Posted on 11/09/2017 6:43:01 AM PST by Heartlander
Printed out to read later....with a dictionary! Most interesting.
And the ‘great’ minds believe that the Good Lord created humans with physical bodies but no spiritual souls? Some folks’ minds are not so great after all.
This same author wrote a piece published in the NYT on Nov. 4th entitled “Are Christians Supposed to Be Communists?” He seemed to answer in the affirmative. That piece was utter nonsense. This article you’ve posted here also seems largely incoherent. I’m wondering what this author’s deal is. What is he trying to accomplish other than getting published?
Me not understand.
All of this as well as the original text under critique were written without mentioning the singular truth that underlies all consciousness: God Consciousness. Everything ensues from the consciousness of God, even, and especially, consciousness itself.
“I AM” is the primordial conscious act. It is the first cause. As such it is uncaused. Consciousness is the essential nature of reality. There is no material reality. All materiality is phantasmagoric. It is the random ramblings of quarks and bliks bumping into each other. Without direction by consciousness nothing can possibly exist.
A purely materialistic interpretation of reality is simply Adam and Eve trying to hide from God.
Only those with insufficiently evolved brains believe in Darwinism.
Bump. I love Hart’s writing but it does take some effort.
Hart wrote an entire book asserting that very point. It is entitled The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss.
There is no explanation, it just is, or more to the point, we just are. Thanks Heartlander.
Does not take a book. The first chapter of Genesis does it perfectly. It is theology, epistemology, ontology, and cosmology all at once.
Wow. I sense a dismissiveness toward the author because people here think he’s a Communist. I have not read that article so I reserve judgment, but I have extensively read Hart and he is a wonder writer and intellect. If you don’t believe me, google his “Gods and Gopnik” article. It is one of the finest polemics I have ever read, and makes Gopnik out the be the colossal moron he is. Hart also has little regard for Dennett who is one of the most pompous academic in the universe.
Simply enough, you cannot suffer the illusion that you are conscious because illusions are possible only for conscious minds. This is so incandescently obvious that it is almost embarrassing to have to state it.
This is a very good rebuttal to the idea that self-awareness has been successfully explained by purely naturalistic mechanisms.
However, the author criticizes the book (which I am unfamiliar with) for treating self-awareness as an illusion, but does not address a salient aspect at the heart (no pun intended) of the issue. Namely, the perception of volitional control over our actions could be explained naturalistically and deterministically.
Yes, self-awareness does prove our own existence, but our self-perception is not always accurate. And the idea we are controlling our own actions could be an illusion that our self-aware minds experience.
Personally, I believe our actions are not entirely deterministic in nature. But I also believe some of them are.
Is this what you are describing?
Scientism shows that the first-person POV is an illusion. Even after scientism convinces us, we’ll continue to stick with the first person. But at least we’ll know that it’s another illusion of introspection and we’ll stop taking it seriously. We’ll give up all the answers to the persistent questions about free will, the self, the soul, and the meaning of life that the illusion generates.On a side note, it is amusing that Dennet and Coyne once argued the notion of moral responsibility without a persons ability to choose - see here.The physical facts fix all the facts. The mind is the brain. It has to be physical and it can’t be anything else, since thinking, feeling, and perceiving are physical process—in particular, input/output processes—going on in the brain. We can be sure of a great deal about how the brain works because the physical facts fix all the facts about the brain. The fact that the mind is the brain guarantees that there is no free will. It rules out any purposes or designs organizing our actions or our lives. It excludes the very possibility of enduring persons, selves, or souls that exist after death or for that matter while we live. (….)
The neural circuits in our brain manage the beautifully coordinated and smoothly appropriate behavior of our body. They also produce the entrancing introspective illusion that thoughts really are about stuff in the world. This powerful illusion has been with humanity since language kicked in, as we’ll see. It is the source of at least two other profound myths: that we have purposes that give our actions and lives meaning and that there is a person “in there” steering the body, so to speak. To see why we make these mistakes and why it’s so hard to avoid them, we need to understand the source of the illusion that thoughts are about stuff.
-Rosenberg, The Atheist's Guide To Reality, ch.9
“Is this what you are describing?”
Not exactly. I think it is important to distinguish two separate issues in this debate.
This article does a great job of showing that science has made no progress in demonstrating how mind (in terms of self-awareness) is the byproduct of purely naturalistic causes.
Unfortunately, science and scientism have been conflated, lately. Scientism demands the a priori assumption that the physical realm is all that exists. Therefore, any scientific, philosophic, or logical explanation otherwise must be, by definition (their’s), false.
The argument is not really made in this article that self-awareness proves control of our actions. Yes, we feel as if we are in control. But it is possible that our memories operate in such a fashion that at least some of the things we see as choices are really just justifications of foregone conclusions.
Compare, for example, the feelings of deja vu. These feelings are probably caused by errors in the way our memories either record or recall our experiences. We get the perception that we foresaw something.
Now, I’m not discounting the possibility or even probability that we can foresee things. We may also have the future revealed to us supernaturally. That is another possibility. But it is also a possibility that such experiences can be the result of misperceptions.
Even misperceptions confirm our own existence. But proof that our minds actually control our actions is different.
Your source: “The mind is the brain. It has to be physical and it can’t be anything else, since thinking, feeling, and perceiving are physical process—in particular, input/output processes—going on in the brain.”
Yeah. I disagree with this. And this is 100% assertion and presupposition. These are not observable facts. So, in a certain sense, the burden of proof is on the ones asserting these things.
After all, it IS the perception of self-awareness that we have some degree of control over our actions. Yes, the brain AND mind can be fooled. That is no proof that they are always fooled.
Causality is the presupposition of science. And there definitely appears to be a causal link in which our thought processes lead us to decisions, which lead us to actions.
“it is amusing that Dennet and Coyne once argued the notion of moral responsibility without a persons ability to choose”
Agreed. To me it is more reasonable to start with the assumption of personal responsibility and work backwards to support that we do have some ability to choose, whether directly or indirectly.
At a certain point, perception is reality. That’s particularly true if it the only reality we can experience. It’s another tree falling in the forest scenario. Does it make a sound with no one to hear it? Does it matter whether it makes a sound?
The Schrodinger’s Cat paradox may apply to things bigger than theoretical particles and waves in quantum mechanics. Rather than matter being the causal source of mind, it appears that mind determines outcomes in the physical realm. Perhaps this is true of physical reality as a whole. It may be that the physical realm is the result of the properties of the mind (not our own individual minds) rather than the mind being the result of properties of the physical realm.
Astronomers can predict the motion of Heavenly bodies with great precision. However, there is no such scientific way to foreknow whether a man’s car will be parked in his driveway at a certain time to a certainty. Probabilities might come into play. But, in many cases, the owner of a car may simply decide to hop in his car at a random moment and drive to the store.
Science can describe the firing of neurons in the brain of this person. But that is not really the same things as “explaining” his actions.
Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind talks about how we make decisions based on initial ‘gut’ feelings which we later try to justify. I agree with this to a certain degree and try to keep myself in check and question why some things repulse me while I find other things acceptable.
The Schrodinger’s Cat paradox may apply to things bigger than theoretical particles and waves in quantum mechanics. Rather than matter being the causal source of mind, it appears that mind determines outcomes in the physical realm. Perhaps this is true of physical reality as a whole. It may be that the physical realm is the result of the properties of the mind (not our own individual minds) rather than the mind being the result of properties of the physical realm.
Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.
- Schroedinger
We share the same views.
And great quote from Schrodinger.
Is this what you are referring to? - http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/content/orch-or-quantum
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