Underlying Presuppositions

[Leonhard]

I don't think much of Harris myself, but he's a relatively popular figure in the States, having appeared on plenty of news based talking head programs, and Bill Maher's show a few times, The Colbert Report and the like.

Bill Maher. There was once a time when I liked his humour. I can't understand why. And then when he started getting into HIV denial, anti-vaccine flirtations and anti-GMO nonsense I think I just filed him under crank.

[rogue06]

Bill Maher. There was once a time when I liked his humour. I can't understand why. And then when he started getting into HIV denial, anti-vaccine flirtations and anti-GMO nonsense I think I just filed him under crank.

And yet in 2009 Maher received the Richard Dawkins award from the Atheist Alliance for his contributions to an increased scientific knowledge even though they were well aware of his anti-germ theory, anti-vaccination positions.

[Leonhard]

And yet in 2009 Maher received the Richard Dawkins award from the Atheist Alliance for his contributions to an increased scientific knowledge even though they were well aware of his anti-germ theory, anti-vaccination positions.

The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker and Unweaving The Rainbow, will always be treasured by me. Just as much as when I was an atheist. The Selfish Gene too, even if it is a too gene-centric view of evolution. After that it just kinda went downhill for him. He should have stuck to popularising science, and debating creationists. He was good at that.

[Roy]

He has?

He has been very critical of certain atheists (Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, Bill Maher), and of atheists who support and agree with them. See e.g. https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyng...acts-straight/. His general approach is that atheism is not an indicator of integrity.

[Roy]

Christopher Hitchens I haven't read any of, and most people seem to find him the most objectionable of the 4, as he apparently had (dead now) quite an acerbic writing style that pulled no punches and he tended to go further in the direction of ad hominems than was perhaps helpful.

That's odd, because you and he have similar styles. Hitchens had the disadvantages of having first-hand experience, and being knowledgeable, direct, focussed and critical.

[Starlight]

That's odd, because you and he have similar styles.

The aggressive style I use in this forum when returning fire to those specific posters who have first aggressively attacked me, is rather different to the style I use in less inflammatory forums, and very very different to the style I have used when writings books or articles for a general audience where I am laying out ideas for explanation and not attacking anyone. I don't think an aggressive style is useful if the target audience is the general public.

Hitchens had the disadvantages of having first-hand experience, and being knowledgeable, direct, focussed and critical.

Um... I'm not quite sure how to interpret this. Is that a backhanded critique of me and implying I am none of those (some of them would seem strange accusations if that is what you are meaning)? Or are you here comparing Hitchens to the other 3 'Horsemen'?

[carpedm9587]

Easily, the Quantum World of our universe.

Excellent point. I stand corrected. We even have effect preceeding cause at the quantum level.

[carpedm9587]

Since evolution is blind to the truth or falsehood of our beliefs, us having generally true beliefs would be entirely incidental. And where a false belief leads to actions that increase our survival, evolution would select for that.

(This is where you agree, and point to Christianity as an example. )

That our beliefs CAN be wrong is clear. Evolution cannot select for perfection because perfection is essentially impossible. Furthermore, I know of no evidence that evolution selects for specific beliefs, any more than I see evidence that evolution selects for specific things we can see, or specific things we can hear. Evolution selects for characteristics: vision, hearing, reasoning, etc. The question is, Is there a survival advantage in flawed reasoning and flawed perception, or in accurate reasoning and accurate perception. The answer, to me, is clearly the latter. And the fact that we tend to reason correctly is evident, as I have noted, all around us - in the things we create, and the way we can successfully manipulate our environment.

That we can also be wrong is evident in things like implicit bias and the denial of climate change

Ever seen the movie "the Truman Show"? Or realized that someone you know is a persistent liar?

Yes to the first, though I have no idea why a farfetched movie has any bearing on the discussion. And yes, I know of people who are persistent liars - we have one in the White House. Again, there is nothing about evolution that guarantees perfect outcomes. I've also seen people born with a wide variety of birth defects (I'm one of them). That doesn't disprove the evolutionary process. Indeed, it shows us that the process is stiill underway.

All of your reasoning above is also beliefs that fall into the same problem. We have no way of knowing which (if any) are true, so we can't use the true ones to help us find and eliminate the false ones. Our belief-forming apparatus is not directed to forming true beliefs, but rather ones that increase the chances of our survival. Since all of our beliefs are formed thus way, none are trustworthy, including such beliefs as 'Beliefs that we believe comport with reality are true'

And since survival is enhanced by forming true perceptions and processing those perceptions accurately, the human brain was evolved to be more true and accurate than it is not. Most people have a good (but not perfect) capacity to reason, even abstractly, because the brain has evolved to be an accurate tool for survival purposes.

And, again, the fact that it is that accurate is evident in the computer you are using to hold this conversation, which cannot exist if the humans working on it cannot perceive reality accurately; reason on its make-up accurately; conceive of experimentation and process outcomes accurately; etc. etc.

You folks are very much like the philosopher arguing that the walls are insubstantial, and then leaving the room by way of the door. Only, in this case, you are claiming we cannot know that our beliefs are accurate/true, and making that claim on a device connected to a network that would be impossible if our beliefs/reasoning were not accurate/true.

It's actually rather amazing....

[seer]

I did not claim it did. There is much of "how" that we don't understand. We don't understand how gravitation actually works. That does not lead us to deny that it does - we see the effects all around us. We don't really know how evolution can produce complex systems. That does not lead us to deny that it does - we see the effcts all around us. That I cannot explain "how" does not mean that I reject the entire principle.

Carp, if you read both of Harris' links he explains why consciousness is not like other things we find in nature. There is a difference. Where do you find consciousness in the brain? Can you look at my brain and deduce my favorite color? Of course not, but why not? Why is that information not open to science?

No - I am not assuming it. I am saying that the evidence suggests to me that it does. I conclude it. You are the one assuming, Seer, that it must be from a god. Why? Because you have things you cannot answer and you seem to be predisposed to replacing "I don't know" with "god did it." I do not make that assumption.

Except consciousness is on a different level, perhaps a different quality altogether. And Harris makes it clear that it is not like anything else we find in nature. BTW - I did not quote mine, I did not take his words out of context and I linked both papers.

So I will repeat the breakdown of the logical flaw:

• Claim: Upper body strength provides a survival advantage and makes it possible to lift heavy objects bought at WalMart into a van
• Response: Animals do not need to lift heavy objects into a van, so upper body strength is clearly not key to survival.

I have to believe you can see the logical problem with this response, right? Now applying it to this argument:

• Claim: Accurate perception and accurate processing of those perceptions provides survival advantages, and also provides the basis for consciousness and correct processing of abstract thought
• Reponse: Animals do not have consciousness nor do they process abstract thought and they survive quite well, so accurate perception/processing is not key to survival.

We can see that accurate perception and the ability to process those perceptions accurately does indeed provide survival advantage. I presume you do not dispute this. We can also see that the reasoning ability of humanity exceeds that of any other species, and we dominate any niche which we seek to occupy. So clearly reasoning abstractly also provides survival advantage. It helps us build tools, and engineer our environment. If we can perceive correctly, and reason correctly, then it fololws that "correctness" will follow in other reasoning activities. Consciousness is part of that - and is evident not only in humanity, but to lesser degrees in other species, which have been shown to use language, and show an ability ot recognize "self."

Again, it is a matter of degree not kind. Our ancestors, nearly all creatures, even most primates, do not need self-awareness to survive. Period. So yes, we have the ability change our environment more than them that however does not mean that we have more survivability than a primate without it or even the common bacteria.

EDITED to add: Something just clicked for me, and perhaps it is the basis for this disagreement. When an evolutionist talks about "survival advantage," it is not just about "helping them survive." It is, more specifically, about "helping them survive at a higher rate than those without X." That is what causes the advantage to perpetuate at a greater rate than other attributes. I do not need consciousness "to survive." But if consciousness makes it possible for me to survive at a higher rate than those without it, then that attribute will perpetuate itself in the species. I think you have limited yourself to "survive" and left out the "advantage" part.

I have no idea if consciousness is necessary to survive at a higher rate, or if we with self-awareness survive better than those who do not have it.

[Leonhard]

So, just to clarify, you can conceive of a universe in which a thing can be true and not true at the same time, in the same place, in the same way? Or that a thing can be other than itself? Or that 1 is unequal to 1?

Easily, the Quantum World of our universe.

Excellent point. I stand corrected. We even have effect preceeding cause at the quantum level.

Nonsense!

There aren't logical contradictions in quantum mechanics, and any so-called retro-causality have far simpler interpretations, even for the Delayed Choice experiment. You have to have a pre-commitment to the Copenhagen School of interpretation to have that, and too much an attachment to Feynmann diagrams.

I wish laypeople had never heard of the word quantum. It has become so completely mystified, and goobledigooklified by the popular science press who seem to have only one story to tell about it "quantum is weird and anything is possible". Its used to justify anything that doesn't make sense. A magic word that dispells all worries about ordinary reasoning. How does Chi in Chinese Traditionel medicine work? Quantum. How can a ghost exist without disappitating. Quantum. In what way do we have ESP. Quantum stuff doing quantum things.



Its linear algebra, probability calculus and differential equations for crying out loud.

At no point in these theories is it asserted that 1 is unequal to 1, in the same way, at the same time. That would be a logical contradiction. An actual logical contradiction - not merely a Shröedinger Cat Paradox which have various interpretations - But a straight up, old fashioned, "I always lie" self-contradiction.

Logical contradictions are impossible, and impossible things cannot exist*.


* Bonus points if you get the reference.

[Leonhard]

Except consciousness is on a different level, perhaps a different quality altogether. And Harris makes it clear that it is not like anything else we find in nature.

Animals are conscious too. It is not us being aware, or self-aware, that sets us apart from animals, but our ability to reason and communicate. Sam Harris has made it clear he considers some animals to have awareness as well.

Source: THE MYSTERY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

It is only in the presence of animals sufficiently like ourselves that our intuitions about (and attributions of) consciousness begin to crystallize. Is there “something that it is like” to be a cocker spaniel? Does it feel its pains and pleasures? Surely it must. How do we know? Behavior, analogy, parsimony.

© Copyright Original Source

https://samharris.org/the-mystery-of-consciousness/

[Mountain Man]

As far as I can tell, typically when people are referring to presuppositional belief in God's existence, they actually do mean a belief that wasn't arrived at. So, for instance, Alvin Plantinga argues that some people may have a properly basic belief that God exists that does not rely on deductive reasoning. He further argues that this sort of belief may be rational, warranted and justified. This would be a presuppositional view of God. I think Plantinga's work on this subject is fascinating, and agree with WL Craig that it's a great counter to evidentialism. However, I think it has limited application in evangelism if your purpose is to get others to believe in the God you believe in. Furthermore, those who practice presuppositional apologetics typically avoid Classical apologetics (and don't seem to know Plantinga), and act as though all they need to do is throw Bible verses at a skeptic, and that somehow, through some sort of arcane mysticism, the skeptic will read the right combination of words, and something will just click in their head; Will make them want to accept the Holy Spirit. In my experience, that almost never ever happens in real life unless the individual in question already accepts some of evangelist's presuppositions. There's a few people on this forum who use this tact all the time, and it backfires on them just about every time.

I will say that this: I use scripture in debates based simply on God's promise that his Word will not return void. I believe that it is possible that someone could encounter a passage of scripture and something will "click".

[37818]

I know of no Islamic foundations based on Christianity. I do know Islam reveres Jesus as a prophet, but I do not believe it is the basis for Islam. I know of no Christian basis for Buddhism. I know little about Zoroastrianism.

The sayings of the Quran make reference to Jesus and being born of His mother without a human father - that has its origin from Christianity. As for Buddhism and Zoroastrianism, it is my understanding, their oral traditions were not written down until after 1st century (post Christian).

I know "existence" seems to be fairly foundational for you - it keeps arrising as a theme. I guess "existence" is foundational for all of us. Without it, we wouldn't....umm....exist!

The Apostle Paul argued saying about God, ". . . though He be not far from every one of us: For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; . . ." (Acts 17:27-28.) The concept of God being omnipresent. God's Hebrew Name has been understood to mean the "self Existent." And logically only an uncaused Existence is truly self existent.

[seer]

Animals are conscious too. It is not us being aware, or self-aware, that sets us apart from animals, but our ability to reason and communicate. Sam Harris has made it clear he considers some animals to have awareness as well.

Source: THE MYSTERY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

It is only in the presence of animals sufficiently like ourselves that our intuitions about (and attributions of) consciousness begin to crystallize. Is there “something that it is like” to be a cocker spaniel? Does it feel its pains and pleasures? Surely it must. How do we know? Behavior, analogy, parsimony.

© Copyright Original Source

https://samharris.org/the-mystery-of-consciousness/

I wasn't making the point that only humans are self-aware Leonhard, a few other species do pass the mirror test. But whether animal or man consciousness is rather strange, to quote Harris:

Many readers of my previous essay did not understand why the emergence of consciousness should pose a special problem to science. Every feature of the human mind and body emerges over the course development: Why is consciousness more perplexing than language or digestion? The problem, however, is that the distance between unconsciousness and consciousness must be traversed in a single stride, if traversed at all. Just as the appearance of something out of nothing cannot be explained by our saying that the first something was “very small,” the birth of consciousness is rendered no less mysterious by saying that the simplest minds have only a glimmer of it...

...But couldn’t a mature neuroscience nevertheless offer a proper explanation of human consciousness in terms of its underlying brain processes? We have reasons to believe that reductions of this sort are neither possible nor conceptually coherent. Nothing about a brain, studied at any scale (spatial or temporal), even suggests that it might harbor consciousness. Nothing about human behavior, or language, or culture, demonstrates that these products are mediated by subjectivity. We simply know that they are—a fact that we appreciate in ourselves directly and in others by analogy.

Here is where the distinction between studying consciousness and studying its contents becomes paramount. It is easy to see how the contents of consciousness might be understood at the level of the brain. Consider, for instance, our experience of seeing an object—its color, contours, apparent motion, location in space, etc. arise in consciousness as a seamless unity, even though this information is processed by many separate systems in the brain. Thus when a golfer prepares to hit a shot, he does not first see the ball’s roundness, then its whiteness, and only then its position on the tee. Rather, he enjoys a unified perception of a ball. Many neuroscientists believe that this phenomenon of “binding” can be explained by disparate groups of neurons firing in synchrony. Whether or not this theory is true, it is perfectly intelligible—and it suggests, as many other findings in neuroscience do, that the character of our experience can often be explained in terms of its underlying neurophysiology. However, when we ask why it should be “like something” to see in the first place, we are returned to the mystery of consciousness in full.

https://samharris.org/the-mystery-of-consciousness-ii/

[carpedm9587]

Carp, if you read both of Harris' links he explains why consciousness is not like other things we find in nature.

First, this is not true. There are signs of consciousness in other animals with sufficiently developed brains. It is not as advanced as ours, but it is demonstrable. If by "nature" you mean "nonliving nature" then I have to say, "so?" We don't see vision in nonliving nature either. We don't see hearing in nonliving nature. We don't see many of the attributes we associate with "life" in nonliving nature.

There is a difference. Where do you find consciousness in the brain?

We cannot answer that yet. We only know that it eminates from the brain. We know that because we do not compromise consciousness by compromising any other part of the body - only by compromising the brain does consciousness fade/disappear.

Can you look at my brain and deduce my favorite color?

Not yet.

Of course not, but why not? Why is that information not open to science?

Because we do not currently have sophisticated-enough equipment to do so. But it was only a couple decades ago that we could not use specific thoughts to control electronic equipment like prostheses and computer consoles, or us thought to drive electronics to re-animate particular body parts. These are crude beginnings at tapping "consciousness." You observation is somewhat like listening to someone in 1700 argue that objects more than a certain weight simply cannot fly - because it had not been done yet. All indications are that we continue to expand our understanding of how the brain functions as our detection, storage, and processing power continues to improve.

Except consciousness is on a different level, perhaps a different quality altogether. And Harris makes it clear that it is not like anything else we find in nature. BTW - I did not quote mine, I did not take his words out of context and I linked both papers.

No. Sam may think so, but I disagree. Consciousness and reasoning are attributes of a being that are simply more sophisticated than the crude instinctual behavior of so-called "lower" life forms. In lower life forms, reaction is completely instinctual: wired into the animal. As the sophistication of the animal increases, signs of reasoning begin to appear, until you reach higher-animals that exhibit tool use and language. We are the most evolved on that continuum, different in degree but not in kind.

BTW, if you know the history of computing, you will see a parallel with how the computer evolved. The first computers were hard-wired to perform a specific task. If you wanted a different task, you built a different computer. Then came the idea of having a "general purpose" processor that could have instructions fed to it as data and then act on those instructions to perform tasks. Suddenly the computer gained in flexibility. Likewise, in nature, an animal that has the ability to process input in a manner more sophisticated than hard-wired instinct has survival advantages. That would be selected for, continually enhancing the development of that species (or those species).

Again, it is a matter of degree not kind. Our ancestors, nearly all creatures, even most primates, do not need self-awareness to survive. Period. So yes, we have the ability change our environment more than them that however does not mean that we have more survivability than a primate without it or even the common bacteria.

You keep coming back to the same failed logic. I'll explain this once more, and then leave you to it. That other animals do not need "awareness" and "higher reason" to survive does not mean that "awareness" and "higher reason" do not provide a survival advantage. Clearly, we humans, who have evolved this capability, now occupy the top of the survival pyramid, dominating every niche we occupy. Other animals that lack this are at lower positions in the food chain. Awareness and higher reasoning are not necessary to survive - but they provide a survival advantage, the point you continue to ignore. And I point you back to the lifting/walmart example to (again) show you how your logic is faulty.

At this point, I've responded to this comment frequently enough. If you repeat it yet again, I'll just point you to the many places where I have already responded to this. Continually asserting this argument does not make it correct.

I have no idea if consciousness is necessary to survive at a higher rate, or if we with self-awareness survive better than those who do not have it.

Then look around you, Seer, and ask yourself a couple questions:

1) Which species is currently at the top of the food chain in virtually all niches.
2) Within the species, which members are more likely to succeed/thrive: those with accurate perception/reasoning capabilities, or those who lack it?

The answers should help you see what I am saying.