[yoe]

Printed out to read later....with a dictionary! Most interesting.

[abclily]

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.

[Tom in SFCA]

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?

[MNDude]

Me not understand.

[Louis Foxwell]

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.

[alstewartfan]

Only those with insufficiently evolved brains believe in Darwinism.

[JusPasenThru]

Bump. I love Hart’s writing but it does take some effort.

[JusPasenThru]

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.

[unlearner]

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.

[Chode]

Cogito ergo sum

[P.O.E.]

“Merely fact-minded sciences make merely fact-minded people.” ― Edmund Husserl, Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology