A Debate with Atheists About...Well...Just About Everything

On December 5, Luke “the Common Sense Atheist” published a blog post predicting that “immortality/consciousness uploading” would be achieved by the year 2150.

This sparked a comment thread in which I debated atheists on several topics, including the nature of consciousness, artificial intelligence, memes, the HBD movement, the Holocaust, and other issues.

At first, I merely wanted to disagree with Luke's prediction. I wrote...

Consciousness is not a material thing, so it can never be “uploaded.”

This led to an exchange between me and “Justfinethanks…”

JFT: A “song” isn’t a material thing, so that must be why it’s impossible to create an MP3.

TW: A song IS a material thing; it’s words set to music.

JFT: A “song” is the product of material things, like a guitar, vocal chords, drums, but the “song” itself is merely an emergent property of these combined things. Much like “consciousness” is merely an emergent property of neurons, chemicals, and electrical discharges.

TW: See, that’s your mistake. You assume consciousness is an “emergent property” of matter when there’s no evidence of that, and a lot of evidence against it.

Consciousness interacts with matter, but is not equal to matter; it is a non-material agent. And as such, it cannot be uploaded into a machine.

Then Urbster and I crossed paths…

Urb: There’s tons of evidence for consciousness being produced by the brain (by contrast, no one has ever produced evidence for the existence of any kind of “soul” or extraphysical, dualist property) or successfully explained such an interaction with physical matter.

TW: To take one example most people can relate to, let’s look at the placebo effect: Who is the “I” that thinks he’s getting healthier, and MAKES his body healthier, even if the pill he took is just a sugar bill? To the Reductionist, the “I” just an illusion. But the facts of science (plus common sense) suggest there really is an “I” (distinct from the body) which can influence the body.

Then Jeff interjected:

“Occam’s Razor would seem to shave off the idea of a soul, but were we to map out the brain in more detail and find that the consciousness function eludes us, it might still be plausible to come up with some notion of a “mind” or “soul”.

I replied…

I’m not a big fan of Occam’s Razor (especially in science, ironically). The universe is a pretty big, complicated place, and while every generation of scientists answers some questions, they usually get dwarfed by the number of new questions that spring from the tremendous complexity that is the world and life itself.

I’m just glad there wasn’t an Occam’s Razor’s in Galileo’s time. I’m sure the Church would’ve used it against him: “The Earth goes AROUND the sun? Surely, you jest Galileo! That goes against Occam’s Razor.”

Then Fortuna arrived…

FTA: The placebo effect, and related instances of biofeedback, do not strictly require us to postulate anything spooky or ethereal.

TW: I don’t think there’s a “strict requirement.” However, if you take the placebo effect (and similar evidence), and then contrast it with the materialist paradigm, I would argue that “an inference to the best explanation” leads one to conclude that the best explanation is that the mind has a non-material element.

FTA: Also, Occams’ razor slices complex things all things being equal. Galileo had evidence that unbalanced that equation.

TW: True, but too often, Occam’s razor is used for scientific enterprises in which so much of our data is fuzzy (like consciousness studies). Unfortunately, the mere fuzziness leads people to use Occam’s Razor in favor of materialism, and I think that’s lazy – especially when, as I said before, we know from experience that the universe is a pretty big, complicated place.

FTA: How do you propose to “contrast” biofeedback with the materialist paradigm? We know that the brain has a great deal of chemical interplay with the rest of body, up to and including dramatically altering various aspects of your physiology.

TW: I’m not sure if I understand the question. The way I see it, biofeedback exists in a pro-mind paradigm too. Mind can influence the body, and vice versa. But the mind does not equal the body.

In the case of the placebo effect, the act of thinking itself is what drives the biochemical changes. What I am suggesting is that the origin of thinking (the irreducible “I”) is an immaterial process. There is no inherent reason to believe that matter can create mind; it’s a theory of materialist science. I won’t be arrogant enough to say it’s an illogical theory or a theory that could never be proven, but I don’t think it fits the evidence discovered by science over the past century.

Then Jeff came back…

Jeff: Because we know that the brain controls the body, it seems reasonable to assume that the brain would be responsible for the placebo effect (an effect on the body).”

TW: If thinking was on the same level of complexity as digestion, that might express my opinion too. But thinking/consciousness is on an order of complexity so startling that science today struggles to even define it, never mind explain it. Thus, I don’t feel inhibited in suggesting that we are grappling with something which can not be understood in strictly materialist terms, and has has a non-material dimension.

I don’t know to what extent you’re familiar with the writer John Derbyshire, but he’s a proud Darwinist and a critic of Christianity who – despite all that – feels the “hard problem of consciousness” is so vexing, he rejects atheism.

Then came my discussion with Urbster about the existence of “I” which "I" (no pun intended) already described in my essay, The Cannibals of the Scientific Revolution.

After that bout, it was Fortuna's turn…

FTA: The evidence with which I’m familiar has only ever suggested that biochemical changes drive the act of thinking. Neurons fire, and then one wills their arm to move, or tastes ice cream, or gets angry, or what have you. As far I know, whenever we have been in a position to observe the matter, we have never observed the chain of causality flowing from thought to brain chemistry, only the reverse.

TW: I’ve seen some research which suggests that, and other research which contradicts it. However, I have to cast a skeptical eye toward research which suggests that “I” am just a random firing of neurons, and that this cohesive “I” which imposes order on my thoughts and actions doesn’t exist. I don’t think it’s unfair of me to say that that totally contradicts my daily experience, and the experience of most civilized people, for that matter. The research is legit, I’m sure, but I’m confident it will be superseded by better research in the future.

FTA: I’d like you to cite the contradictory research please.

TW: I think this example should qualify, but if it doesn’t, let me know:

In 1991, investigators told a group of 48 men who were about to watch porn to suppress their sexual arousal – and surprisingly enough (according to penile plethysmography), while watching the porn, they were able to do so.

This, in my mind (pun intended), is evidence that “I” exist; “I” is capable of using reason to suppress instincts; and the very act of using reason can initiate biochemical reactions.

This example comes from The Spiritual Brain.

Then I faced Urbster again:

Urb: How could it possibly be that the brain can produce emergent consciousness? Well, how could it be that complex computers can produce emergent (”artificial”) intelligence?

TW: What is often billed as “artificial intelligence” is not even close to “biological intelligence.” It’s not even intelligence; it’s just algorithms.

Urb: Computers work. Does this take faith to believe? Computing is an EMERGENT phenomenon.

TW: I think your statement indicates a common misperception of what consciousness is and how it compares to strictly material objects like computers. As I hinted at above, there is no comparison between a human being and a computer. A computer can perform many seemingly intelligent functions (like Spellchecker or organizing newspaper articles alphabetically) but that intelligence does not require – and shows no evidence of – consciousness. Is the Internet conscious? Does it think and act and emote on its own volition? Of course not. And it’s reasonable to suggest it never will. As I said above, the idea that “consciousness emerges from matter” is a theory but not a fact, and given the evidence accumulated so far, it’s actually better described as a hope; a wish; a matter of faith. See for instance, Why the Mind is Not Like a Computer.

Urb: The more highly complex the brain is, the more intelligence an animal has. Surely it’s not just “conscious” or “not conscious” but there is a range of conscious behavior; some animals are more self-aware than others. Some animals can predict things farther ahead into the future and recognize objects and words. Therefore it is possible for evolution to produce conscious beings.”

TW: I’m OK with everyone you said until the final line, “Therefore it is possible for evolution to produce conscious beings.” That conclusion does not necessarily follow from the evidence you provide. In fact, there is no reason to believe that consciousness is a product of evolution. See for instance, Rob Rosenbaum’s recent article, The Dangerous Mysteries of Consciousness. Rosenbaum is a Darwinist but he’s upfront on how Darwinism cannot explain consciousness, and probably never will.

Urb: Even if we choose to separate talking about ‘the mind’ from ‘the brain,’ the mind is still just a function of my brain like the Windows operating system is the function of the computing processes of the electronic hardware.

TW: Again, that is a faulty analogy based on a misconception of what consciousness is.

Urb: There are as many examples of religion acting as a “parasitic meme”…It makes me wonder if you even understand what a “meme” is.

TW: I understand “memes” very well, which is precisely why I object to Dennett’s statement. The only legitimate description of “meme” is a “good idea which aids survival.” From that description, 3 problems arise: 1) Dennett apparently believes that “memes” are something of a biological nature; something that is mentally equivalent of genes. That is – at a minimum, unproven; at a maximum, absurd. And in either case, it puts Dennett’s credibility into doubt. But further, there are more problems. A “parasitic meme” is a contradiction in terms; either it’s a “meme” or it’s not. A parasitic meme would not aid survival and is thus NOT a meme. So again, Dennett is using sloppy language to advance his agenda. And finally, I genuinely object to the causal statement that “religion is a parasitic meme.” It is atheism – not faith – that is a destroyer of happiness and culture.

See, for example, The Despair of the Selfish Gene.

Then Fortuna came back…

FTA: There is no necessary connection between atheism and unhappiness; the vast majority of atheists are doing just fine, thanks, just like the general population.

TW: As The Economist notes, “sociologists agree that the practice of a faith and broad happiness with life do seem to be related, though nobody has much idea why.” In fairness, that same article also suggests that atheism *might* be more conducive to happiness than agnosticism, and for a predictable reason: Atheism – like Christianity – is a “life philosophy” which can provide people with some sort of ethical guidelines on how to live life; agnosticism – almost by definition – can not do that.

FTA: Ditto the destruction of culture; last I checked, Scandinavia was doing just fine.

TW: I don’t have the data in front of me, but I’m pretty sure it would be inaccurate to call Scandinavia “atheist.” I’m pretty sure most people in Scandinavia believe in God (and probably even the Christian God) but they lack the emotional investment in Christianity that we see in other parts of the world (like the U.S.). Also, on a related note, I would call Scandinavia a culture in decline and inferior in most ways to the Anglosphere (where Christianity is more vibrant).

FTA: You claim that teaching people about natural selection (which is an empirical fact, by the by) will somehow poison peoples’ outlook on life.

TW: I resist the assertion that natural selection (in the context of macroevolution) is an “empirical fact.” I would never call it a “fact” in the same way other scientific laws are facts, such as gravity.

FTA: That’s artifical selection. If your own chosen example [the Columbine massacre] had actually understood natural selection, he wouldn’t have done a damn thing, because actual “failures of natural selection” don’t survive and/or don’t reproduce, without any conscious interference on anyones’ part.

TW: I don’t disagree that [the Columbine killers] were morons, but if they were alive, they would probably say: We can see where natural selection is going. It weeds out the “unfit.” I am a mortal being and I will not live long enough to see the climax of natural selection millions of years from now. I want to live in a society without the unfit NOW. And that’s precisely what they did. Eugenics is an idea with a long scientific pedigree; Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galston, boldly used Darwinism as the foundation of eugenics. Eugenics is unpopular today because the Holocaust tainted it, but I would wager that – if current secular trends continue – it’ll make a nice comeback in the next 15-30 years.



FTA on memes: “My understanding of the term merely implies that memes are ideas that can replicate themselves through transmission from person to person.”

TW: To define “memes” as “ideas that can replicate themselves” – as you and Dennett do – is, IMHO, a real stretch of the imagination, to put it mildly.

On a theoretical level, the problem with memes is the same as the one with “selfish genes.” It assumes intent for something that – by definition – cannot have intent. Ideas are not conscious. They have no purpose…They have no desire to “replicate”…They are just, um, ideas!

At Neuroanthropology.net, Greg Downey (who favors Darwinism) states…

I think ‘memetics’ is one of the bigger crocks hatched in recent decades, hiding in the shadow of respectable evolutionary theory’…

It’s one thing to reify a concept, it’s another thing to start attributing it a whole complex personality, drives, desires, and levels of different reification. If defining gene as ’self-replicating’ is playing a little free with the details, defining meme, as ’self-replicating’ beggars the imagination it’s so stupid….

Arguing this reveals so little understanding of how brains work, especially how hard it is for ANY pattern to repeat completely. That is, even repetitive action typically involves constant changes in patterns of neural activation; maintaining consistency requires constantly shifting neural resources, even slightly, to take account to changes even in the organism itself…

Has anyone, ever, anywhere, seen an idea ‘replicate’ itSELF? Although this may seem like a semantic point, I think it’s a bigger logical problem with reifying culture as ‘memes’ and then attributing agentive power to the memes.

FTA: It is simply not the case that there is no reason whatsoever to think that consciousness is a product of evolution. We know that all life on the planet evolved, and that it exhibits a range of ability with respect to sustaining consciousness that correlates to evolved brain structure. That in itself is a powerful reason to infer that consciousness evolved.

TW: I think in some way you are validating my criticism of Dennett (and other materialists). They basically argue: “If life is a product of evolution – and nothing else – then consciousness must – someWAY, someHOW – be a product of evolution too.

As I said, that’s a theory worthy of consideration, but there is no evidence to support that theory (yet); it is merely a deduction based on a materialist philosophy.

Then DRJ arrived…

DRJ: It is now a widely held belief that broad genetic diversity of populations is one of the most important, if not the most important, measure of a populations fitness. Old forms of eugenics are actually counter-productive to that measure of fitness.

TW: I can think of at least one group of Darwinists who disagree: Those involved in the “Human Biodiversity Movement.” They are pro-Darwin atheists who are entranced by the link between race and evolution. For example, they encourage high-IQ racial groups (specifically, whites and Asians) to avoid reproducing with low-IQ racial groups (basically everyone else). They believe that the blending of the races in America is weakening the collective IQ of our country and thus, weakening our economy, national security, etc. That’s why they want to ban immigration, rescind racial discrimination laws, etc.

Steve Sailer is one of their most vocal advocates.

She his article, Darwin’s Enemies on the Left.

Needless to say, I don’t endorse Sailer’s views; I’m merely showing that “ideas have consequences” and even decent people (like yourself, presumably) can’t always control those consequences.

This did not sit well with Fortuna.

FTA: “There is no way to control for misinformed racists eager to seize on data that they hope will vindicate them.”

TW: Unfortunately, that doesn’t jive with my analysis of the HBD movement. They are not “misinformed racists.” No, they are highly-educated young men who found materialist science as a gateway drug to racism and sexism. See, for instance, the words of HBD blogger, “Thursday…”

“Two of the biggest shocks in my life came when, first, I discovered the truth about race and intelligence through people like Steve Sailer, Arthur Jensen, Charles Murray, Vince Sarich and then later discovered the truth about women and sex through Roissy and the seduction community generally. Suddenly, things that you have seen all around you start to make sense. You realize that, ‘Oh my God, I’ve been lied to all my life.’”

FTA: “If atheism is nothing less than a destroyer of culture, that ought to have a measurable effect, and yet those countries are doing fine.”

TW: They’re doing relatively OK for now. Let’s check back in 10-25 years, though, as the growth of their Muslim population hits a critical mass. I’m not optimistic. Atheists, almost by definition, are not people who are going to risk their lives for abstract ideas like “freedom” and “democracy.” They would rather be slaves than corpses.

FTA: You can’t even assent to the proposition that organisms that are less able to survive and/or reproduce than their peers will have their genes progressively less well-represented in subsequent generations?

TW: That’s microevolution. So yes, I accept that.

FTA: It makes no sense whatsoever to gun down a bunch of kids at random, or because you don’t like them personally, and call yourself a ‘natural selector.’

TW: It’s not rational, I agree; but rationality is an all too rare trait among our species. Indeed, I’m tempted to say atheism itself is irrational.

FTA: What “climax”?

TW: In retrospect, “climax” isn’t the best word. I’ll suggest “progression” as a substitute. The “progression” of the human species. The arrival of Nietzsche’s “Superman,” or something to that effect.

FTA: There is no assumption of intent implied in the selfish gene concept. I have to wonder how much of the primary literature on the subject you’re actually familiar with, because I can’t really even discuss this with you until you understand just how bad of a misconception that is.

TW: With all due respect, I’m tempted to repeat that line back to you. How else would you interpret this line by Richard Dawkins, the author of the “selfish gene” concept: “Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.” That implies the genes have “intent,” does it not?

FTA: Similarly, I can’t begin to respond to any criticisms of the meme concept that you may have until said criticisms are no longer spurious. There is no attribution of agency going on.”

TW: A quote from Dennett: “There is considerable competition among memes for entry in as many minds as possible. This competition is the major selective force in the memosphere, and, just as in the biosphere, the challenge has been met with great ingenuity. For instance, whatever virtues (from our perspective) the following memes have, they have in common the property of having phenotypic expressions that tend to make their own replication more likely by disabling or preempting the environmental forces that would tend to extinguish them.” And it goes on from there. And it’s all B.S.

FTA: The act of using reason is itself initiated by biochemical reactions.

TW: That is an assumption based on a materialist paradigm, but there is no solid proof of that. Indeed, based on the seeming impossibility of matter to account for the mind, I have no qualms about positing a non-material source for consciousness.

A quote from the Dalai Lama:

“I said to one of the scientists: ‘It seems very evident that due to changes in the chemical processes of the brain, many of our subjective experiences like perception and sensation occur. Can one envision to reversal of this causal process? Can one postulate that pure thought itself could effect a change in the chemical processes of the brain?’ I was asking whether, conceptually at least, we could allow the possibility of both upward and downward causation.

The scientist’s response was quite surprising. He said that since all mental states arise from physical states, it is not possible for downward causation to occur. Although out of politeness, I did not respond at the time, I thought then and still think that here is as yet no scientific basis for such a categorical claim.

The view that all mental processes are necessarily physical processes is a metaphysical assumption, not a scientific fact. I feel that, in the spirit of scientific inquiry, it is critical that we allow the question to remain open, and not conflate our assumptions with empirical fact.”

DRJ again...

DRJ: It seems as if your trying to vaguely dancing around the old argument that such racist beliefs (school shootings and the like too) are the inevitable result materialist science, but without actually saying it so matter of factly.

TW: No, let me clarify: Fortuna said that the Columbine killers were “irrational” according to Darwinian principles. I challenged that view. I said it really wasn’t clear whether “weeding out the unfit through violence” is “rational” or “irrational.” Using Darwinism alone, that can’t be determined. The Darwinist fetish for eugenics, for example, seems to indicate that the question is an open one.

DRJ: If you are, in fact, trying to make a case that materialist science leads people towards anti-social beliefs, like racism, then you’ll need to back it up with more than anecdotes of people in the fringe.

TW: This is a complicated subject, and there’s no way I can summarize my views (at least not persuasively) in one comment. However, I’ll make a few assertions and you can critique them as you wish…

1) If you a materialist, the most logical religion is atheism.

2) If you an atheist, ethics either don’t exist or should be founded on materialist/Darwinist principles.

3)Darwinian principles are ambiguous (as I just explained). Using Darwinism, you could justify the Holocaust (as Hitler did) or you can justify liberal democracy (as contemporary scholars like Larry Arnhart do). I will say this, though: I do think the Darwinist denigration of humanity (“we’re just apes who wear pants") makes it easy for people to initiate violence and/or tyranny. A tolerant form of theism (such as 21st Century Christianity) is superior in that regard.

FTA comes back...

FTA: Did you not read what I said? Racial differences in IQ evaporate when you control for education and socio-economic background.

TW: Personally, I don’t want to touch that issue with a 10-foot pole. I’ll just humbly say that if you talked to those guys, they would happily whip out different studies which show the opposite conclusion.

FTA: Nietzche’s “superman” is not a scientific concept. Evolution isn’t teleological, natural selection is not interested in progress.

TW: I never claimed that the “Superman” was a scientific concept. No, it’s an ideological goal – a goal that Nietzsche, Hitler, and many others shared, while using Darwinism to justify it.

FTA: Have…you…read….his…work?

TW: Yes, I read The Selfish Gene.

FTA: You are categorically wrong to think that A.) Memes have to aid survival to be considered memes at all and B.) Memes have to be treated as having intent, by definition

TW: I’ll take this one at a time.

I originally wrote, “A ‘parasitic meme’ is a contradiction in terms; either it’s a ‘meme’ or it’s not. A parasitic meme would not aid survival and is thus NOT a meme.”

It’s not clear to me why you consider my statement inaccurate. To quote Wikipedia, “Richard Dawkins introduced the word ‘meme’ in The Selfish Gene as a basis for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena”…As we all know, the main evolutionary principle is “survival of the fittest” …If religion is a “meme” and a meme is a fitness strategy, it’s not clear to me why – in Dennett’s words – religion is a “parasitic meme.” I’m almost tempted to say it’s illogical; “a contradiction in terms.”

Onto the next point…

Personally, I don’t believe in “memes” so debating whether or not they have intent is the equivalent of debating “does the flying spaghetti monster have intent?” If Dennett believes that memes don’t intent, fine…but then he should STOP talking about them as if they DO have intent…See the Dennett quote I used above…Another Dennett quote: “Thousands of memes, mostly borne by language, but also by wordless ‘images’ and other data structures, take up residence in an individual brain, shaping its tendencies and thereby turning it into a mind.” Again, this sounds like intent; memes compete for minds, become part of the mind, and then that mind tries to spread its memes to other minds…If there’s any confusion on this issue, Fortuna, blame Dennett; not me.

FTA: The problem you haven’t addressed is that the Columbine killers did not act to weed out the unfit. As far as I know, the majority (if not the entirety) of their victims were not otherwise likely to die young or be unable to reproduce. They were fit.

TW: The Columbine killers would probably define “fitness” the way Darwinists do: Anyway they like! :)

FTA: Every time we are in a position to observe the matter, brain chemistry happens first and then thought follows, including higher reasoning. There is research to back this up, and I’ll happily reference it for you if you like.

TW: I’ll take a look at the research – assuming it’s not like a 40-page research paper; a 5-7 pages news article or Wikipedia page will suffice.

FTA: Evolution is purely descriptive, so indeed it should not be surprising that it doesn’t tell you what you should do. That would be like looking to the theory of gravitation to determine the desirability of falling off a tall building.

TW: I respect your opinion, but that doesn’t change the fact that many scientists such as Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, and others ARE using evolution as the basis of moral theory. And needless to say, it’s an endeavor I don’t support.

FTA: While it’s certainly the case that Hitler was anti-Christian in some respects and/or at particular times, you can’t just say he was anti-Christian and leave it at that.


TW: A few counter-points. First, Hitler was a politician, especially from 1920-1933, when Germany was a democracy, and thus, Hitler needed to coax the masses to accept his program. Therefore, it would make sense for Hitler to say some nice things about Christianity in public venues. Even when Hitler was dictator after 1933, his position wasn’t totally secure, and it made sense for him to be on decent terms with the church. Thus, when the church protested his first sterilization program in 1937/38, he withdrew it, and waited til the chaos of WWII to commit genocide.

Second, Hitler’s private comments should carry more weight than his public comments, and here we have Hitler’s ruminations that Christianity is a slave morality that prevented Aryans from forcefully achieving their natural superiority over other races. Since this accords better with his behavior as a genocidal dictator, I think it’s a truer reflection of his inner faith.

Last but not least, Hitler’s behavior was “unChristian” to put it mildly. And this is actually an important point. If Hitler committed the Holocaust in the name of Christ (in the way, say, Osama bin Laden commits crimes in the name of Allah), that would be one thing; but Hitler committed the Holocaust in a quest for racial domination. That is totally against the spirit of Christianity.

___________________________________________________________


DRJ: It seems implied that Dawkins et al are somehow building their moral theories in a Hitler-ish fashion, to which I strenuously object.

TW: Oh goodness, no. I don’t think Dawkins et al have malignant intentions, just like I don’t think Darwin himself had malignant intentions. Dawkins is an academic, with all that implies. As Plato might say, he doesn’t have a “tyrannical soul.”

DRJ: There are a wide variety of ethical theories developed in godless worldviews.

TW: Yes, but some ethical theories are more logical than others given a materialist/atheist foundation, and dare I say, over time, the more logical ones will have more influence over the less logical ones.

DRJ: Dawkins, from what I know appears to be somewhere in the secular humanist territory.

TW: Yes, and dare I say, that is one of the “less logical” foundations.

To quote the Darwinist writer John Derbyshire…

“A Darwinian view of human nature really is quite sensationally revolutionary. In particular, it makes a hash of intrinsic human equality. We may of course — and we should, and I hope we ever shall! — hold equal treatment under the law to be an organizing principle of our civilization; but that is a social agreement, like driving on the right, not a pre-existing fact in the world.”

John Derbyshire: A Collection

Over the years, National Review columnist John Derbyshire has written some excellent articles on science, religion, and philosophy. While I don't agree with him on the Darwin/I.D. debate, and I find him a little too eager to advance Reductionism, I find him congenial on most other issues. So without further ado, here are some of his best articles, along with a few highlighted tidbits.


God and Me: Faith FAQ: "Religious feeling just is, there in human nature, unremovably and inescapably…It’s there, and decent societies have to incorporate it somehow, to the general advantage…The trick, if you want a reasonably happy and stable society, is to corral human nature into useful, non-socially-destructive styles of expression… Any aspect of human nature can get out of hand, as we see with these Muslim fanatics that are making such nuisances of themselves nowadays. That doesn’t mean the aspect is bad, just that some society has done a bad job of corraling it.


What's So Scary About Evolution? — For Both Right and Left, a Lot: "A Darwinian view of human nature really is quite sensationally revolutionary. In particular, it makes a hash of intrinsic human equality. We may of course — and we should, and I hope we ever shall! — hold equal treatment under the law to be an organizing principle of our civilization; but that is a social agreement, like driving on the right, not a pre-existing fact in the world."


The Rapture for Nerds: "Hopes for AI have been around as long as hopes for fusion power…Some folk at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute are tackling the fruit fly brain. This may actually be more promising, as fruit flies are the most studied of all creatures, especially by geneticists. Still, the scale of the project is intimidating. A fruit fly brain is barely visible — about one-eightieth of an inch from side to side. Yet the full mapping of one such speck will need, the researchers are estimating, about a million gigabytes of data storage, and 'To get any good data, you'd have to compare hundreds of fruit-fly brains.' Says the project director: 'In a hundred years I'd like to know how human consciousness works. The 10- or 20-year goal is to understand the fruit-fly brain.'"


Toward a Science of Consciousness, Part 1: "Down at the quantum level, things get radically weird, we all know that. The issue here this morning was: Do brain processes partake of the weirdness? Sheehan believes they do. He offered some arguments from physics, and some experimental results. Most startling of the latter were experiments that seemed to show presentiment. In brief: You show your suspect a blank screen. Then you randomly display a picture, either an 'emotional' one, that will evoke a strong neuro-response (e.g. naked woman) or a 'calm' one (e.g. seascape). Then you quickly go back to the blank screen. You are monitoring neural reactions all the time. The 'emotional' pictures show a strong reaction after they are shown, of course; but they seem to show a measurably stronger reaction before being show, too."


Toward a Science of Consciousness, Part 2: "How far do we still have to go 'toward a science of consciousness'? A long way yet, was my parting impression. In his 2007 Teaching Company lecture series Consciousness and its Implications (which I recommend), philosopher Daniel Robinson remarks that: 'Despite the tremendous growth of knowledge over recent decades, the problem of mental causation … is pretty much where it was in the time of the ancient Greek philosophers.' That matches my own conclusions from the Tucson meeting."


The Dream of A.I.: "Artificial humans? We could not create an artificial ant, with all its complex social behavior based on scent and visual clues. Even in fields where there is obviously a great deal of money to be made, progress has been barely perceptible. Anyone who could get a computer to drive a car as safely as a human being does would certainly clean up, yet the news from the auto manufacturers, who are throwing a lot of resources at this, is that we are not even close. Yet driving a car is a very low-level function of the brain, as proved by the fact that you can think about several other things while you are doing it."


Islamophobophobia: "Inside every Muslim today there is a voice whispering: 'Our faith is so pure and true, our civilizations lasted so long and ruled so many, our God was so potent: yet here we are in the modern world, backward and poor except where accidents of nature have blessed us, our rulers corrupt, our culture mocked or ignored, our people squabbling among themselves, or fleeing the homelands to work as taxi drivers and menials in the great glittering cities of the infidels, those homelands themselves part-stolen by the wretched Jews. It's all wrong, wrong, wrong! Grrrrr!!!' That's the Islam we're up against. I don't myself believe we can do much to reform it. Muslims have to do that for themselves."


March of the Godless: "Outside the sphere of religion, it is difficult for most of us to get a firm grip on the big questions, the questions that have agitated mortals since Achilles moped in his tent before Troy: 'How shall we live?' and 'Why must we die?' These matters, dealing with the foundations of morality and the place of human life in the grand scheme of things, color political issues here in the U.S.A., and so are constantly discussed and debated. This gives a depth and gravity to national political discourse that in other countries, I think, is mainly lacking. Now that I have acclimatized myself to this aspect of American public life, in fact, I find myself thinking, when I read newspapers and magazines from England, that there is something frivolous and shallow about the way matters are presented over there. (And China, where they are not spoken of in public at all, seems a very dark place.)"


Don't Blame Islam: "In our current conflict, our enemies are all Muslims. I don't believe that our enemy is Islam, though. Islam came up in a primitive, tribal society that has never since enjoyed any real political progress. The Arabs are still primitive and tribal today; but their failure to create modern nation-states arises from their ancient habits of thought, behavior and social exchange, and from geographical constraints, not from anything in Islam. Indeed, those Arab countries — Iraq, Syria — that are established on secular principles are even more degraded and corrupt than the theocracies…Instead of mocking or dismissing Islam, we should appeal to believers to look to the nobler and more generous texts in their scriptures, the texts that emphasize a common humanity. We have nothing to gain from alienating honest Muslims, any more than they have anything to gain by being enemies of the West."


Note: For my other articles on Derbyshire, click here.

Why The Mind is Not Like a Computer

Ari Schulman dissects the metaphor and finds it wanting:

Properly understood, the first question underlying the AI debate is: Can the properties of the mind be completely described on their own terms as an algorithm?...

Recall that an algorithm has a definite start and end state and consists of a set of well-defined rules for transitioning from start state to end state. As we have already seen, it was the explicit early claim of AI proponents that the answer to this question was yes: the properties of the mind, they believed, could be expressed algorithmically (or “procedurally,” to use a more general term). But the AI project has thus far failed to prove this answer, and AI researchers seem to have understood this failure without acknowledging it.

The founding goal of AI has been all but rejected, a rejection that carries great significance for the central presumption of the project but that has gone largely unremarked. As an empirical hypothesis, the question of whether the mind can be completely described procedurally remains open (as all empirical hypotheses must), but it should be acknowledged that the failure thus far to achieve this goal suggests that the answer to the question is no—and the longer such a failure persists, the greater our confidence must be in that answer.

H/T: Andrew Sullivan

Weekly Wrap-Up

Yale Criticized for Nixing Muslim Cartoons in Book: Should the Ivy League school change its motto? Lux et veritas (Light and Truth) no longer seems appropriate.


German Science Advisor Recommends Global CO2 Budget for Every Man, Woman and Child: Hmm, will this be before or after our new "punisher religion?"


Reincarnated: Our Son is a World War II Hero Come to Life: "A lifelong Christian, it was not the answer he had sought for his son's behavior. But he came to believe James was the reincarnation of a World War II fighter pilot; a man who had been shot down in his plane and struggled to escape as it caught fire; a hero. The idea seems so preposterous as to be unbelievable. Yet in their new book, Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation Of A World War II Fighter Pilot, Bruce and his wife, Andrea, lay out some compelling evidence.


Why AI Is a Dangerous Dream: "Q: Are we close to building a machine that can meaningfully be described as sentient? A: I'm an empirical kind of guy, and there is just no evidence of an artificial toehold in sentience. It is often forgotten that the idea of mind or brain as computational is merely an assumption, not a truth. When I point this out to 'believers' in the computational theory of mind, some of their arguments are almost religious. They say, 'What else could there be? Do you think mind is supernatural?'''


Anti-Darwinism: A Collection: A non-exhaustive list of VFR entries on Darwinism.


Shakespeare and Monkeys: One of Lawrence Auster's new essays includes a point by me on how Shakespeare and monkeys disprove Darwinist theory. Huh? Well, click on the link.


Space Butterfly: A beautiful pic.


Also, please note that I've added a bunch of new websites to my Blog List. Some of these bloggers (Roissy, for instance) are people I strongly disagree with, but - at a minimum - they're interesting and write (at least tangentially) on topics pertaining to The Mustard Seed.

Weekly Wrap-Up

Lawrence Auster, What is Faith?: "If faith has a good definition, it can't just be 'belief in the absence of evidence.' There has to have been something real there that made us believe in the first place. The problem is that spiritual things are not simply 'there,' like a physical object. We apprehend things about them, each moment we apprehend something different, or we stop apprehending anything. But the point is that there is or has been an apprehension of a reality, and we don't see it all, yet we've seen enough of it that we believe in its truth and we stay loyal to that truth. Faith is a committed relationship with something we partly see, but don't completely see. Having seen enough of it to believe that it is true, we maintain that relationship, the orientation of our selves toward that thing." Read the whole post.


Restating the Case for Human Uniqueness: "Despite the dedication of a number of primatologists, the cognitive and linguistic abilities of the great apes have never surpassed those of a two-year-old child. This is because they clearly lack the precondition for becoming human: a human genetic make-up."


Denyse O'Leary is Having an "Origin of Life" Essay Contest: "Here is the problem I have always had with accidental origin of life: It amounts to spontaneous generation. However, banishing the doctrine of spontaneous generation played a key role in modern medicine’s success. If we assume that life forms (for medical purposes, we focus on pathogens) cannot start spontaneously, then they must have been introduced...If life can be spontaneously generated, why isn’t it happening now?"


Doctor Believes Artificial Life is Just Months Away: “Assuming we don’t make any errors, I think it should work and we should have the first synthetic species by the end of the year,' said Dr Venter." I'm always skeptical of these claims.


Last week, I linked to this article, and asked, "Is this evidence for Intelligent Design?" Apparently, the answer is "yes."


In October, a new Ayn Rand book will come out: "Almost 30 years after her death, Ayn Rand remains one of the most polarizing icons to tumble out of one of history’s most polarizing centuries. Heller’s biography promises what might well be a first: an impartial portrait—not of a revolutionary supergenius or a cultish fraud, but of a complex woman, born in Russia, who went on to create a dubiously powerful American mythology."


Ayn Rand Self-Help: "Seligman divided his psychology students so some engaged in pleasurable activities (going to the movies, eating yummy ice cream) and the others did philanthropic activities (volunteering at a soup kitchen, reading to the blind). Guess what? The happiness afterglow of the fun was nada compared to the lasting happiness of doing altruistic acts. Meaning? Doing good for others will also make you feel good -- and, according to Seligman, your highest level of feel-good...I'm betting that even if Ayn Rand and I started off a conversation disagreeing on this topic of altruism, Ayn would nonetheless be open to hearing about these modern day research studies and theories."


Terry Goodkind: He's Got the Write Stuff: "Goodkind came relatively late to the writing game, having started as an artist. But, from the moment the first words he ever wrote ('It was an odd-looking vine.') were published, his Sword of Truth series was a smashing success -- more than 10 million books sold, repeatedly hitting the top spot on the New York Times' bestseller lists....Goodkind's books are infused with the philosophy in which he deeply believes -- the objectivism of Ayn Rand that holds individual rights as key to a society that works and that encourages individuals to pursue what makes them happy."


Could There be Proof to the Theory That We're All Psychic?: "'Up to 85 per cent of people may be clairvoyant' says a researcher."


Back to Health: A beautiful reflection on relationships by Hope.


Also I've added the following blogs to my Blog List...


A Journey of Hope


In Mala Fide


View From the Right


Plus I've updated my article, Sex, Love, and Marriage in Modern Society

The Best Evidence for God in One Paragraph

Lawrence Auster’s highly-recommended website, View from the Right, just opened a new discussion: “Arguments for the Existence of God that are Logical, Easy to Understand, and Unanswerable.”

I wasn’t satisfied with the arguments that were being used, so I emailed Mr. Auster to voice my opinion…

I believe in the existence of God, but the arguments used in your blog post are not "logical, easy to understand, and unanswerable." Rather, they are flimsy, vague, and abstract. If you (or anyone else) wants to validate scientifically the existence of God, you have three solid arguments at your disposal: First is the Anthropic Principle (discovered by Brandon Carter in 1973) which proves (beyond any reasonable doubt) that the laws of physics were "pre-planned" to be "life-friendly" at the conception of the universe because even the slightest tinkering of those laws would make life anywhere impossible. Second is Intelligent Design in biology (best articulated by Philip Johnson, Michael Behe, Stephen Meyer, and others), in which the conception of purposeful Design is vastly superior to the blind, meaningless Darwinian paradigm of natural selection. In the past few decades, the evidence from DNA, irreducible complexity, and the fossil record plus the LACK of evidence for Darwinism has shifted the debate radically in favor of a divine solution. Finally, the vast collection of data from Near Death Experiences (NDEs) shows--again, beyond any reasonable doubt--that consciousness is independent of the brain and survives death, and thus, the materialist paradigm ("matter is all there is") is destroyed beyond any hope of repair. The philosophical implications of these breakthroughs is played out in my novel, The Mustard Seed.

A few minutes ago, Lawrence was kind enough to post my email on his website.

-Todd


**UPDATE, AUG. 14, 2009**



Since yesterday, Lawrence and I have exchanged a few emails, and someone named Sage McLaughlin has also provided some commentary (click on Lawrence’s website to read the whole exchange). In case – for some odd reason – my writings get deleted from Lawrence’s site, I’ve posted all of my comments bellow…

I read through Sage McLaughlin's post, and, I have to say, I don't think he characterized my views very well, or drew the right conclusions from them. First of all, I never said there is "scientific proof of God's existence." In fact, I agree with Sage that such a statement is impossible. Rather, I offered "three solid arguments" to "validate scientifically the existence of God." In other words, I am offering what I can consider to be the best arguments to "validate" God's existence through reason, not faith. If you have faith (as Sage apparently does), God bless him, but a lot of people don't have faith, and it's appropriate for us to persuade those people using the tools they are most familiar with--namely, science and reason. This entire discussion between us proves that when faith is absent (after all, we're not obligated to take Sage's opinion on faith), reason is the only means of communication.

I used three arguments for God's existence: The Anthropic Principle, Intelligent Design, and Near-Death Experiences. I'm not sure why Sage was so dismissive of these arguments. In the case of the first two arguments, if I understand him correctly, he's basically saying, "Yeah, they sort of imply God exists, but it doesn't clinch the argument." The only problem is I never claimed it would clinch the argument. As we all agree, the argument about God's existence cannot be clinched. However, just because we don't have certainty doesn't mean we can't go with the probabilities. In the case of the Anthropic Principle and Intelligent Design, the probability that material forces can be responsible for the creation of life and the universe are so astronomically remote, any truly objective person would affirm that there is a non-material agent at work (specifically, God). To use an example: If you won the lottery 15 times in a row, I suppose you could shrug and say, "It's all chance," but an honest person would say, "I think the game is fixed." And in a sense, the game IS fixed. And that's important.

In the case of the final argument--Near Death Experiences--Sage is just plain wrong. Why? There are two overarching facts. First, these people are dead. Let me repeat that: DEAD. Whether it's for five minutes, 20 minutes, or some cases longer, they are dead. If you are dead, you cannot hallucinate. You cannot have any sensory or mental experience. Period. Second, there are many, many cases where dead people were later able to document events outside their body--i.e, they were able to describe what was happening in our hospital rooms, what their families were doing at home miles away, etc. This is so well-documented a ten minute Google search would suffice.

In conclusion, it's clear that Sage and I are people of faith who think faith is critical to saving our civilization. I respect him for that. But ultimately, I think he is too quick to dismiss my arguments, and in doing so, he is limiting our ability to actively engage and change our culture for the better.

Later – in response to some further commentary by Lawrence - I wrote…

I think your last post was fair and reasonable. However, I would like to reply to your conclusion, "I can't get all that excited about Back to Deism."

I don't want to put words into your mouth, but I presume the source of that statement is an assumption that Deism does not feature a personal God; that God is effectively a "blind watchmaker." However, my faith (which I wouldn't describe as Deism, per se) DOES feature a personal God who loves us. Indeed, that is the evidence provided to us by Near-Dear Experiences and other major mystical events.

But there's an even larger point. For me, the "excitement" doesn't rest in faith directly. Faith itself is not the primary. What is primary is a life of rational self-empowerment. The conviction (supported by experience) that each person, through the use of his mind, is able to succeed and find happiness on this Earth. In other words, our happiness is not contingent on others. We are truly the authors of our own destiny--to the extent that we wish to pick up the pen and write our destiny. That--for me--at least, is something worth getting excited for.

Later still…

I agree that Deists usually use the Anthropic Principle to validate their philosophy. However, I would argue that people shouldn't limit their interpretation of the Anthropic Principle to Deism (the "blind watchmaker" thesis). We know the act of creation was "fine-tuned" to support life. To quote the physicist Freeman Dyson, "the universe knew we were coming." Life - and specifically, conscious human life - was planned from the start. As such, I think we can infer that God cares for his creation (human beings) and is invested in our progress. Indeed, once we recognize this powerful fact, it is
practically illogical to limit our faith to Deism.

-Todd

The Excitement of "Consciousness Studies"

This weekend, I read through a New Atlantis article called “Why Minds are Not Like Computers.” The essence of what our minds “are” and “are not” has always been an intriguing subject for me, so I approached this 20-page article with a high level of eagerness. Unfortunately, however, it was quite boring, long-winded, and uninspiring. Still, I agree with the essence of the author’s argument: our minds are NOT like computers. This doesn’t seen like a radical statement, at first, but for decades, the consensus in the scientific community has been that – as research advances – our minds could be conceptually understood as extremely-advanced computers. However, as other journalists have noted, this scientific worldview (like the entire materialist perspective) is starting to breakdown as the evidence accumulates. In fact, last year, the agnostic conservative John Derbyshire attended a conference with the provocative title of “Toward a Science of Consciousness.” As he reports in his interesting (and highly-recommended) blog: scientists are still – even today – at a total loss when it comes to explaining how “consciousness” works. We still have a lot of work ahead of us.

As I mentioned above, the “essence” of “consciousness” has been a subject that has long interested me. In my book, The Mustard Seed, I demonstrate how the latest scientific discoveries provide virtually-convincing evidence for the existence of God and the soul. In fact, you could make the argument that – in the year 2009 – there is more “reason” to have faith than at any other time in history. Essentially, I summarize (in Chapter 9) the latest breakthroughs in physics, evolutionary biology, and modern neuroscience to prove my point (for more details, see the book itself). But I never really touched on the subject of “consciousness,” precisely because (as Derbyshire’s report reveals) the science on that subject is still in the earliest stages. However, I am confident that as this process continues, “consciousness studies” will provide even more evidence (and perhaps even the best evidence) for the soul. This will be a sharp rebuke for the radical materialists who originally hoped that “consciousness studies” would be the finally nail in the coffin of faith.

But I digress.

From my perspective, there are 3 main “consciousness theories.”

The first theory is the most prevalent: that “consciousness” as we understand it is an illusion. This “thing” that creates an “I” is merely an illusion created by a large mass of neurons in the brain. There is no “You.” What “you" think “you are” is just the result of a random and meaningless biological process. Needless to say, this theory is the offspring of radical materialism, and thus, today’s scientific consensus. Of course, like radical Darwinism, it’s a fine theory if you start off with the assumption – a priori – that God and the soul don’t exist. But, like radical Darwinism, the closer you look at the facts (in an objective way) the harder it is to believe in their perspective. For starters, there is no inherent reason why matter should give rise to consciousness. In other words, you could have a human body perform nearly all of the functions of an animal (eating, sleeping, etc.) but those functions don’t require an “I,” something that thinks about its existence, and even thinks about its own thinking! Clearly, this is something “other;” something that is “more” than what scientists are willing to work it. They’re content with their amygdalas and pituitary glands, and don’t want to entertain the idea that – in the words of Shakespeare – “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Sorry, guys, you’re not going to convince me that “I” don’t exist. Try again.

The second theory is “dualism.” The idea that there IS a mind, but it is separate from the body. Although most people never bother to think about “consciousness theories,” this is probably the theory that most human beings (outside the scientific community, of course) believe in. And indeed, most scientists throughout history (before the advent of radical materialism) held this belief too. Basically, to paraphrase Jesus, it renders unto science what is science (the body); and renders unto God what is God (the soul). Hence, it’s a straight-down-the-middle compromise. And that’s a large part of it’s appeal.

The third theory is what you might call “convergence.” Basically, we could summarize it as: “Matter IS consciousness, and consciousness IS matter.” There is a harmony there even if we’re not even close to understanding it on a conceptual level. This philosophy could be called an “Eastern perspective” (in contrast to the “Western” dualism) and has been popularized in many books (I recommend The Holographic Universe for beginners). Clearly, this theory raises a whole host of uncomfortable questions: Do animals have a soul? Can there be a real “I” if we are all “one?” I think the answer to that last question can be “yes, paradoxically” and it might work like a prism (think back to high science class!) in which a single white light gets split into the separate colors of the rainbow. That’s just one idea. Nobody really knows.

Personally, I sympathize with both the 2nd and 3rd theories, and I’m inclined to say that the ultimate truth can be found in the 3rd theory. Either way, I’m confident that continuing developments in the field of “consciousness studies” will continue to undermine radical materialism, and support the conclusions reached in my book, The Mustard Seed. Stay tuned.

-Todd