What is Faith?

[Komodo]

I dispute P1, P1 has not been demonstrated to be true. So if P1 has not been demonstrated to be true, then the whole argument fails.

P1 is, "If naturalism is true, then chemical actions (which are in themselves non-rational) cause mental states in people such as considering, judging and concluding." Are you saying that "chemical actions cause mental states" is not the claim of naturalism? Then what is the claim of naturalism regarding the cause of mental states?

Or are you -- once again! -- refusing to see the difference between a statement about what naturalism claims to be true, and a statement that naturalism is true? Because if you mean "it has not been demonstrated that chemical reactions cause mental states," that's exactly what you are doing. If P1 had been "chemical reactions cause mental states," then "that has not been demonstrated" would be a reasonable objection. But that's not what P1 says. What P1 says is "If naturalism is true, then chemical reactions cause mental states." That's a true statement, even if naturalism is not true, and chemical reactions do not cause mental states!

"If flat earthers are right, then if you travel far enough in any direction, you will eventually come to the great ice wall." This is a true statement, even though such an ice wall has not, of course, been demonstrated to exist. It's a true statement of what flat earthers believe. The same principle applies to my P1.

 

[El Cid]

The difference between the physical and non-physical is insurmountable if anything is insurmountable. Yes, I made a mistake in my statement.

First, this is just a proclamation, not a demonstration. Second, though you say you make a mistake, you have not withdrawn the claim that the non-physical can cause the physical (see below). If that is the case, you can't possibly say that this is an "insurmountable" difference!

It is insurmountable by non-supernatural forces.

El Cid said:
Yes they are two different claims.

Then if I dispute claim 1), it does no good for you to reply by asserting claim 2), or vice versa.

El Cid said:
No, if naturalism were true we would be automatons without a free will and unable to freely evaluate the premises and evidence.

I just finished saying -- in the part you're replying to -- that I've repeatedly addressed this claim but you have made no effort to show why my counter-arguments are wrong: you just repeat the claim. And again you simply make no effort to show why I'm wrong, you just again repeat the claim. But I'm going to try once more:

1. If naturalism is true, then chemical reactions cause logical reasoning based on premises and weighing of evidence.
2. If it is true that chemical reactions cause logical reasoning based on premises and weighing of evidence, then it must be true that logical reasoning based on premises and weighing of evidence is real.
3. If logical evidence based on premises and weighing of evidence is real, then logical evidence based on premises and weighing of evidence can be the real cause of our conclusions.
Therefore, if naturalism is true, then logical evidence based on premises and weighing of evidence can be the real cause of our conclusions.

So, now could you please, please, tell me which of those premises you dispute?

Maybe we can start small, and you can tell me if you dispute the following proposition: if an argument is presented, and you don't dispute the premises, and you don't dispute that the conclusion follows logically from those premises, you can't reasonably dispute the conclusion. Agree?

I'd really, seriously like an answer to this. If you don't agree, if you're just asserting that you can't tell me where my argument is wrong, but you know that it is... then I think you can see why this is an obstacle to discussion.

From the viewpoint of the actual evidence, premise 1 is false, from the viewpoint of someone that believes in naturalism then yes, the argument is hypothetically valid.

El Cid said:
Just because the mind can not articulate the memory to the outside world due to the brain damage does not mean it is lost.

People with Korsakoff's don't just have a problem "articulating the memory to the outside world": they simply fail to retain the memory. A Korsakoff's patient asks whether his father will visit him today, and is told that his father has died. Naturally, he cries at this news. Next day, he asks again whether his father will visit him today, and is again told that his father has died. Again, he cries at this news, which is obviously new to him. Next day, he asks again...

How can you possibly say that the memory of his father's death remains in his undamaged mind, when he behaves entirely as if he has no memory that his father has died?

El Cid said:
Again, using the computer analogy. if my keyboard was broken you would think that I had lost my ability to acquire short term memory as well.

I don't know what scenario you have in mind -- how we are communicating, what gets broken -- or how it would be analogous to the behavior of the Korsakoff's patient.

It may be in the temporal realm the mind uses the brain to store and retrieve memories. So if the brain is damaged, then the mind cant retrieve the memory.

El Cid said:
You are right, I made a mistake. But I stand by my statement that the physical and nonphysical are very different from each other, but because the mind is made of spirit it can transcend that difference and cause physical effects.

[My emphasis.] Again, if you are not withdrawing the claim that the non-physical can cause the physical, then you can't possibly say that this is an "insurmountable" difference; you're saying it is surmounted every moment for every one of us!

It is insurmountable to natural forces but not supernatural forces.

Also, if the mind does cause neuron firings, what do those firings do?

Enable the body to operate according to the intentions of the mind.

I don't know what scenario you have in mind -- how we are communicating, what gets broken -- or how it would be analogous to the behavior of the Korsakoff's patient.

See above.

 

[Komodo]

It [the gap between physical and mental] is insurmountable by non-supernatural forces.

You're not giving any reason to accept this proclamation.

From the viewpoint of the actual evidence, premise 1 is false...

No, P1 ("If naturalism is true, chemical reactions cause logical reasoning") is true, even if the evidence shows naturalism to be false, because it is not a claim about what causes reasoning, it is a claim about the position of naturalism.

from the viewpoint of someone that believes in naturalism then yes, the argument is hypothetically valid.

If the earth is flat, all the land and sea is surrounded by the great ice wall.
If the land and sea is surrounded by a giant ice wall, it is possible to reach the great ice wall.
Therefore, if the earth is flat, it is possible to reach the great ice wall

This is a valid syllogism. It isn't "hypothetically valid from the viewpoint of someone that believes in a flat earth," it's valid, period. It's valid because the conclusion necessarily follows if the premises are true. It doesn't require any belief in the flatness of the earth in order to be valid. And exactly the same is true of the syllogism I just offered you. So, again: do you dispute the claim that if you are presented with a syllogism, and you do not dispute either premise, and you do not dispute the logic, you cannot dispute the conclusion?

It may be in the temporal realm the mind uses the brain to store and retrieve memories. So if the brain is damaged, then the mind cant retrieve the memory.

So the failure to remember things when the brain is damaged is not evidence that physical events cause mental events, because it's possible that these mental events go on unaffected in the non-temporal realm, secretly and undiscoverable to all observers, despite the apparent loss of memory?

By that standard, of course -- "it may seem that Y doesn't happen without X, but Y may still be happening, in a realm beyond time and space" -- there's nothing at all which could ever be regarded as evidence for anything.

 

[El Cid]

You deny that computers are programmed?

No? But the issue whether people have fee will.

But if we dont have free will, we are just like computers, bound by our flow chart program. We cannot do anything original.

El Cid said:
With semantics you have to choose what word to use. Without free will you dont have a choice.

Without free will choices are still made, similar to a computer. It’s whether the choices are free or determined. If you want to say that determined choices aren’t really choices, that’s just semantics.

Determined choices are not free choices. And they controlled by your program and limited to what is on your flow chart.

 

[Gus Bovona]

But if we dont have free will, we are just like computers, bound by our flow chart program. We cannot do anything original.

That's not an argument against not having free will, you're just mentioning some of the implications. Also, originality doesn't depend on free will. A random number generator will produce an original - new, unique, never-seen-before - series of numbers.

Determined choices are not free choices.

By definition, so, so what?

And they controlled by your program and limited to what is on your flow chart.

Right. I acknowledge there are many things I can not and will never able to do that other people can. Again, this isn't news, and it's not an argument that we have free will.

 

[El Cid]

But you are not choosing to influence people, because without a free will you cant choose anything.

As I implied above, this is just semantics, you are not offering an argument. A selection is made from potential options - one could say X, one could say Y - and something gets said. That's just what determinism is claiming.

No, see above how we are bound by a program without free will. You could say X or Y but you cant say Z. With a free will you could say Z or an infinity of other things.

El Cid said:
While we have animal bodies, we are far more than our bodies, that is why we have a true free will unlike animals.

Saying we are far more than our bodies is just a fancy way of assuming what you want to prove, that we have free will. It's not a demonstration or an argument that we have free will, because now you have to show that we are far more than our bodies.

Here are three things that point to that fact, maintenance of identity thru time, NDEs, and transgenderism if it is real. And there are others, but these three will suffice for now.

 

[Gus Bovona]

No, see above how we are bound by a program without free will. You could say X or Y but you cant say Z. With a free will you could say Z or an infinity of other things.

You don't have free will to flap your arms and fly off the ground and sustain it. You don't have the free will to stab a baby for no reason. Etc., etc., etc.

Here are three things that point to that fact, maintenance of identity thru time, NDEs, and transgenderism if it is real. And there are others, but these three will suffice for now.

Why is maintaining identity thru time necessarily point to free will?
Why do NDEs necessarily point to free will?
Why does transgenderism necessarily point to free will?

 

[El Cid]

Only scientists can conclude something. Science is just what the study of nature is called.

Basically, I agree. Not sure where this is going.

Only human scientists (who can never be completely unbiased) can come to conclusions. There is no impersonal objective infallible source of knowledge called Science.

El Cid said:
Nancy Bryson was removed from her post as head of the science and math division of Mississippi University for women after she delivered a lecture to honors students about some of the scientific weaknesses of chemical and biological evolution.

Here is the account from the Chronicle of Higher Ed, http://arn.org/docs2/news/criticreinstated031803.htm. It sounds like it very well could be a case of denying academic freedom, but it’s hard to tell for sure.

Well it sounds you may agree with me then. Glad you are willing to admit there was a bias against the supernatural.

El Cid said:
Nevertheless they are sometimes right.

”Sometimes” doesn’t help us at all before we know whether any particular case is one of those times or not.

Actually a better term than hunch is intuition. Many things have been discovered thru intuition, ask almost any woman.

El Cid said:
Biologist

What was your terminal degree? What type of job or specialty?

Masters in Wildlife Biology. I am a biologist and environmental scientist for the department of transportation.

El Cid said:
Nevertheless it is evidence. I wouldn't lie about it.

This would make any rational person doubt how good of a scientist you are if you think evidence should be accepted because someone says they wouldn’t lie about it.

You do know that scientific investigation is based on the honor system right? There are no science police.

El Cid said:
I have seen such a survey at least for the US and it is overwhelming that they believe that science can only be conducted from a naturalist perspective.

A lot depends on exactly what that survey asks. Do you have a link?

No.

 

[Gus Bovona]

Only human scientists (who can never be completely unbiased) can come to conclusions. There is no impersonal objective infallible source of knowledge called Science.

Agreed. Science is as close as we can get.

Well it sounds you may agree with me then. Glad you are willing to admit there was a bias against the supernatural.

Not quite:

Here is the account from the Chronicle of Higher Ed, http://arn.org/docs2/news/criticreinstated031803.htm. It sounds like it very well could be a case of denying academic freedom, but it’s hard to tell for sure.

Actually a better term than hunch is intuition. Many things have been discovered thru intuition, ask almost any woman.

All your comment does is to swap out one word for the other, because we're still left with my comment that

”Sometimes” doesn’t help us at all before we know whether any particular case is one of those times or not.

Masters in Wildlife Biology. I am a biologist and environmental scientist for the department of transportation.

You do know that scientific investigation is based on the honor system right? There are no science police.

How could you have gotten a masters in Wildlife Biology and think that science is based on the honor system?! And that there are no science police? Forgive me, but those are howlers! Can you cite anything from a scientific source - textbook, peer-reviewed paper, a trade book from a scientist at a university or research institute, etc. - that says that science is based on the honor system? Furthermore, all of science is the science police, that's what scientists do, they police each other.

No.

Then you should understand that you claim about such a survey is worthless, it's indistinguishable from someone just making it up. In science, you have to be able to back up what you claim.

 

[El Cid]

No, science is just what the study of nature is called. Only scientists can make conclusions derived from science.

You're not addressing the point. You said "Science cant conclude anything", I replied with the obvious example of the Earth orbiting the sun. The above seems to change the subject.

See my post to Gus above.

El Cid said:
Evidence he didnt back it up with science? He was a biology teacher not an evolutionary biology teacher. The best way to learn a scientific theory to study its weaknesses. If a theory is unfalsifiable then it is probably false.

There is no science that supports ID, there are only inferences from science but those inferences are not themselves backed up by science.

Uhh science is inferences from data. There are inferences from the data that support the possibility of design by a personal creator. Just as there are a few inferences that may not point to design, but overall there is more evidence for design than random impersonal processes.

 

[Whatsisface]

See my post to Gus above.

Sorry, but no. I don't know what you might mean specifically.

Uhh science is inferences from data.

That can be part of it, but in science before anything is taken as true it has to be shown as so, the inference has to be demonstrated as true.

There are inferences from the data that support the possibility of design by a personal creator.

But those inferences have no evidence they are true.

Just as there are a few inferences that may not point to design, but overall there is more evidence for design than random impersonal processes.

This is just not true. If you properly look at at evolution you will see an overwhelming amount of evidence that shows it true and yet it is an impersonal process. The mechanism of it is well understood, and that understanding shows that although impersonal, it's not random because it works within and because of the laws of physics.

 

[El Cid]

Only if my flowchart program included such a scenario or if there was some instinctual reaction to the symbols of 10, 5, and 3.

I see nothing to prevent a deterministic brain from perceiving and responding to symbols like 10, 5, and 3 (that doesn't already assume there is no free will, which would make a circular argument).

Only if it is programmed to recognize those symbols. If they are not part of the program it would not. Like animals, no animal recognizes those symbols, unless an intelligence intervenes and reprograms the animal.

El Cid said:
Actually, I made a mistake. Our syllogism P2 should say "The will does not exist." Then P3 follows.

But claiming there is no free will doesn't require saying there is no will at all (unless you want to make that argument), so P2 is not part of the claim that there is no free will.

Yes, a true will is free. If the will is not free then it is not a true will. A healthy animal will eat when it gets hungry because it has no will to overcome its survival instinct. Only humans have the ability not to eat when they get hungry, because they have a true will and it is free. And there are other examples such as our sexual drives as well.

El Cid said:
All natural selection would select for, is that she acted in a way that allowed the survival of her children. Love is not necessary for survival and neither is a free will so neither would be selected for.

What gets selected for is not what is required. What gets selected for is merely that which offers even a small advantage for leaving more offspring than those who don't have what is selected for.

Exactly, and a free will and love are not needed to leave more offspring. In fact most organisms that have large numbers of offspring do not shows signs of either of those behaviors.

El Cid said:
Because truly logical reasoning requires unique combinations of premises that probably would not have been part of our programmed flowchart, therefore we would never be able to come to the correct conclusion. But because we are not bound to a pre-programmed flowchart if we have a free will, our minds can come up with unique conclusions and solutions.

Improbable things happen all the time, so saying something is improbable is no argument that it can't have happened. Also, are you implying that we're programmed from birth and that's it? Our programming changes all the time, given the plasticity of the brain.

If there is no free will then yes, we would be programmed from birth, though different programs would kick in at different ages, such as there would be no sex drive in babies.

 

[Gus Bovona]

Only if it is programmed to recognize those symbols. If they are not part of the program it would not. Like animals, no animal recognizes those symbols, unless an intelligence intervenes and reprograms the animal.

Depending on exactly what we mean by "programming," that programming is called education.

Yes, a true will is free. If the will is not free then it is not a true will. A healthy animal will eat when it gets hungry because it has no will to overcome its survival instinct. Only humans have the ability not to eat when they get hungry, because they have a true will and it is free. And there are other examples such as our sexual drives as well.

This is the no true Scotsman fallacy, look it up. "True" is doing no work in that sentence for you. You're just defining a will to be free will, but you don't establish an empirical fact, like whether people have free will, by definition.

Exactly, and a free will and love are not needed to leave more offspring. In fact most organisms that have large numbers of offspring do not shows signs of either of those behaviors.

So where are you going with this? What's your point (that you haven't already made and to which I've already responded)?

If there is no free will then yes, we would be programmed from birth, though different programs would kick in at different ages, such as there would be no sex drive in babies.

You're ignoring the possibility of our programming changing as we live, which is what families, cultures and education do.

 

[El Cid]

Precisely.

How would one tell the difference between an answered prayer and a post-prayer coincidence?

If the Christian God exists, then it is an answered prayer.

 

[Whatsisface]

If the Christian God exists, then it is an answered prayer.

Is it possible that the Christian God exists but doesn't answer all prayer? Is it further possible that a particular thing prayed for comes to be not by God's doing but coincidentally?

There is a fallacy of thinking called Post hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin: 'after this, therefore because of this')

 

[Exeter]

Is it possible that the Christian God exists but doesn't answer all prayer? Is it further possible that a particular thing prayed for comes to be not by God's doing but coincidentally?

There is a fallacy of thinking called Post hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin: 'after this, therefore because of this')

So someone prayerfully asks God for something, and coincidentally they get it without God's help.

What's the catch?

 

[Whatsisface]

So someone prayerfully asks God for something, and coincidentally they get it without God's help.

What's the catch?

The point is how would you know it's answered prayer?

 

[Exeter]

The point is how would you know it's answered prayer?

How would you know it wasn't?

 

[Whatsisface]

How would you know it wasn't?

You wouldn't, but you wouldn't know it was either. So, what's the rational thing to conclude from all this?

 

[Exeter]

You wouldn't, but you wouldn't know it was either. So, what's the rational thing to conclude from all this?

We should pray for coincidences.