(March 8, 2018 at 5:34 pm)Whateverist Wrote: In the article "Brains Wide Shut" published in a collection of them appearing in the book The Brain, Patricia Churchland disparages Daniel Dennet's book Consciousness Explained for adequately explaining nothing about consciousness. She argues there are four criteria for pronouncing a theory of consciousness as adequate. Such a theory must explain the main properties in sufficient detail to satisfy four conditions:
1) we understand how macro events emerge from the properties and the organization of the micro events;
2) novel phenomena can be predicted;
3) the system can be manipulated;
4) and it is clear at what level of brain organization the phenomenon resides.
So it occurred to me that of all the things God has been alleged to explain, I wonder how nearly adequate Churchland would find any such explanation. Regarding the creation of the cosmos, what level of God's properties and organization are thought to account for it? Regarding supernatural manipulation reported in miracles, can this God theory predict when new instances will occur? Regarding the vouchsafing of objective moral values, what aspect precisely of God's organization explains such a thing?
Consciousness has the reputation of being the "hard problem", but compared to Christian god theory it is simple. Leastwise the way forward to an adequate theory is not problematic. Neuroscience will simply continue to unravel the brains complexity until something satisfying emerges. No pathway toward an adequate God theory seems possible where its advocates start out assuming the ways of God are beyond their powers. In place of theory, Christians just advocate compliance with the organizing principles of religion. But then the ends of religion never were to explain origins or morality or the supernatural. The ends of religion have always been appeasement.
No kidding, if “god” was actually a reasonable explanation, then it would have been too complex an explanation for anyone dumb enough to be a Christian to be comfortable with.
