell you are having sexual thoughts but not say what they were. as i have said the scans can not look microscopically enough to pinpoint exact synapses.
Originally posted by stellspalfieis this a war of word walls? see who can build the largest?
[b] I think all I really need to say is that there is a correlation going on between the mind states in abstraction and brain states in the physical world.
is the 'mind state in abstraction' what you think of as a soul or part of the soul?
if you can I would also like you to expand on what you mean by 'correlation'. do you mean one effects the ...[text shortened]... y were. as i have said the scans can not look microscopically enough to pinpoint exact synapses.[/b]
Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
If I backup my data, and copy it to a new hard drive, the data itself does not change. This is perfectly consistent with what you call "physicalism".
If I backup my data, and copy it to a new hard drive, the data itself does not change. This is perfectly consistent with what you call "physicalism".
So in your analogy, I suppose the hard drive represents your physical brain. And I suppose the data represents your memories.
What do you represent then ?
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Originally posted by stellspalfie
[b] I think all I really need to say is that there is a correlation going on between the mind states in abstraction and brain states in the physical world.
is the 'mind state in abstraction' what you think of as a soul or part of the soul?
if you can I would also like you to expand on what you mean by 'correlation'. do you mean one effects the ...[text shortened]... y were. as i have said the scans can not look microscopically enough to pinpoint exact synapses.[/b]
is the 'mind state in abstraction' what you think of as a soul or part of the soul?
I think the mind is one of the functions of the soul.
The other two functions in the soul are your emotion and your will.
If I look up all the passages which mention soul in the Bible, many of them can be classified under one of three functions:
Mind
Emotion
Now if you think about it a little, you will see that every action you perform today will involve these three functions of your soul = Mind, Emotion, and Will.
You will think about something. That is your Mind.
You will either like or dislike that about which you think.
That is your Emotion.
Then your will decide on a response or an action. That is your Will..
So I think Mind, Emotion, and Will are the functions of your SOUL every action you perform today. Some exception may exist but I cannot think of any off hand at the moment.
We certainly do not know exhaustively what the soul is. And though there is some correlation between states of your soul and measured activity on the brain, I believe, and I think most of mankind in history, has assumed that there is a dualism going on there.
if you can I would also like you to expand on what you mean by 'correlation'. do you mean one effects the other, do they always correlate, can the brain have a though without a correlation with the soul?
Comment latter perhaps.
sonship:
If you do not believe so, then according to your own theory, you don't believe so for not for any rational reason.
I think you are slightly wrong here. i have rational thought because of the structure and development of my brain. there was no rational decision to end up thinking rationally.
Are you informing and causing the activity of your thinking ? Or is it the physical mechanisms of the matter of your brain that is making you think ?
If the latter is your explanation then I think that true freedom then does not exist for you. This also negates responsibility.
So I think the majority of humans perceive the counter intuitive understanding that you are nothing more than your physical body. And I think the common sense consensus is that you, your abstract self is dualistically associated with your body.
Jesus, just like this consensus assumption, said that there was a distinction between body and soul. His teaching was that because man's treatment of man is limited to what he can do to the body, greater regard for God should be had, because He can deal with man's soul after the body has died.
"And do not fear those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." (Matt. 10:28)
"And I say to you My friends, Do not fear those who kill the body and afterward have nothing more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: fear Him who, after killing, has authority to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, fear this One." (Luke 12:4,5)
These two particular passages may be more on the negative side. There are plenty of positive ones on the body / soul dualism. But it manifests that Jesus took for granted that the people of His day understood this dualism. God has an power and an authority which reaches man beyond what man is able to reach.
The full salvation of Christ reaches all three parts of a man's being plus the outward environment -
"And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thess. 5:23)
So this "dualism" of the material and the immaterial consists of TWO parts of the immaterial and ONE part of the material -
" spirit and soul ..." = the immaterial
" ... and body " = the material.
Together - in all three parts - "spirit and soul and body" the saved person can be preserved complete and sanctified in Christ's salvation.
The site www.tripartiteman.org speaks of this biblical revelation of man's three parts.
The three parts of man are strongly symbolized in the three parts of the tabernacle and the temple that the Hebrews were told to erect. The outer court representing the outermost part of man, his physical body. The Holy Place representing the soul of man. And the innermost "Holy of Holies" representing the human spirit as the nucleus and kernel of our metaphysical being.
sonship:
There is no explanation of how matter arranged itself to give rise to consciousness in this paragraph so far.
okay, i think consciousness evolved as life evolved. a light sensitive cell good be viewed as an distant relative of consciousness. as cells combine making more complex organisms that has more and more cells that respond to outside stimulus, nervous systems develop that start to link these cells together until we have a creature that can feel and sense many things at the same time and combine them process them and form a reaction. self awareness is trickier to explain as ive said i think its like having a second brain monitoring what the other brain is doing and triggering real-time events to give the impression of sound and images. this is all we are.
Well you at least gave it a good try this time. Thanks.
I'll think on it. I've been thinking on it for many years already.
Last night I had to watch some and learn some things about cell mitosis. I had to also learn something about microbioloogical machines at work in every living cell. Each living cell is a factory.
Step by step, trial and error, mutations working on natural selection development of the workings of the tiniest cell is too impossible for me to believe.
And we haven't even gotten to the emergence of consciousness yet.
I really do not have enough faith to be a consummate naturalist or an atheist.
sonship:
According to your view I understand the phrase "we think" to mean that purely neurological and electrical activity is causing thought.
essentially yes, the world around effects our senses our senses feedback to our bodies and brain, causing chemical changes and synapses to fire, which adjust our brain patterns, changing the way we think and issuing new thoughts.
You stopped short of saying that these stimuli cause thought. You said that they "change" the way we think.
You spoke of the adjustment of brain patterns. You came short of saying these synapses cause cause thinking.
Thinking can be adjusted and changed by stimuli. But what causes the thinking to begin with?
sonship:
But you are trying to convince me that the [b]"we" is only physical and mechanistic
i think its is only physical (including electricity as physical)
sonship:
I think you are blurring the gradation of levels of evolution only to avoid explaining how matter became self aware.
i think ive explained consciousness a few times. i have also admitted twice that its harder to explain self awareness. ive given my thoughts above about self awareness.
its irrational as their is no evidence that their is a soul and no reason to think that the brain itself could not make us function.
If the brain itself makes you function the you are not a free agent.
You are only, in that case, the fissing of chemicals of your physical body.
I think this definitely undermines part of your genuine humanity.
It is a dehumanizing concept which reduces your identity to a material machine without freedom of choice or responsibility.
Furthermore, the questionable dividends the naturalist thinks such a view pays to his atheism, I think, are not worth the humanity that he loses. It is often the case that trying to do away with God results in a seeming self hatred of man's humanity as a byproduct.
sonship:
And a number of examples of near death detachment from physical body are recorded.
near death experiences are not evidence of a soul or anything extra to the body and brain. near death experiences have not been proven as real.
Evidence may not be proof to the degree of mathematical perfection.
And evidence is neither persuasion.
Evidence of near death experiences and soulical capabilities which seem to perplex a pure physicalist view of man may show we are on the right track to see a substance dualism.
sonship:
The man says the mind is beyond the brain.
He sounds like no fundamentalist Christian to me.
this guy is a parapsychologist.....an area of study that has come up with zero. hence why james Randi has never had to hand over a million dollars.
So he's a paraphychologist. So what? That may be a science in its infancy. Plenty of other scientific disciplines well established had to go through their own periods of infancy and development.
I don't dismiss it out of hand for that reason.
sonship:
The fact that in some cases near death people had knowledge of things occurring in details that they could not have possibly been cognizant
these cases are myths and legends. people believe the stories because they want to. has there been one single case that has ever been proven?
Want to talk about myths and legends ? Look no further than the workings of the cell being the result of lucky accidents over a long period of time.
If a frog turns into a prince - its a fairy tale.
If a frog turns into a prince but it took 10 millions years - that's "science".
Turn some of your skepticism around on your own myths and legends.
[quote]
sonship:
But for that long it has been intuitive to mankind tha....
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sonship:
But for that long it has been intuitive to mankind that this dualism of soul and body existed. We cannot so easily rule it out as part of the reality of universe.
we have believed many wrong things for very long periods of time. its not good ground to base as evidence. we shouldn't rule it in until we have evidence.
Sure, wrong things have been believed. And right things have been believed too. I am not arguing for ad populism fallacy. I am applying healthy skepticism to the assumption that new opinions are always more correct and better.
sonship:
The existence of the universe and why there is something rather than nothing is miraculous
how do you know its miraculous? what proof to you have that it is miraculous?
When it comes to the creation of the universe, as far as we know, either a miracle occured without a miracle worker or a miracle occured with a miracle worker.
You have a creation of space, time, matter, motion, mass, energy out of nothing. And a quantum vacuum is not nothing. So Lawrence Krauss is misleading when he writes about the possibility of the universe coming out of a quantum vacuum. For that is not nothing.
Out of nothing - nothing comes.
The universe could not create itself because it would have to exist before it existed to do that. And that is impossible.
So for all intents and purposes, the creation of the universe with time, space, matter and nature itself we have to say was a miracle.
The question some people have to then consider:
1.) Was it a miracle without a miracle worker?
2.) Was it a miracle with a miracle worker?
I say the second makes more sense by far.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
This simple revelation speaks thousands of years ago about Time "in the beginning" Space "the heavens" and Matter "the earth" coming into existence by a spaceless, timeless, non-material, immensely powerful, and deciding willful miracle worker - God.
I believe that. And you can repeat that there is no evidence for God.
You may make a mantra out of that, or a song, or a poem, and repeat it to us as much as you please.
But there is evidence for God. And I also count that Jesus believed His Father was God and that He was God become a man.
Now there are people in mental institutions who think they are Napoleon or Abe Lincoln or Jesus or perhaps God. There are people so deluded by their mental illness that they think they are someone great.
But for Jesus to believe that He was God become a man is accompanied with an academy award winning acting job because He spoke and acted like God become a man.
So, I consider that Jesus believing that He was God, and ACTING like that, as evidence for the existence of God.
sonship:
called "Big Bang" in which no previous nature existed.
you don't know that no previous nature existed. why assume it?
That's where the science is at the moment.
Space, time, matter came into being at the Big Bang.
the Borde, Gooth, Valenkin theorems postulate that any expanding universe or multiverse proposed had to have had a beginning. And that beginning included the beginning of everything.
glibbly dismissing,cavalier,tad arrogant
ha! thanks for toning down.
Sorry. But I don't think I need to go over it again.
i never mentioned sleepers and dreams. im talking about brain scans on people who are awake. we can ask them questions and see a real-time response. we can ask a bunch of people the same questions and see if the same parts of the brain light up.....which it turns out they do, that's why we know which parts of the brain deal with what type of emotion and thought....that's why we know we have a logical side to our brain and a creative side.
But that is a long way from submitting that we are seeing their thoughts or looking at their consciousness.
Can you refer me to any physics text which indicates there is something potentially conscious about matter ? When something new emerges, as in you postulating that consciousness arose in evolution from matter, it is argued as far back as Aristotle that there must have been a potentiality for this new thing to arise.
Is mind potential in matter?
When leaf turns from green to red, the red does not simply come into existence; it was already in the leaf potentially. When an apple seed produces apples, the apples were already in the seed potentially.
Generally, when a property emerges in a substance, it does so because a potentiality has come into actuality. It does not emerge from non-being. The property was potentially in the substance and when it emerges, it becomes an actuality.
So Mind must somehow exist in matter as a potentiality if matter emerged into consciousness. What evidence do you have that in matter, mind exists as a potentiality ?
Cont. latter perhaps.
Originally posted by sonshipI am the operating system accessing the data.If I backup my data, and copy it to a new hard drive, the data itself does not change. This is perfectly consistent with what you call "physicalism".
So in your analogy, I suppose the hard drive represents your physical brain. And I suppose the data represents your memories.
What do you represent then ?
Originally posted by sonshipI don't really boot and reboot much, unless someone hits me over the head with a brick or some such. I go into low-power hibernation at night.I am the operating system accessing the data.
Who booted you up that morning?
I think you end up with something distinct from of the computer hardware, its data and its operating system giving these directives to a substantial degree.
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Originally posted by BigDoggProblemI think you have jumped from analogy to something else.
I don't really boot and reboot much, unless someone hits me over the head with a brick or some such. I go into low-power hibernation at night.
If you want to argue that your physical body including your physical brain is You and there is nothing else to You, then that makes you a totally mechanistic material machine. You used a computer as your point of analogy.
But there is a distinct entity from the machine using the machine.
That fact that you are today using your memory, using your intellect, making choices, deciding what you like or dislike, and directing your body into this or that action, I think is better explained by a dualism of the non-material and the material.
It is more difficult to imagine that only molecules fissing are directing your views, beliefs, choices, moral actions, and so forth.
I don't really boot and reboot much, unless someone hits me over the head with a brick or some such. I go into low-power hibernation at night.
ie. Do you know the chemical composition of this little bit of humor you have written here ?