(March 30, 2014 at 10:22 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(March 30, 2014 at 4:45 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote: God has all the explanatory power of a shrug of the shoulders.

You and others like you seem to be quite confused. There is a very big difference between ontological and methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism has proven enormously useful for understanding the natural world. It only makes sense that if you want to study natural things you focus exclusively on natural causes and effects. You would have everyone take a leap of faith, and it is exactly that, and ignore the parts of reality that don’t fit neatly into the self-imposed limits of your own bias.

Your position is that everything true must be subject to empirical testing. Apply that to your own philosophy. The fact of the matter is that ontological naturalism doesn’t have any explanatory power. There is no way to falsify your stance.

The test of an overarching philosophy is its ability to draw together a wide range of phenomena within a single paradigm. As per the video and the OP, ontological naturalism has no place for intentionality. Any philosophy that leaves half of reality on the table, the inner world of subjective experience, is a failed philosophy. You can issue as many promissory notes about “someday, maybe” science will solve the hard problem, but they’re just that, promises. As far as that goes, you don’t even need to be a theist to consider consciousness fundamental in the same way that energy is.

Yawn. If you're going to be the first theist ever to make an actual, compelling argument for why anybody should give half a shit about the deluded nonsense you people come up with, and why your deluded nonsense is better than all the other deluded nonsense people invent and call 'supernatural', get the fuck on with it already. Otherwise, stop wasting everybody's time and just enjoy your deluded nonsense.

(March 30, 2014 at 10:22 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: There is a very big difference between ontological and methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism has proven enormously useful for understanding the natural world. It only makes sense that if you want to study natural things you focus exclusively on natural causes and effects. You would have everyone take a leap of faith, and it is exactly that, and ignore the parts of reality that don’t fit neatly into the self-imposed limits of your own bias.

I accept this criticism but am unmoved by it. I take it as definitional that everything in the physical world including the consciousness which arises from these brains of ours, occurs naturally. Subjective states are natural. If the woods were filled with gods I'd expect a natural account of them as well. I can conceive of nothing beyond the natural. To say that a thing is natural is one and the same with saying it is real or exists.

And no I cannot falsify this. It isn't a theory. It is simply what I mean by the words I use. If there is a way that something can exist and yet be incompatible with the rest of what is .. please enlighten me. What exists is what is natural. I see no alternative.

(March 30, 2014 at 10:22 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Your position is that everything true must be subject to empirical testing. Apply that to your own philosophy. The fact of the matter is that ontological naturalism doesn’t have any explanatory power. There is no way to falsify your stance.

That isn't really a sincere criticism if you yourself don't require falsifiability of your own approach. Or, if you contend that you do so, how exactly does one test the notion of god or disembodied consciousness?

(March 30, 2014 at 10:22 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Any philosophy that leaves half of reality on the table, the inner world of subjective experience, is a failed philosophy.

But of course to say that natural accounts are not yet adequate is not in itself a point in favor of theological accounts. To explain one mystery in terms of another is no explanation at all. "Explanation" is an enterprise of the natural world. "Faith" in the unexplainable is no explanation at all, it is an alternative to explanations.

"Disembodied consciousness." Now there's a head scratcher--far more silly than the brain in the vat.

(March 31, 2014 at 12:33 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: "Disembodied consciousness." Now there's a head scratcher--far more silly than the brain in the vat.

Chad will have to correct me if I get this wrong, but I think that is what he believes. I think the analogy is of a radio receiver. Our bodies by this way of thinking don't generate consciousness, they simply 'pick up the signal'. Consciousness is seen here as apart from the physical. The wonder of brains is that they allow us to access it .. or something like that.

If that were true -and I for one reject it- I'd still expect a natural account of how this is possible. It is fine and good to classify subjective phenomena as different in kind in that they are of the first person variety. It is always problematic to see the medium through which one sees, or understand the mechanism by which one understands. But I don't see how placing them in another dimension helps any.

Whateverist, do you view mental objects as non-spatial? If so, how do spatial objects (such as microscopic brain processes) cause non-spatial objects to emerge (in the mind)? Any ideas? Reversely, how do non-spatial events (conscious thoughts) effect spacial events, such as physical changes (i.e. bodily health)? Or is our concept of space (to say nothing of consciousness) too incomplete to understand this phenomenon?

I think we are so enamoured with science that we cannot tell the difference between sensible conclusions and absolute facts.

Only experiences are facts. They are facts because in the having of them, their existence is validated. The colors I see, the sounds I hear-- the "what its like" of all these is intrinsically truthful. Even in a massive LSD trip with all the mental fireworks and distortions that can involve, the experiences themselves are-- well, what they are. It's when we try to draw inferences from the fact of experience that we begin to form ideas about some underlying objective truth, which is independent of our experiences. Enter science-- using ONLY experiences, we've arrived at a model of space and time, at an understanding of the brain, and of the relationship between the brain and the mind.

Now, we have a conceptual closed loop-- we are using the mind to formulate an understanding of the mind, while treating the ideas we make as representing something other than our experiences.

But can this be done at all? What precludes the Matrix, or a BIJ, or the Mind of God, or a dreaming superself, from exhibiting that same consistency of experience? Nothing. It is impossible to establish objectively the existence of an objective reality, "meta-objectivity" so to speak, because our means of trying to do this are inherently subjective. You simply can't get there from here.

So why choose a physical monism? If everything is "just" experience, why go with science? The answer isn't that we've proven physical monism true in an absolute sense-- it is that science has proven extremely useful in investigating and communicating ideas about our COMMON experiences-- those being the ones we call physical. However, so far science is so hopelessly useless at explaining why we experience subjectively that we have to ask ourselves-- is this really the right tool for the job?

To say that science is the right tool to explain why we subjectively experience what things are like is to exhibit faith, IMO. It is, in fact a "Science of the Gaps." There's no part of science, including the study of neurology, which even HINTS that we MIGHT be able to understand why there is consciousness rather than the lack of it. And really, how could you? Given any physical system, how do you determine that it is REALLY experiencing what things are like, rather than just dumbly processing input and outputting a behavior?

Now, how about God? I would argue this: that the existence of qualia is SO centrally important to our existence, and SO poorly explained in science, that it needs its own word. "God" works, since God is that component of nature which has qualia. But I'm not saying qualia prove a Biblical God. I'm saying that God is an adequate term for a universe full of experiences, whose existence is really a complete mystery.

(March 30, 2014 at 4:45 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote: God cannot be measured, observed, or scrutinized. Even if we were to dismiss empirical methods, God can't even be interviewed (nor would he be likely to cooperate, otherwise we would know already). God's effects cannot be compared relative to anything God might explain. Even if God actually was the initial source of consciousness, it still wouldn't explain the nature of consciousness. You'd simply be giving up one concept you can't explain for another concept you can't explain. No useful knowledge would be obtained. It puts us absolutely no closer to accomplishing the goal of explaining what it is and how it works.

God has all the explanatory power of a shrug of the shoulders.

Although God is not comprehensible to us in a physicalistic/empirical sense, the most familiar and yet mysterious quality that everyone ascribes to Him (assuming that He exists) when they use the word "God" is that He possesses consciousness, that He has a mind. If He didn't have that then we wouldn't be calling Him "God." So, in our minds the idea of God and consciousness are inextricably connected.

And the consciousness that we ascribe to God comes from our own experience of consciousness, which itself is a wholly subjective state. This means that, epistemically speaking, the unexplainability of God is not something separate or additional from the unexplainability of consciousness as people are thinking here. The mystery of God is caused by the mystery of consciousness and vice versa; they are just different perspectives.

And how much of an explanatory power that God has doesn't just have to mean "scientifically explanatory," in case you were expecting it to be that way. Science itself is a construct of our own minds, yet science cannot explain minds because the mind is more fundamental.

The means of explaining things - whether it is through science, mathematics, religion, philosophy, or whatever - are all inherently subjective howsoever empirical or objective they might seem. The subjectiveness, the fundamental inwardness in ourselves is the only route we can take. Knowledge starts there and it ends there.

(March 30, 2014 at 10:54 am)rasetsu Wrote: Various gods? I've made it clear I worship one god. That you don't even know what I believe and yet you think yourself fit to criticize is pathetic and stupid.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but to me it wasn't clear that you worship only one god, and it still isn't clear.

One thing I know about you is that you said that you follow a brand of Hinduism known as Shaktism which, although there is only "one" supreme being according to that religion, there are also numerous other gods/goddesses co-existing with each other which are said to be diverse manifestations of that supreme god (for example, the goddess of material fulfillment, the goddess of cultural fulfillment, the goddess of destruction, the fierce goddess, the widow goddess, and so on). Those are just some of the principal deities - "deities" with an "s" - each of them having separate functions and their own images and statues.

Therefore, in that regards, Shaktism doesn't appear to be a monotheistic religion to me even if you say that all those gods are manifestations of a single god. There are various gods and not just one god. So you will have to incorporate multiple gods into your religious view in order to regard yourself as a true believer of Shaktism. That is my take on your religion, unless you can convince me otherwise.

(March 31, 2014 at 3:11 am)bennyboy Wrote: Now, we have a conceptual closed loop-- we are using the mind to formulate an understanding of the mind, while treating the ideas we make as representing something other than our experiences.

I agree with you, and I was thinking the same thing while typing my response. I think that what belief in God does is that it sort of closes the loop because God contains all the consciousness, and we ourselves, through the consciousness ingrained in us, are able to associate the consciousness with God Himself who is ultimately the source of that, even though we don't understand Him fully.

The rest of your comments were really interesting and I might ponder on those points for a good amount of time.

(March 29, 2014 at 8:13 pm)Rayaan Wrote: This is an enlightening and a very respectful debate which covers many of the philosophical explanations for consciousness. In it, the debater that starts to speak first is Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, a Muslim convert, who gives a scrupulous run down of the naturalistic explanations for consciousness and, ultimately, why they all fail. Then he presents an alternative argument, which is a theistic explanation. The other debater, Professor Peter Simons (who is an atheist and a philosopher), said that he agrees with everything his opponent said regarding the subject except for his conclusion, i.e. the idea that a greater sentient being is necessary in order for consciousness to exist. But whether you yourself believe in God or not, the various explanations presented are worth pondering on as they shed light on the mystery of consciousness from several fields of study, e.g. from a biological, theological, and a philosophical perspective, and how some of the explanations even complement each other.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77J6g04UeY0

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Consciousness is such a poorly defined concept that anyone can manipulate the definition so that fits their belief/philosophy.

This is flim-flam, sir. PT Barnum would be proud.

MM

(March 31, 2014 at 3:11 am)bennyboy Wrote: Only experiences are facts.

What please is the qualitative difference between an experience and conclusions from a scientific observation?

(March 31, 2014 at 5:49 am)Alex K Wrote:

(March 31, 2014 at 3:11 am)bennyboy Wrote: Only experiences are facts.

What please is the qualitative difference between an experience and conclusions from a scientific observation?

The experience is intrinsically real. The attributes we make about the nature of the experience, or its source, are not.

So when you do scientific observation, you are really having the experience of looking at a microscope, or of writing down your results, or of reading your published work with pride. But none of all this tells you whether you are looking at a microscope inside a BIJ, or writing down your results on a Matrix reconstruction of paper, or reading the work as represented in the Mind of God. Most importantly, it does not give you good information about whether the universe is a physical monism, an idealistic monism, a substance duality, or something else.

Caveat: the same goes for religious attributions. Just because you see Jesus flying down from the sky to tickle your tummy with a magic feather, doesn't mean there's any underlying reality to that experience.