Can Atheism Account For Rationality

[JonathanL]

Except we do have certainty that the premises are true in this case. Nothing we could ever discover could ever show that thoughts/sensations/feelings are anything other than intangible, and the brain itself is clearly physical, so the mind clearly doesn't share identical attributes with the brain. And neither does it share identical attributes with the associated brain activity, so it can't be identical with that either.

Well it is

There is stronger reason to believe in the existence of the mind than there is to believe in the existence of the physical world for the simple reason that we don't even have direct access to the physical world in the same way we have direct access to our own minds. And given that we are more than justified in believing in the existence of the physical world we're even more justified in believing in the existence of the mind.

There is no good reason to think otherwise. A mere assertion is not sufficient, especially one with the incentivisation of an immortal soul being eternally rewarded.

You're the only one here who is hung up on the idea of an immortal soul being eternally rewarded.

[JonathanL]

And this is where we part company, I think. Since I believe the evidence suggests mind emerges from brain and the two are inseparable (in so far as the former cannot exist without the latter), then "where they are located" is a basic characteristic of both.

I don't think the evidence suggests anything close to the idea that the mind emerges from the brain rather than it just being a basic assumption made by most of the scientists studying the issue (whatever their exact field of study might be). At most the evidence points to there being some level of dependence, but going so far as to say that it shows that one is the cause of the other is a claim that goes beyond what the evidence shows imo.

I would consider most of this highly speculative. We don't know how the brain gives rise to the mind, so we don't know any of these things. We cannot definitively say "yeah" or "nay"

Not only do we not know how the brain gives rise to the mind, we don't even know THAT it gives rise to the mind. But disregarding that, we KNOW for a fact that thoughts exist in the mind, and the mind is the only place where we currently have access to them. There is seemingly a connection between thoughts and brain activity, but it SEEMS to be a secondary one, compared to the relation between thoughts and minds, because it atleast APPEARS as the thoughts themselves don't exist anywhere in the brain, or the associated brain activity, only that there is some kind of relation. IOW, all the knowledge we have points to thoughts (and all sorts of qualia) are primarily associated with the mind, and "only" secondarily with the brain. And we have no reason to believe any new discovery will overturn this.

I find discussion with you SO refreshing. Many (most?) here would simply have accused me of "nitpicking" or "twisting words." I find words fascinating - and how we use them even more so. I have a core philosophy: most of our disagreements boil down to differences in language use. If we take the time to define the terms and agree on what they mean, most disagreements disappear, as with this one.

I agree that differences in language can account for many disagreements, but I suspect that in the case of this discussion the fundamental disagreements won't disappear even when we have come to agreement as to the meaning of the terms used.

After giving this some thought, it dawns on me that we are splitting hairs a bit. There is no distinction in my experience between "sentience" (the sense of I), thought, and mind. They are different words for basically the same thing: that ineffable sense of I - reflection - that I experience every moment of every day. SO saying "thought is associated with mind" is like saying "gases are associated with air." The air IS a collection of gases. The mind IS a collection of thoughts.

I'm inclined to agree that sentience and mind are probably the same thing. I'm less sure I agree with the idea that the mind is simply a collection of thoughts. At least my experience of my own self/mind doesn't give me the impression that I'm simply a collection of thoughts, and I'm not aware of any good reasons to discount this experience of my mind being more than just my thoughts.

THAT would be an intriguing experiment - and I have no idea how you would accomplish it. I wonder what a person with "locked in" syndrome experiences. Since I see no avenue for verifying this speculation, I guess we have to leave it at "we don't know."

I'm fine with that.

Think about what "being focused on" means. In my experience, my thoughts are sifting through various memories and striving to find associations to address a problem, question, or make a decision. Why cannot electrochemical activity be doing that in much the same way a computer accesses memory to derive data, elements of programming, and address a particular problem (i.e., displaying something on a screen, solving an equation, etc.)? The human brain's ability to do this puts the computer to shame due to the exponentially greater complexity of the neural connections - not the situations are analogous.

I'll try and articulate my thoughts on this matter, but I'm not sure if I'll be very successful, especially given that I'm far from an expert on computer hardware, and am only speaking from cursory knowledge, so I might not be using terminology correctly, and some of the specifics might not be exactly accurate. In any case, here goes:

As I see it all of the information in the computer doesn't really mean anything at all unless it's interpreted by a mind. All of the "data" in the storage units (whether it's a HDD or an SSD, or whatever else you might use as a storage device) or in the RAM is nothing other than a bunch of 0's and 1's (well, more like magnetized regions with different polarities on the HDD, or transistors and/capacitors being charged or not, we just conceptualize it as a bunch of 0's and 1's).

Bottom line however, is that the computer doesn't really do anything other than change the state of a bunch of transistors, capacitators and so on. All of the "data" that the computer displays on the screen or otherwise manipulates doesn't really mean anything until a mind interprets it. Through human ingenuity we have managed to make a machine that can change the states of billions of transistors and capacitators into different states of impressive complexity, but at the end of the day, that's all they are, outside of the human mind. Just a bunch of electronic components that are either charged, or not charged. We're the ones that decide that they actually represent the things that we think of them as representing.

Now if we go back to the mind, the situation is a bit different. If I think about the color red, the letter A, or the equation e=mc^2, unlike the computer, my thoughts are actually about these things that I'm thinking about. The on-off state in the transistors and capacitators inside of the computer aren't actually about anything, we've just found a way to make a bunch of these components display stuff on a screen that we have decided to encode with information (I'm not sure if "encode" is the right word, what I'm basically getting at is that we have decided that certain visual elements mean certain things, and that we have managed to get the computer to display these visual elements to a screen by manipulating the state of it's transistors/capacitators etc)

Same path - opposite directions...

The direction I'm going is much more preferable though.

[Tassman]

Except we do have certainty that the premises are true in this case. Nothing we could ever discover could ever show that thoughts/sensations/feelings are anything other than intangible, and the brain itself is clearly physical, so the mind clearly doesn't share identical attributes with the brain. And neither does it share identical attributes with the associated brain activity, so it can't be identical with that either.

There is stronger reason to believe in the existence of the mind than there is to believe in the existence of the physical world for the simple reason that we don't even have direct access to the physical world in the same way we have direct access to our own minds. And given that we are more than justified in believing in the existence of the physical world we're even more justified in believing in the existence of the mind.

You're the only one here who is hung up on the idea of an immortal soul being eternally rewarded.

[JonathanL]

There is every reason to believe that intangible thoughts/sensations/feelings are simply the brain in action, but for some reason we've spent several pages of this thread on the discussion about how the mind relates to the brain with no one listing even a single one of these reasons?

Are you kidding me? Our own minds are literally the only single things in existence to which we have direct access. There is not one other thing in existence that we are aware of that is accessible to us except in the form of sensations filtered through the mind. If we're not justified in believing in the existence of our own minds then we are not justified in believing in anything at all.

I would say that it's completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

[little_monkey]

Of coarse it is, as Carp mentioned, rationally you are "dead in the water." You have no rational basis for any claim since it opposite could be equally true.

Obviously you are clueless as to the meaning of "rational" - having reason or understanding (Merriam-Webster). The opposite is irrational. Stating that certain declarative statements cannot be attributed a True/False value is NOT an irrational statement.

Judging by your signature, "Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope", you must live a life of hate. You don't know what rational means, even less, you have no clue that you are living a meaningless life based on ignorance and hate. What a sorry individual you are.

[seer]

Many mammals demonstrate consciousness and some a degree of self-awareness.

I said the vast majority Shuny, only a handful of creatures show any sign of self-awareness. But nothing like the self awareness humans display.

[seer]

Jim would be correct, there is no other objective verifiable evidence fro anything other than Natural origins of our physical existence. There is no objective reason for any other explanation.

What is the evidence that this universe had a natural cause? And why would you call this universe natural since you believe God created it?

[Zara]

Are you kidding me? Our own minds are literally the only single things in existence to which we have direct access. There is not one other thing in existence that we are aware of that is accessible to us except in the form of sensations filtered through the mind. If we're not justified in believing in the existence of our own minds then we are not justified in believing in anything at all.

It's nice in a way, getting to experience a form of fundamentalism first hand like this - I have to say, this is new to me. This is pretty far out there in my opinion in terms of the strength and breadth of the certainty, the near impossibility of being wrong and the limit range of evidence that can sway the person. Let's just say, this person's views are not the norm in a philosophy faculty, even if a weaker version tends to be around as it were. Around half of PhDs and faculty in philosophy are physicalists, although physicalism itself is relative broad in scope with eliminative being uncommon, while more than half are moral realists. Naturalism is pretty common (50%), fair enough, while theism is not common as you probably known (about 15%), but not generally disrespected unless it's imposing itself. The opinion you quote from Tassman is, lamentable.

[seer]

Obviously you are clueless as to the meaning of "rational" - having reason or understanding (Merriam-Webster). The opposite is irrational. Stating that certain declarative statements cannot be attributed a True/False value is NOT an irrational statement.

Judging by your signature, "Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope", you must live a life of hate. You don't know what rational means, even less, you have no clue that you are living a meaningless life based on ignorance and hate. What a sorry individual you are.

I don't hate any one, and of course atheism is a cult of death. The death of hope. And it seems that Carp, another atheist, agrees with me on the irrational thing. If the laws of logic are not absolute then no claim or fact can be justified since it's opposite can be equally true. That is irrational. The sun can not both exist and not exist at the same moment. This is the law of non-contradiction and it is absolute.

[seer]

You are begging the question. Why does this universe have the precise values and properties that is does? And not only is it life permitting, life shows up, and not only life but conscious life (and as we discussed in the past no one knows why how we became conscious). So again we have two choices for what created this universe - the rational or the non-rational.

[shunyadragon]

I said the vast majority Shuny, only a handful of creatures show any sign of self-awareness.

The vast majority if not all mammals show consciousness. Vast majority is a subjective claim, and does not support your claims. because for one characteristic is nurturing the young shows a degree of self awareness.

But nothing like the self awareness humans display.

Nonetheless some animals like primates sea mammals. and at least show distinct signs of self awareness. The degree of self-awareness remains a subjective judgement. Actually the evidence indicates the evolution of self-awareness by degree.

[shunyadragon]

You are begging the question. Why does this universe have the precise values and properties that is does?

The simple answer is we do not know, and the precise values of our universe are simply are as they are. The different theoretical arguments why they are what they are at present do not answer the question. To be an issue that the values of the universe may or may not vary you have to believe in the multiverse hypothesis.

And not only is it life permitting, life shows up, and not only life but conscious life (and as we discussed in the past no one knows why how we became conscious). So again we have two choices for what created this universe - the rational or the non-rational.

The rational approach by the objective verifiable evidence is that our physical existence is natural in origin. There is no objective verifiable evidence that would lead to any other conclusion.

No one knows???? Arguing from ignorance without a knowledge of science. Science does not claim to know nor prove. Scientists falsify hypothesis and theories, base don the consistent nature of the verifiable physical evidence.

I take it by the above you do not believe in evolution. There is problem with your inconsistent claims in the past whether you do or not.

[seer]

The vast majority if not all mammals show consciousness. Vast majority is a subjective claim, and does not support your claims. because for one characteristic is nurturing the young shows a degree of self awareness.

Nonsense, only a handful of animals test positive for self-awareness:http://www.animalcognition.org/2015/...e-mirror-test/

Nonetheless some animals like primates sea mammals. and at least show distinct signs of self awareness. The degree of self-awareness remains a subjective judgement. Actually the evidence indicates the evolution of self-awareness by degree.

You can't be a little self-aware, you either are or you are not. You can't be a little pregnant.

[shunyadragon]

What is the evidence that this universe had a natural cause?

The objective verifiable evidence for the sciences of Physics, Cosmology and Quantum Mechanics. There is no objective verifiable evidence for anything else, unless your proposing an 'argument from ignorance' of the evidence.

And why would you call this universe natural since you believe God created it?

We have been over this again, again and again. I believe that God Creates 'naturally,' and there is no evidence of any other way Creation took place.

[seer]

The simple answer is we do not know, and the precise values of our universe are simply are as they are. The different theoretical arguments why they are what they are at present do not answer the question. To be an issue that the values of the universe may or may not vary you have to believe in the multiverse hypothesis.

What do you mean we do not know - of course we know Shuny - because of God, you believe God created the universe - correct. So again where is YOUR EVIDENCE that this universe was created by a natural force?

The rational approach by the objective verifiable evidence is that our physical existence is natural in origin. There is no objective verifiable evidence that would lead to any other conclusion.

So where is your evidence?