If beauty doesn't require God, why should morality? (Bite me Dr. Craig.)

[The Grand Nudger]

The problem is that while you can dig up bones, and maybe even DNA, you can't dig up subjective experiences like "beauty" or "morality."

I don't think that anyone's suggesting that we go out with a shovel and dig in the earth for subjective experiences. We're simply digging elsewhere, with more appropriate tools. -If- those experiences boil down to biology, evolution will have it's say. If they don't...then what? Obviously not a question that I have an answer for. But it puts it into perspective.

[Whateverist]

Well it is in the sense that it is a plausible NATURAL account. Still speculative but at least no woo.

I think it's dangerous to start taking made-up ideas, of any kind, and taking them as reality if they are not provable or disprovable.

Hey, it's a theory. If it makes you nervous, don't theorize. I don't find that I blur the line between speculation and reality so badly as to have to give it up myself.

It doesn't take much for science to become "Science," and for the authority of Scientists to usurp the good methodology of actual scientists. I think scientists have a reponsibility to stick to actual evidence, and to develop ideas that can be confirmed or disproven using scientific methodology. Saying, "I can make a story about how cavemen needed religion, therefore religion is an evolved trait" is not substantially different from "I can make a story that God visited cavemen, therefore God guided human development."

The problem is that while you can dig up bones, and maybe even DNA, you can't dig up subjective experiences like "beauty" or "morality."

No one is saying you can. I would be happy if my only problems were things this obvious. No one is calculating the path of a space craft based on theories of beauty or morality. I'm filing it under fun speculation. If you accept that morality is in the same boat as beauty, we're pretty much in agreement for whatever reason you come up with.

[ignoramus]

Basically, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it usually is a duck. This is where evolution shines and "god" sucks at explaining.

Okay, let's take the example of consciousness. Is evolution a better explanation of why there is consciousness rather than nothing like it? EVEN IF consciousness has evolved, it doesn't explain why there is such a thing as qualia at all. Our quacking duck only tells us that there are ducks which quack (to abuse your metaphor badly).

The main philosophical problem with evolution is that it requires a framework. If there is consciousness, it can only evolve in a framework which has the capacity for consciousness. So the question is this: did a framework which has the capacity for consciousness "just happen," or is there an intrinsic connection between reality and the capacity for consciousness?

I think the latter makes more sense: consciousness is not an accident, but is intrinsic to the nature of reality. That's not to say all things are conscious, but to say that the framework in which we exist could not work without that capacity. It seems strange to me that such a framework could arise out of a parent system that didn't also include that capacity.

Are you implying personal consciousness or a "mother nature" type consciousness?

[bennyboy]

Okay, let's take the example of consciousness. Is evolution a better explanation of why there is consciousness rather than nothing like it? EVEN IF consciousness has evolved, it doesn't explain why there is such a thing as qualia at all. Our quacking duck only tells us that there are ducks which quack (to abuse your metaphor badly).

The main philosophical problem with evolution is that it requires a framework. If there is consciousness, it can only evolve in a framework which has the capacity for consciousness. So the question is this: did a framework which has the capacity for consciousness "just happen," or is there an intrinsic connection between reality and the capacity for consciousness?

I think the latter makes more sense: consciousness is not an accident, but is intrinsic to the nature of reality. That's not to say all things are conscious, but to say that the framework in which we exist could not work without that capacity. It seems strange to me that such a framework could arise out of a parent system that didn't also include that capacity.

Are you implying personal consciousness or a "mother nature" type consciousness?

I'm saying that personal consciousness is only possible if the framework accomodates it. You couldn't have a purely mechanical universe which also had consciousness-- unless the capacity for consciousness is already intrinsic to the framework.

---

The problem is that while you can dig up bones, and maybe even DNA, you can't dig up subjective experiences like "beauty" or "morality."

I don't think that anyone's suggesting that we go out with a shovel and dig in the earth for subjective experiences. We're simply digging elsewhere, with more appropriate tools. -If- those experiences boil down to biology, evolution will have it's say. If they don't...then what? Obviously not a question that I have an answer for. But it puts it into perspective.

Evolution is the increasing persistence, over time, of traits. To say an animal has evolved physically, we can look at fossils and see the kinds of changes that happened over time. But how would we do this with consciousness? How would we know what, if anything, organism X experienced, and in what way its experiences persisted over time in the guise of species evolution?

[Whateverist]

I'm saying that personal consciousness is only possible if the framework accomodates it. You couldn't have a purely mechanical universe which also had consciousness-- unless the capacity for consciousness is already intrinsic to the framework.

But couldn't consciousness arise from purely mechanical processes? If so, the natural/mechanical framework certainly supports consciousness. The only existence of which we are aware contains both subjective realities and objective realities. I don't see why they can't overlap as they certainly seem to.

[ignoramus]

Most of the higher evolved animals have the capacity to think, plan, play, etc.
They are all conscious. They may not have man's intelligence to extrapolate thoughts like we can. Our thoughts (brain neuron activity), is what keeps us alive.
What we experience as the sensation of consciousness could just be the byproduct of an evolved brain. No need to read any further into it.

It is this evolved brain which then allows us to start fantasizing about other non existent notions like, god, soul, ghosts, etc.
Just because we think of crazy shit up, doesn't mean any of it is true.

To give you an example:
I suggested to a xtian on another post the other day about resetting back to zero and to establish a fresh baseline on reality.
I asked him if the plastic toothbrush (probably made in China), which he uses in the morning is "real", to which part of his answer included multiple fucking universes!

This is an extreme case of how our mind can fuck with our own sense of reality if we let it.... Please don't get your "mind" in a knot! There's only one universal reality we live in, which we don't know or understand a lot of it, and this is where all religions have taken advantage of that and filled all knowledge gaps with their ulterior versions of reality. That's all, it's not rocket science ...the term "faith" is an instruction to ignore the little voice of reason in your head.

[Mystic]

I think morality primarily is based on value (worth), fairness and empathy. All these can be explained by evolution to being here, but the problem is, would the reason of value and worth be true or false, if God is not there. Would our feelings of right and wrong be true if God is not there. It's not a matter if whether having these feelings can be accounted for by evolution without God, it's having them while knowing they are genuinely correct, without God, that is the problem I have.

[bennyboy]

I'm saying that personal consciousness is only possible if the framework accomodates it. You couldn't have a purely mechanical universe which also had consciousness-- unless the capacity for consciousness is already intrinsic to the framework.

But couldn't consciousness arise from purely mechanical processes?

Only if consciousness is already intrinsic, at least as a potential outcome, of the mechanical framework. If you're doing math, a rainbow doesn't magically pop out of your paper, because the math framework and the physical framework of your paper don't have that capacity.

Before you say I'm claiming God, keep in mind that ALL properties exist only because our framework has the capacity for them.

---

If so, the natural/mechanical framework certainly supports consciousness.

Yes, but here's my problem: the mechanical framework is DEFINED by us as acting deterministically and having certain inaliable properties: conservation of energy, the balance of the 4 basic forces, etc. Consciousness isn't included in this definition, so we are trying to force consciousness INTO that definition by redefining it AS a mechanical framework.

Nature obviously includes consciousness. But I don't think our definition of the natural universe as a mechanical system sufficiently encapsulates or explains the capacity for consciousness. (by which I mean the existence of qualia, not the ability of complex systems to interact with their environment)

The only existence of which we are aware contains both subjective realities and objective realities. I don't see why they can't overlap as they certainly seem to.

Absolutely.

---

I think morality primarily is based on value (worth), fairness and empathy. All these can be explained by evolution to being here, but the problem is, would the reason of value and worth be true or false, if God is not there. Would our feelings of right and wrong be true if God is not there. It's not a matter if whether having these feelings can be accounted for by evolution without God, it's having them while knowing they are genuinely correct, without God, that is the problem I have.

I disagree. First, subjective feelings can be taken as intrinsically right, without God. If most people think murder is great, then murder is great. It happens that due to evolution, most people do NOT think murder is great. No objective moral source is required.

To me, the best place to look for God is the entry point of consciousness. Why does the universe have the capacity for experience to exist at all? I'd argue that consciousness is INTRINSIC to the universe, and that if it arose out of something, that source is likely to be at least partly conscious, as well. To frame it in a moral sense-- while our specific mores are evolved, the capacity for people to experience mores cannot ultimately be evolved unless the framework of the universe has the capacity for a system to have a moral sense.

[Whateverist]

Yes, but here's my problem: the mechanical framework is DEFINED by us as acting deterministically and having certain inaliable properties: conservation of energy, the balance of the 4 basic forces, etc. Consciousness isn't included in this definition, so we are trying to force consciousness INTO that definition by redefining it AS a mechanical framework.

Nature obviously includes consciousness. But I don't think our definition of the natural universe as a mechanical system sufficiently encapsulates or explains the capacity for consciousness. (by which I mean the existence of qualia, not the ability of complex systems to interact with their environment)

Mechanical systems -except those we actually engineer ourselves- are descriptions of life systems. They're not ours to define. When we try to understand physiology we can describe ion uptake and calcium deposits and many more systems which I've forgotten about. But we don't 'define' them; the body's processes - including consciousness - can be understood up to a point but we don't quite seem ready to build up a living body from inorganic parts. Our descriptions are not complete. So I am not surprised that we cannot exhaustively account for all aspects of consciousness.

But the fact that our descriptions are not adequate does not mean we need to look elsewhere than the physiology and the chemistry and physics which underlies it. Can you suggest a more promising place to look for clues to understanding qualia and the rest of it?

[bennyboy]

Our descriptions are not complete. So I am not surprised that we cannot exhaustively account for all aspects of consciousness.

We cannot account for its most important aspect-- the fact of its existence. In order to account for it, a theory of consciousness has to be INTEGRATED with a theory of physical mechanism-- but then, it's no longer simply a mechanical explanation.

But the fact that our descriptions are not adequate does not mean we need to look elsewhere than the physiology and the chemistry and physics which underlies it. Can you suggest a more promising place to look for clues to understanding qualia and the rest of it?

You say that chemistry and physics underlies consciousness. But those explain how the brain processes the environment, which we experience in our conscious state as qualia. They do not explain why a universe that is supposed to be purely mechanical also includes the capacity for qualia, rather than lacking that capacity while things just blindly grind their deterministic paths. Poking the brain with an electrode and watching what happens on an fMRI is a fun medical/scientific process, but it still doesn't explain the existence of that capacity in the framework of our universe.