Atheism Undermines Knowledge

[Faith No More]

Close. I am saying this. The scientific method has self-imposed limitations that prevent it from closing the gap between quantifiable properties with measurable outcomes and knowledge about the qualitative aspects of reality. The scientific method is a tool and a very good one at that. But its not the end all be all of human understanding.

Can you clarify the bolded part and how that relates to the mind/body problem?

[Neo-Scholastic]

...prevent it from closing the gap between quantifiable properties with measurable outcomes and knowledge about the qualitative aspects of reality.

Can you clarify the bolded part and how that relates to the mind/body problem?

That’s a tall order, since whole books have been written on the subject.

Originally Aristotle identified 4 types of cause: material, efficient, formal and final. Of these, formal and final causes presuppose intelligent agency. Formal cause implies applied design. Final cause implies purposeful direction. Neither material nor efficient causes require goal-directed or designed outcomes.

Following Descartes, the modern scientific method focuses exclusively on material and efficient causes. The whole enterprise is devoted to eliminating final and formal causes. For example, a scientific analysis of a thermostat would describe the response of a bimetal strip (material cause) to changes in temperature (efficient cause). A non-scientific description of a thermostat is saying that it “wants” to reach a set temperature (final cause). Likewise a scientific analysis of the human brain would work to eliminate any description of the brain’s operation in terms of intention or sensations. If you believe, as I do, that intentions and sensations have a real place in your concept of reality, then the scientific method as currently applied will not preserve either.

But wait! You say, “things like intentions and sensations are ‘emergent’ properties.” Doing so introduces a category error between mental and physical properties. You do not attribute mental properties to things like thermostats for good reason. They are physical systems governed solely by cause and effect. A desire to reach 72 degrees does not emerge in the thermostat. It doesn’t want anything, it just is. Likewise, driving is not an emergent property of a car. Driving is an act of intention expressing the will of the driver when applied to a physical object. So if the brain is a solely physical system why do you attribute mental properties to it? The problem is not a scientific one. The problem is conceptual.

[Anomalocaris]

The problem is not a scientific one. The problem is conceptual.

Your concepts are obstinant bullshit, as are any concept which postulate thing so conceived as to be undemonstratable in principle.

If what you want is shown to be false, or at least has no good reason to be true, then you grasp at any "concept" that might seem to allow it to be true, and claim any method which shows it false to be making a conceptual error.

You will not admit comforting you is not a priority in the order that happen to be found in reality. You are here for nothing other than satisfy a self-import greed for agreement. You are like a pitiful emotional panhandler who will not let go of passerby's sleeve until you are humored.

Change the subject or take hike.

[Ryantology]

But wait! You say, “things like intentions and sensations are ‘emergent’ properties.” Doing so introduces a category error between mental and physical properties. You do not attribute mental properties to things like thermostats for good reason. They are physical systems governed solely by cause and effect. A desire to reach 72 degrees does not emerge in the thermostat. It doesn’t want anything, it just is. Likewise, driving is not an emergent property of a car. Driving is an act of intention expressing the will of the driver when applied to a physical object. So if the brain is a solely physical system why do you attribute mental properties to it? The problem is not a scientific one. The problem is conceptual.

You make the mistake of assuming that all physical systems have the same properties. A brain, being a physical substrate, exhibits what you call 'mental properties'. The cause for this is unknown to us right now, but I have every confidence that a physical explanation will reveal itself in time, because there are countless phenomena once thought to be supernatural and eventually proven otherwise (while the reverse has never once happened). I see no need to resort to a supernatural explanation, because in all of human history, no supernatural claim has ever been demonstrated to be different from anything anyone can just make up.

[fr0d0]

It's not 'feelings' Esq, it's thought. If you can rationalise something that cannot be proven empirically, that's not a feeling. There are reasons for your decisions. What you are dismissing is this whole realm of human endeavour (which covers far more than philosophy). That's wholly illogical.

You can rationalize a lot of things. Your ability to do so doesn't mean that it exists, or even that it's rational at all; all it proves is that your mind is able to contort into a shape where it can accept a given proposition. I mean, there are tons of religions you don't ascribe to, and they've all managed to rationalize their gods into being the same as you have. Obviously at least one of you is wrong, despite thinking you've got more than a feeling.

And I'm not dismissing anything, I'm simply noting that things that exist tend to leave evidence of their existence, and without evidence we're not justified in believing something to exist.

I'm not interested in existence. There is nothing to prove. My faith hinges on my belief.

My mind doesn't 'contort'. It finds the most rational answer, as it must.

If all religions address the same subject, then all religious conclusions are pretty close.

[Silver]

Religious people believe in what they cannot see, yet they refuse to believe what is right in front of them. If anything, religion undermines knowledge.

[Neo-Scholastic]

You make the mistake of assuming that all physical systems have the same properties.

Your assumption not mine IF you think everything can be explained by four fundamental forces and a handful of constants. Because I have already given reasons why so-called 'emergent' properties are just an atheistic version of "woo".

A brain, being a physical substrate, exhibits what you call 'mental properties'. The cause for this is unknown to us right now, but I have every confidence that a physical explanation will reveal itself in time.

Then maybe you care to actually deal with the reasons I presented for why that faith is misguided. Instead of mindlessly repeating your tired and pat answers.

[Ryantology]

Your assumption not mine IF you think everything can be explained by four fundamental forces and a handful of constants. Because I have already given reasons why so-called 'emergent' properties are just an atheistic version of "woo".

It's not an unsafe assumption to make. People used to think that gods made the sun shine and the rains fall. Now, we know about nuclear fusion and the water cycle. What you cannot do is demonstrate why it is the better idea to assume that mental operations will always be forever beyond the capacity of physical science to explain.

Then maybe you care to actually deal with the reasons I presented for why that faith is misguided. Instead of mindlessly repeating your tired and pat answers.

"Because you said so" is not compelling enough a reason for me to care about dealing with. I'll continue to repeat my answers as long as you insist on saying that supernatural explanations are valid without ever offering a single good reason why anyone should accept it.

[Esquilax]

Robert Heinlein said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

No he didn't. Well, maybe he did, but if so he was quoting Arthur C Clarke's third law.

Nitpicky? Yes. But attribution is important in science!

I'm not interested in existence. There is nothing to prove. My faith hinges on my belief.

Still not getting this whole "beliefs can be wrong," thing, I see.

My mind doesn't 'contort'. It finds the most rational answer, as it must.

Can you provide another situation in all of history where the answer, when it was found, actually was magic, whether divine or otherwise?

If all religions address the same subject, then all religious conclusions are pretty close.

And yet they all claim to be the embodiment of the one true god, and they're all different. So, regardless, some of you are still wrong.

[sevenofnine]

The idea that some kind of omnipotent force has anything to do with cause and effect is as ludicrous as the idea that events happen with some kind of significant meaning. It all boils down to longing for a higher purpose in your existence.