So you allege, allmendream. But as far as I can tell, it's an unsupported allegation.
If all the human brain is, is a "larger, more resource-consuming ape brain," then how do you account for the (uncountable orders of magnitude) difference in what these brains can be observed to accomplish in the real world, respectively?
To put it another way, if the ape could make up that less-than-two percent deficit in the DNA he shares with humans, would he then be able to go build, say, a Hoover Dam? Construct a mathematical theory? Compose a symphony?
And so forth.
Your reductionist view makes no sense to me. It actually explains very little.
amd: The biology of the human brain has no transcendental or mystical properties. It is a larger more resource consuming ape brain.
Spirited: Either we are dual beings in the Biblical sense or we are not. If we are, then it is only because our mind transcends the material that we are able to “be in our material bodies” yet simultaneously transcend them mentally and say such things as: “I (allmendream) have but an ape brain.”
Your argument is based in materialist scientistic presuppositions and assumptions (naturalism). In the main, materialism is revamped “pagan-monism”-—Epicurean Materialism. Naturalism by any name is pagan monism. From the essay, “Occult Pagan Revival Signals Death of America and the West, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2659568/posts :
“Materialism teaches that all that exists is merely material or energy which is impersonal, totally neutral to any moral system or any interest in man as man. In this view, there is no basis for law, and no basis for man as unique and important.
Materialism is of the world view of monism which teaches that all that exists is “one self-creating, self-sufficient substance” which may be divine spirit (pantheism) or spiritless substance (materialism).
Monism is held in common by materialism, pantheism, and spiritualism and dates back to pagan antiquity and was or is taught by all non-biblical thought systems from Buddhism to Epicureanism, Gnosticism and today’s New Age Cosmic Humanism.
Monism teaches that all things, including mankind, are merely diverse parts of the one-substance. God is acceptable to this monistic frame of mind only if He is not something outside of and superior to the one-substance but one with it. In other words, God must be dispersed throughout the whole substance.
In his book, “Utopia: The Perennial Heresy,” Thomas Molnar explains that evolution, whether Darwinian or a spiritual conception such as Teilhard’s idea, serves as an imaginary mechanism of perfection for both man and the one-substance:
“Through evolution the world substance becomes progressively pure, homogenous and perfect until the terminal point is reached...” (p.235) At that point, there is either a perfected non-spiritual substance (materialism) or a perfectly spiritualized substance (pantheism). For utopians this means a heaven on earth ruled by perfected god-men.
In that materialism excludes the transcendent Creator, angels, demons, heaven, and hell it must also explain away man’s God-given individual spiritual endowments —soul, mind, free will, and conscience— attributes defined by the Founders as self-evident truths, for it is self-evidently true that all men think, choose, and feel guilt. In short, in denying the existence of God the Father and man’s supernaturally endowed attributes, materialist scientism abolishes our unalienable rights, thereby making worthless both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.”
Theistic evolution also rests upon the notion that evolution “perfects man,” which really means that man perfects himself.
Here in the West, all who are offended by Jesus Christ, judgement, and eternity flee to some form of evolutionary conception.
amd: The biology of the human brain has no transcendental or mystical properties. It is a larger more resource consuming ape brain.
Spirited: Either we are dual beings in the Biblical sense or we are not. If we are, then it is only because our mind transcends the material that we are able to “be in our material bodies” yet simultaneously transcend them mentally and say such things as: “I (allmendream) have but an ape brain.”
Your argument is based in materialist scientistic presuppositions and assumptions (naturalism). In the main, materialism is revamped “pagan-monism”-—Epicurean Materialism. Naturalism by any name is pagan monism. From the essay, “Occult Pagan Revival Signals Death of America and the West, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2659568/posts :
“Materialism teaches that all that exists is merely material or energy which is impersonal, totally neutral to any moral system or any interest in man as man. In this view, there is no basis for law, and no basis for man as unique and important.
Materialism is of the world view of monism which teaches that all that exists is “one self-creating, self-sufficient substance” which may be divine spirit (pantheism) or spiritless substance (materialism).
Monism is held in common by materialism, pantheism, and spiritualism and dates back to pagan antiquity and was or is taught by all non-biblical thought systems from Buddhism to Epicureanism, Gnosticism and today’s New Age Cosmic Humanism.
Monism teaches that all things, including mankind, are merely diverse parts of the one-substance. God is acceptable to this monistic frame of mind only if He is not something outside of and superior to the one-substance but one with it. In other words, God must be dispersed throughout the whole substance.
In his book, “Utopia: The Perennial Heresy,” Thomas Molnar explains that evolution, whether Darwinian or a spiritual conception such as Teilhard’s idea, serves as an imaginary mechanism of perfection for both man and the one-substance:
“Through evolution the world substance becomes progressively pure, homogenous and perfect until the terminal point is reached...” (p.235) At that point, there is either a perfected non-spiritual substance (materialism) or a perfectly spiritualized substance (pantheism). For utopians this means a heaven on earth ruled by perfected god-men.
In that materialism excludes the transcendent Creator, angels, demons, heaven, and hell it must also explain away man’s God-given individual spiritual endowments —soul, mind, free will, and conscience— attributes defined by the Founders as self-evident truths, for it is self-evidently true that all men think, choose, and feel guilt. In short, in denying the existence of God the Father and man’s supernaturally endowed attributes, materialist scientism abolishes our unalienable rights, thereby making worthless both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.”
Theistic evolution also rests upon the notion that evolution “perfects man,” which really means that man perfects himself.
Here in the West, all who are offended by Jesus Christ, judgement, and eternity flee to some form of evolutionary conception.
Lose that circuitry and cognition is gone, but the soul is unchanged.
Our biology is not transcendent or mystical.
A biological brain of sufficient size would be able to reproduce the same sort of feats, but without a soul, would it aspire to them, would it give its life meaning?
My “reductionist view” is that physical phenomena have explainable physical causes. This is the view that has led to all scientific advancement. The physical phenomena of our brains being capable of cognition and calculation is explainable by our very large and complex and resource consuming physical brains.