Thought Experiment

[Whatsisface]

I guess I am not sure what you mean then.

Numbers, like the laws of logic, are concepts that can't be other than what they are. For example, the concept of a single item can only be about one item, not two items or any other number of items. Sooner or later these concepts will occur to creatures capable of abstract thought. These concepts need minds to be thought about, but not to be.

If anyone has a better way of saying this, please chip in.

So if the consequences of your behavior are good for you, then that means it is moral?

Not necessarily. There is good in that something is of personal advantage to you, and then there is moral good. They can be different.

Like Joseph Stalin gained great power and wealth for many years, so does that mean what he did was good?

Only in that it was of personal advantage to him, not in that what he did was morally good, or that he achieved this power and wealth by moral means. In fact we know that Stalin acted immorally most of the time.

 

[El Cid]

Actually most Christian scientists were monogenists. Which is plainly what the Bible teaches as well. And most abolitionists were Christians. And contrary to what you posted Darwin thought blacks were much more closely related to apes. Read his Descent of Man. And was a polygeneist.

Even if true, this doesn't mean evolution is false.

Actually I was wrong, Darwin was not a polygeneist, but he definitely thought blacks and other more primitive humans were an inferior subspecies of human. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...ns-famous-book-Descent-Man-warped-racism.html But yes that does not mean evolution is false.

But as far as slavery is concerned I have demonstrated in the other thread I have been posting under this heading the Bible only allows for voluntary slavery except for POWs.

No you haven't. Exodus 21:7 “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are".

There is nothing voluntary here, the daughter is being sold as a slave. That's what the text plainly says.

Even today a father can send his daughter to school or camp against her will at least until age 18. This was like an apprentice marriage. Marriage was much more important in ancient times than today.

Slavery is immoral, don't you agree?

Yes, but why would an atheist think it is immoral since there is no real reason to consider it immoral if there is no God.

Irrespective of what some southern antebellum theologians thought. And evolution was the scientific backbone of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany's justification for it.

No it wasn't, it was good old fashioned human nature in the form of prejudice.

Fraid so, most of the Nazi leadership was hardcore evolutionists. Goebbels said that HItler "made fun of the Japanese Minister after an evening party in the Chancellery and said that the minister reminded him of a yellow ape from a primeval jungle." And there are many other examples of their evolutionary views.

The reason most atheists are against slavery is because most of them were raised in Western Christian founded nations. But their basis for being against it is purely emotional, unlike Christians they have no rational objective basis for condemning slavery.

Unlike Christians, atheists have no rational justification for slavery.

Atheists have no rational objective basis for condemning the holocaust.

And if your morality is just emotion based then it is much more likely to be undermined and begins a slippery slope towards tyranny as seen in Nazi Germany and Communist countries.

Why would God say rape is wrong?

Because it hurts someone made in His image.

 

[Whatsisface]

Actually I was wrong, Darwin was not a polygeneist, but he definitely thought blacks and other more primitive humans were an inferior subspecies of human. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...ns-famous-book-Descent-Man-warped-racism.html But yes that does not mean evolution is false.

Thank you.

Even today a father can send his daughter to school or camp against her will at least until age 18. This was like an apprentice marriage. Marriage was much more important in ancient times than today.

But it doesn't say if a man sells his daughter into marriage, it says as a slave.

Yes, but why would an atheist think it is immoral since there is no real reason to consider it immoral if there is no God.

Funny how most atheists will say that slavery is immoral then. Would you put this down to coincidence, or would you think they might have a reason to say it?

I take it if God didn't exist, you'd be in favour of slavery?

Fraid so, most of the Nazi leadership was hardcore evolutionists. Goebbels said that HItler "made fun of the Japanese Minister after an evening party in the Chancellery and said that the minister reminded him of a yellow ape from a primeval jungle." And there are many other examples of their evolutionary views.

Is that it? Is that your reason for thinking this? Don't you have anything more substantial?

Here is a quote from a study entitled "Was Hitler a Darwinian"? By Robert J. Richards The University of Chicago.

There is no evidence linking Hitler’s presumption of such a hierarchy and Darwin’s conception. Moreover, Hitler explicitly denied the descent of species, utterly rejecting the idea that Aryan man descended from ape-like predecessors.

Found here.

Atheists have no rational objective basis for condemning the holocaust.

Because it hurts someone made in His image.

So, the key element here is, it can only be wrong if man is made in God's image. The fact of harm doesn't count to a Christian unless it happens to someone made in God's image?

That's essentially what you're saying.

 

[Algor]

Atheists have no rational objective basis for condemning the holocaust.

This is the semantic equivalent of saying that Cubists have no rational objective basis to love a rainbow.

Amazing what passes for apologetics in some circles.

 

[El Cid]

ALL evolutionists are and were monogenists.

No, Haeckel and Wallace were monogenists and there are probably some modern less well known monogenists as well.

But plenty of Christians were monogenists who believed slavery of blacks was justified by the curse of Ham.

From Noah's Curse to Slavery's Rationale (Published 2003)

Article on upcoming conference at Yale University's Gilder Lehrman Center for Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition in which origins of idea of race will be discussed; experts comment on their research into interpretation of Bible passages about Noah and his son Ham and later concepts of...

www.nytimes.com

Yes, but it is quite obvious from the Bible that the curse of Ham only applied to his descendents that settled the land of Israel not Africa.

Not true, not by a long way. The Descent of Man was the book that proved monogenism.

You are right he was a monogenist but he was definitely a racist. He plainly considered most of the nonwhite races as inferior.

By the way, here is Darwin's view of slavery:

Those who look tenderly at the slave-owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the position of the latter;--what a cheerless prospect, with not even a hope of change! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of your wife and your little children—those objects which nature urges even the slave to call his own—being torn from you and sold like beasts to the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one’s blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty.​

- Voyage of the Beagle 496-98​

He makes clear he is against slavery; the Bible does not.

Nevertheless he was a racist. Yes, the Bible is against involuntary slavery as I have demonstrated in the other thread.

No, you asserted that on the other thread.

The Bible clearly shows otherwise - that gentile slaves were regarded as property and kept as slaves for life. Just as was the case for slaves in the US.

Nope not property in the sense you are referring. And only for life if he died before the year of Jubilee. Also, if his master mistreats him, he can escape to a sanctuary city, see Deuteronomy 23:15-16.

It is a fact that race-based slavery was justified by the Bible.

It was but without any basis, because all of the nations that surrounded Israel were Semitic peoples, the same race as the Hebrews, so it would be impossible for it to be race based slavery. Many of the less religious slave holders based it on evolution in the 1850s and early 60s.

Did you know the Southern Baptist Convention was founded because of slavery? They split from thee Baptist Convention because the Baptist Convention was against slavery. The whole raison d'être for the largest Protestant denomination in the US was slavery!

The founding faculty of this school—all four of them—were deeply involved in slavery and deeply complicit in the defense of slavery. Many of their successors on this faculty, throughout the period of Reconstruction and well into the twentieth century, advocated segregation, the inferiority of African-Americans, and openly embraced the ideology of the Lost Cause of southern slavery.​

...​

Eventually, the questions come home. How could our founders, James P. Boyce, John Broadus, Basil Manly Jr., and William Williams, serve as such defenders of biblical truth, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the confessional convictions of this Seminary, and at the same time own human beings as slaves—based on an ideology of race—and defend American slavery as an institution?​

See here.

That can happen if you fail to understand scripture properly and become blinded by racism. Christians are sinners too. But that doesnt discredit Christianity anymore than evolution is discredited because Nazi justification for the Holocaust was based on Darwinian evolution, right?

Not true.

Fraid so, read "Darwinian Racism: How Darwinism Influenced Hitler, Nazism, and White Nationalism" by Richard Weikart.

Nazi Germany was 94% Christian. All those men rounding up Jews and gassing them - they were Christians.

Not the leadership, but yes most ordinary Germans claimed to be Christians but most had become Nationalists, where the nation is placed above God and His moral laws. A plain violation of the First Commandment. Also, there was a growing number of liberal Christians in Germany who rejected the moral absolutes of the Bible like "You shall not murder."

Hitler was a great admirer of Martin Luther.

"I do insist on the certainty that sooner or later—once we hold power—Christianity will be overcome and the German church, without a Pope and without the Bible, and Luther, if he could be with us, would give us his blessing."​

​

"To them belong, not only the truly great statesmen, but all other great reformers as well. Beside Frederick the Great stands Martin Luther as well as Richard Wagner."​

- Hitler​

That is where the blueprint for the Holocaust comes from - the anti-Semistism of the founder of Protestantism.

Luther never advocated extermination of the jews. And he only turned against the jews in old age because they had failed to convert as much as he hoped after he had reformed the church. In his younger years he told the German people to treat jews with respect. BTW Hitler's other two heroes you mention were atheists. He had much more in common with them than Luther.

"First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. ...​

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. ...​

Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. ...​

Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. ...​

Fifth, I advise that safeconduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. ...​

Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. ..."​

- Martin Luther​

What rational objective basis is that?

Surely not the Bible, which states explicitly that chattel slavery is allowed.

The objectively existing moral character of God.

 

[The Pixie]

ALL evolutionists are and were monogenists.

No, Haeckel and Wallace were monogenists and there are probably some modern less well known monogenists as well.

I think you meant they were polygenists. Yes, I will give you that one. However, they disagreed with Darwin about the descent of man.

Yes, but it is quite obvious from the Bible that the curse of Ham only applied to his descendents that settled the land of Israel not Africa.

And yet plenty of Christians used it to affirm their view that black people were inferior, were slaves by God's will.

This is simply a historical fact. You can disagree with those Christians, but you cannot pretend they do not exist.

You are right he was a monogenist but he was definitely a racist. He plainly considered most of the nonwhite races as inferior.

As a Victoria Englishman, he possibly did, but he was surely less racist than most of his generation. He was, after all, the guy who proved we are all one race! Undoubtedly this is partly why his book was so controversial.

Also worth noting that he is on record condemning slavery, while your God is on record allowing it.

Did you know Darwin was born on the same day as Abraham Lincoln? Who was more racist?

... I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. ..​

- Abraham Lincoln; Fourth Debate with Stephen Douglas, September 18, 1858​

Nevertheless he was a racist. Yes, the Bible is against involuntary slavery as I have demonstrated in the other thread.

You asserted that, based on quotes about Hebrew slaves.

The Bible explicitly says gentiles can be owned as property, for life.

Nope not property in the sense you are referring. And only for life if he died before the year of Jubilee. Also, if his master mistreats him, he can escape to a sanctuary city, see Deuteronomy 23:15-16.

And yet it says the gentile slave can be regarded as property, can be kept for life - and not until the Jubilee - and that he can be treated ruthlessly.

You are confusing the treatment of Hebrew slaves and gentile slaves.

It was but without any basis, because all of the nations that surrounded Israel were Semitic peoples, the same race as the Hebrews, so it would be impossible for it to be race based slavery.

The slavery in the Bible is based on the same bigotry of them-and-us. In the Bible, the in-group is the Israelites; Israelites are to be treated well. The out-group is the gentiles. They can be used as chattel slaves, no need to treat them well.

In antebellum America, blacks were the out-group. But the slavery was the same.

Many of the less religious slave holders based it on evolution in the 1850s and early 60s.

Can you support that claim, or is this something modern Christians have made up to justify the horrors perpetrated with the support of the Bible?

That can happen if you fail to understand scripture properly and become blinded by racism.

It is worth noting that the last places where racist segregation was perpetrated in the US was Christian school and universities.

On national television in March 2000, Bob Jones III, who was the university’s president until 2005, stated that BJU was wrong in not admitting African-American students before 1971, which sadly was a common practice of both public and private universities in the years prior to that time. On the same program, he announced the lifting of the University’s policy against interracial dating.​

Statement about Race at BJU

At Bob Jones University, Scripture is our final authority for faith and practice and it is our intent to have it govern all of our policies. It teaches that God created the human race as one race.

www.bju.edu

Bear that in mind where you discuss racism.

Christians are sinners too. But that doesnt discredit Christianity anymore than evolution is discredited because Nazi justification for the Holocaust was based on Darwinian evolution, right?

The Nazi justification for the Holocaust was based on Christianity, not evolution, so no, that doers not discredit evolution at all.

Something like 96% of Germans in 1939 were Christians. The blueprint for the Holocaust was written by Martin Luther, the devout Christian who founded Protestantism. Are you a Protestant?

First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. ...​

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. ...​

Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. ...​

Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. ...​

Fifth, I advise that safeconduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. ...​

Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. ...​

Books on evolution were banned in Nazi German, but Hitler is on record saying how much he admired Luther.

And, of course, there is a long, long history of anti-Semitism embedded in Christianity.

Fraid so, read "Darwinian Racism: How Darwinism Influenced Hitler, Nazism, and White Nationalism" by Richard Weikart.

A book full of BS by a Christian desperate to discredit Darwin. I do not think I will bother with that one.

If you think his arguments have worth, present them here.

Not the leadership, but yes most ordinary Germans claimed to be Christians but most had become Nationalists, where the nation is placed above God and His moral laws. A plain violation of the First Commandment. Also, there was a growing number of liberal Christians in Germany who rejected the moral absolutes of the Bible like "You shall not murder."

Nationalism and Christianity are all-to-often found together. Look at the far right in the US today.

Luther never advocated extermination of the jews. And he only turned against the jews in old age because they had failed to convert as much as he hoped after he had reformed the church. In his younger years he told the German people to treat jews with respect. BTW Hitler's other two heroes you mention were atheists. He had much more in common with them than Luther.

Not quite extermination, but everything up to that.

The objectively existing moral character of God.

The God who said chattel slavery is allowed... as long as they are gentiles.

 

[El Cid]

Not so. In the Descent, he lays out all the arguments for polygeny but concludes:

Although the existing races of man differ in many respects, as in colour, hair, shape of skull, proportions of the body, etc., yet if their whole structure be taken into consideration they are found to resemble each other closely in a multitude of points. Many of these are of so unimportant or of so singular a nature, that it is extremely improbable that they should have been independently acquired by aboriginally distinct species or races. The same remark holds good with equal or greater force with respect to the numerous points of mental similarity between the most distinct races of man. The American aborigines, Negroes and Europeans are as different from each other in mind as any three races that can be named; yet I was incessantly struck, whilst living with the Fuegians on board the “Beagle,” with the many little traits of character, shewing how similar their minds were to ours; and so it was with a full-blooded negro with whom I happened once to be intimate."


and:

"Now when naturalists observe a close agreement in numerous small details of habits, tastes, and dispositions between two or more domestic races, or between nearly-allied natural forms, they use this fact as an argument that they are descended from a common progenitor who was thus endowed; and consequently that all should be classed under the same species. The same argument may be applied with much force to the races of man. "

and

"Nevertheless, at this early period, the intellectual and social faculties of man could hardly have been inferior in any extreme degree to those possessed at present by the lowest savages; otherwise primeval man could not have been so eminently successful in the struggle for life, as proved by his early and wide diffusion."

IOW he felt that all the "races" of man had a common origin that was roughly on par in intellectual development with "savages" all over the world.

I have already admitted that I was wrong about him being a polygenist but some of the leading early Darwinists were. Haeckel and Wallace to name two. And Darwin was definitely a racist.

Not so. Darwin and Darwinian evolution was proscribed teaching in Nazi schools, and his books were burnt. The Nazis did not hold to the fixity of the species, but by the 20th century everyone had given up on that Biblically based doctrine. Heck, Linnaeus doubted it himself, towards the end of his life.

Fraid not. Read Weikert's "From Darwin to Hitler", "Darwin and the Vampire: Evolution's Contribution to the Holocaust" by E. Michael Jones, and the award winning biography Hitler by Ian Kershaw. Among many others.

 

[Eightcrackers]

Yes, but why would an atheist think it is immoral since there is no real reason to consider it immoral if there is no God.

Because we define the morality of an action in terms of the action's consequences.

Which does not require reference to any god.

 

[Whatsisface]

Yes, but why would an atheist think it is immoral since there is no real reason to consider it immoral if there is no God?

You seem to be saying that there is nothing wrong with slavery in itself, and it's only wrong because God says so? Is that right?

If there is something wrong with slavery in itself then God isn't needed for it to be wrong.

 

[Komodo]

Fraid not. Read Weikert's "From Darwin to Hitler", "Darwin and the Vampire: Evolution's Contribution to the Holocaust" by E. Michael Jones, and the award winning biography Hitler by Ian Kershaw. Among many others.

I've read Kershaw's biography of Hitler, and I don't remember anything in it about how belief in Darwinian evolution was a motive for the Holocaust. Of course I might just have forgotten it, in which case can you say where this discussion appears?

 

[Whatsisface]

Fraid not. Read Weikert's "From Darwin to Hitler",

Weikart is best known for his 2004 book From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics and Racism in Germany.[22][23] The Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement, funded the book's research.[24] The academic community has been widely critical of the book.

Found here.

 

[El Cid]

By happening one after the other.

A single ball's path through a Galton machine is random, but the distribution of many balls, is not.

No, that doesnt cause an accumulation. There has to be something like natural selection that selects on something that will accumulate. Just the random distribution of balls does not accumulate over time.

 

[Algor]

I have already admitted that I was wrong about him being a polygenist but some of the leading early Darwinists were. Haeckel and Wallace to name two. And Darwin was definitely a racist.

OK. So were many Christians racist. This has no bearing on evolution. I mean, if you really want to go there South African Apartheid was basically justified by the racist doctrines of the Dutch reform church. What this says about the historicity of Christian doctrine in my opinion is very little, but if you want to go well-poisoning, let's have at it.

Fraid not. Read Weikert's "From Darwin to Hitler", "Darwin and the Vampire: Evolution's Contribution to the Holocaust" by E. Michael Jones, and the award winning biography Hitler by Ian Kershaw. Among many others.

'Fraid so. By the middle of the 19th century, the Biblical literalist doctrines of the worldwide flood, and the Biblically justified biological theory of the fixity of the species had already been discarded, PRIOR to Darwin. It had become clear that there were ages before man, inhabited by animals and plants different than those extant. EVERY biologist was an evolutionist of one sort or another, and the major question was how the changes in flora and fauna came about, not whether they came about. Darwinian evolution supplied a powerful explanation, but even in the early 20th century, not all biologists, even on scientific grounds, embraced Darwinian natural selection. Various forms of Lamarckism and vitalism were still major viable theories, and the debates in the literature were fierce. German scientists in particular were 'antidarwinian": the rise of modern evolutionary biology was largely (though hardly completely) an American and British affair. As I have noted before: Hitlerism condemned Darwinian biology as too reductionistic and mechanical, and Darwin's books were burned.

(continued..: I am having a lot of trouble posting. Not sure what's up)

 

[Algor]

I have already admitted that I was wrong about him being a polygenist but some of the leading early Darwinists were. Haeckel and Wallace to name two. And Darwin was definitely a racist.

Fraid not. Read Weikert's "From Darwin to Hitler", "Darwin and the Vampire: Evolution's Contribution to the Holocaust" by E. Michael Jones, and the award winning biography Hitler by Ian Kershaw. Among many others.

(Cont'd ): If you doubt my above I suggest you read something like Nordenskiold's History of Biology from the 40's: prior to the discovery of DNA and the molecular basis of evolution, these debates were quite fierce. It is basically a bait and switch: to say that because Hitler was influenced by Goethe's ideas of evolution (which were promoted by anti-Darwinians) , Darwinian biology bears at it's heart a moral corruption is just weird, and has nothing to do with how contemporary Germans viewed the issue.

If you want a better insight into the minds of 19th century scientists, try Martin Rudwicks pair of books: Bursting the Limits of Time and Worlds Before Adam. You might also explore some of the pre-Darwinian Christian polygenists. Here's one look:

https://www.history.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/History-of-the-Human-Sciences-2013-Keel-3-32.pdf

Blaming racism and atrocity on science or religion is reductive, and if you are looking for historical truth you will find that it generally doesn't fit a neat narrative.

 

[El Cid]

Alot of people's brains have been a little unusual. Neanderthals generally had much larger brains than modern humans. How come they didnt produce an advanced civilization?

Actually, Neanderthals were a lot more sophisticated than was originally thought. I could give a long list of the things they could do, including making stone tools, weaving, seafaring, treating severe injuries. You don't go from essentially a cave man to Rome quickly. It all needs progress over time. Even Newton, one of the worlds greatest scientists, had no idea of relativity and Einstein had to really work on it.

I agree but my point is that there is more to intelligence than brain size. I certainly agree that early humans were more sophisticated technologically than mainstream anthropologists claim.

Many years ago, A hydrocephalic man who had only a thin layer of brain tissue and the rest of his head was fluid, got a college degree. There is far more to the mind and intelligence than just the physical brain and its size.

I found this ...

Roger Lewin published an article in the prestigious journal Science, December 12th, 1980, describing and discussing Dr Lorber's work. Some sceptics claimed that Dr Lorber misinterpreted the Cat scans and others complained that he had not exactly quantified the amount of missing brain tissue. Lorber replied that he would hardly make such astounding claims without the backing of substantial evidence and commented on the lack of precise quantitation - "I can't say whether the mathematics student had a brain weighing 50 grams or 150 grams, but it is clear it is nowhere near the normal 1.5kg and much of the brain he does have is in the more primitive deep structures that are relatively spared in hydrochephalus".

and ...

Hydrocephalus has been induced in cats in order to study the structure of the altered brain. The cat experiments show that hydrocephalus preferentially damages the white brain matter. The relative sparing of the grey matter may, at least partly, explain the retention of normal functions in many severely hydrocephalic individuals.

Found here.

The story might not be so straightforward as you think.

I think it basically confirms my point. There is far more to the mind than brain matter.

I agree, they have a nonphysical mind within them. As an atheist what else besides chemicals is the brain made up of?

"Weighing about 3 pounds in the average adult, the brain is about 60% fat. The remaining 40% is a combination of water, protein, carbohydrates and salts. The brain itself is a not a muscle. It contains blood vessels and nerves, including neurons and glial cells".

You do know that all those things are made of chemicals right? Try again.

Found here.

Children can learn to communicate without contradicting themselves without ever taking any class in logic. This points to it being built into the human mind. But of course, people can be taught to improve their use of the logic they were born with.

People think logically and illogically all the time. Logic isn't built into the human mind, it's able to be realised by the human mind. What's built in is the capacity to learn.

Many scientists like Noam Chomsky believe that the basic framework of logic and language IS built in. Of course, it helps to learn how to use it and you can be taught to be better at it than others that have not been.

 

[Algor]

You do know that all those things are made of chemicals right? Try again.

No. Spatial architecture is not reducible to the chemicals themselves: I pointed this out above, as did Nouveau. Please. Time to give up on this one: there is no physical law that the mind violates. Indeed, deprive the brain of the appropriate chemical materials and a mind will vanish, never to be seen again.

Many scientists like Noam Chomsky believe that the basic framework of logic and language IS built in. Of course, it helps to learn how to use it and you can be taught to be better at it than others that have not been.

Developmental scientists all agree that if language is not taught, children do not achieve it. Similarly with logic: rudiments and learning rules seem to be innate, but without experience and teaching children do not develop the abstract capacity.

 

[El Cid]

Calculation, please.

Because I know for a fact that it's not 1-in-5.

You are right. Not being a gambler or knowing dice terms I erroneously thought snake eyes were rolling a two on a single die. The chance of rolling snake eyes is actually 1 in 36. But my point is that the odds of discovering truths by accident are far less. Probably more like the chance of rolling snake eyes five times in a row which would be astronomical.

 

[El Cid]

Which "laws of chemistry"?
There are a lot.

I took general chemistry and organic chemistry and only remember one set of laws. So if you know of more I am all ears.

 

[Eightcrackers]

I took general chemistry and organic chemistry and only remember one set of laws.

Yes - which of these laws does the mind defy?

Be specific - quote the law/s.

 

[El Cid]

Computers are purely physical, and yet are internally organized in such a way as to be able to make inferences and perform calculations. Are they breaking the laws of electronics? Shouldn't they just be providing output based on the ratio of electrical signals instead giving correct answers based on arithmetic?

Thats because they are specifically programmed a mind to overcome the laws of physics. Unlike human brains which as all atheists claim has no programmer.