On "a perfect self-aware digital copy of you"

An exchange on Facebook:

Person A: "Black Mirror is a cool series, but at this point I think I can safely say that it is over-reliant on the "What if they could make a perfect self-aware digital copy of you?" plot device."

Person B: "I agree but history will probably see it as a cautionary tale."

Person Me: "How can the impossible be a cautionary tale?"

Person B: "1984 was also thought to be impossible."

And my further response --

There is nothing logically impossible about '1984' -- and, in fact, it was happening under leftist regimes even as the story was being composed. So, if it was "thought impossible", it was thought so only by those who declined to think logically and reasonably about human beings.

On the other hand, it is logically impossible for a computer program to be self-aware, to be a *self* in the first place (*). Further, even if that weren't logically impossible, it would be a further impossibility for such a program to be a self-aware digital copy of a person/self (**). So, if a computer-program-as-a-self is thought to be possible, it is thought so only by those who decline to think logically and reasonably about persons and about computers.

(*) A computer, I mean the physical machine distinct from its programming, is no more capable of "hosting" a self than an abacus is; for, a computer *is* an abacus, very complex to be sure, but an abacus nonetheless, and nothing more. Meanwhile, a computer program is just a physical *representation* of *one* possible set of deterministic cause-and-effect transformations upon some possible data set or sets. If no data input is given to a program, no data output can be generated by the program.

(**) The so-called "perfect self-aware digital copy of you" would merely be *data* for such a program to read and perform operations/transformations upon; that is, it would be mere *representations* of certain facts about your and your history (and not any actual facts at all), used as input to such a program. That program, executing on that computer, reading *your* data, would no more be you (nor a copy of you) than a minute later that some program, executing on that same computer, reading *my* data, would be me (or a copy of me). Put another way, printing that data into a book does not cause the book to be a person (much less to be you). no matter how quickly someone flips the pages.

Amusing Contrast

Scott Adams (2017/04/20): Big Red Flag for Cognitive Dissonance

Scott Adams (2017/04/19): You Don’t Have Free Will – but You Might Get It Someday

There *is* no such thing as 'cognitive dissonance' were it really true that "You Don’t Have [as people say (*)] Free Will". Moreover, if "You Don’t Have Free Will" now, then you never will "get" it in the future.


(*) To say that we "have" free will is to use sloppy language, however common it is. The truth is that we *are* free wills; our "free will" is not something we can gain or lose, as though it were a cold or a foot.

The Illusion Delusion

I'd like to share with Gentle Reader a comment/explanation from Kristor at The Orthosphere --

winstonscrooge - "Perhaps consciousness is the universal and the you of waking is an egoic illusion."

Kristor - "It’s an interesting notion. But all the phenomenal evidence we have – that, by definition, we can possibly have – contradicts it, so …"

winstonscrooge - "What specifically?"

Kristor - "All the evidence we have, without exception, is evidence we are aware of. By definition, we can’t have awareness of evidence that we are not aware of. So we can’t have evidence that the only sort of evidence we can have – the sort we are aware of – is illusory. All the evidence we can possibly have points to the suggestion that our conscious awareness is not illusory."

The "interesting notion" (as Kristor put it), popular amongst God-deniers, in particular, and those who wish to do what they know to be immoral, in general, that our consciousness of ourselves is an illusion is an incoherent notion; it is self-refuting.

IF it were true -- if it even could be true -- that our consciousness of ourselves is an illusion, THEN we could never know it to be true; and we could never truly know it to be even a logical possibility.

Implications!

In a recent post on Victor Reppert's blog, Bob Prokop explodes the common atheistic talking point that critical thinking leads one to embrace atheism --

"I'm curious what you think would be an acceptable demonstration of the claim that critical thinking leads to atheism. (I do think this is true, but I am wondering what you think would demonstrate it to you, and others.)"

It's not gonna happen, because there is simply no conceivable way that honest, critical thinking will ever lead to atheism.

Atheism demands that one close one's mind to the illogic of something coming from nothing (or else one has to redefine "nothing" to the point where it is actually "something").

Atheism demands that one overlook the fact that atheism necessarily means there is no objective morality, that good and evil are nothing more than subjective judgements of a mind that one can't actually trust to make such judgements.

Atheism demands that one ignore the fact that 99.9 percent of humanity since the Dawn of Time have believed in, worshiped, and prayed to God (or to gods). Atheists are required to think their tiny minority are "right" and the overwhelming majority of people are "wrong" about the most important of all imaginable questions.

Atheists must insist that all questions can be reduced to matters of empirical evidence and "science" - that art, literature, history, music, architecture, personal experience, all are somehow defective or fundamentally lacking, not quite worthy of trust, ultimately to be (negatively) evaluated against the one-and-only objective standard given the atheist seal of approval.

Atheists must never, ever allow themselves to realize that atheism means that everything is meaningless, that in the end of ends it does not matter what kind of life one leads, or even whether one is or is not an atheist - because a single microsecond after one's death, it is all as though it never happened, so who cares?

Atheists must never face up to the inevitable implication of materialism that individual identity does not really exist - that we are simply complex bundles of matter and energy, which, if its configuration is somehow altered or destroyed, becomes something else.

Atheists must believe that our noblest traits, our highest aspirations, our sublimest thoughts, are nothing more than electrical impulses and chemical reactions in a soulless meat machine, of no greater significance than combustion or sublimation. The love I feel for my family is simply a Darwinian survival mechanism.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Atheism is the very negtion of critical thinking. To the contrary, a case can be made for its being perilously close to insanity

Exactly!

Both the affirmation of the reality of God and the denial of the reality of God are statements about the very nature of reality, of truth, of reason, of morality, of meaning, of love, of beauty, of personhood, of agency, and of our individual selves (and of much else, besides; that list is not exhaustive). The question of the reality of God is the First Question, because everything else follows from the answer to that question.

At the very least, every one of the demands and entailments of God-denial that Mr Prokop lists ought to give one pause regarding one's God-denial if one really is engaging in critical thinking; and some of them are sufficient to demonstrate the falsity of God-denial. Thus, if one really is engaging in critical thinking, then one simply will not continue to deny the reality of God. So, far from critical thinkng leading a person to atheism, in truth it leads one away.

Consider just a few of the above entailments of atheism --

Atheists must never, ever allow themselves to realize that atheism means that everything is meaningless, that in the end of ends it does not matter what kind of life one leads, or even whether one is or is not an atheist - because a single microsecond after one's death, it is all as though it never happened, so who cares?

This is one of the logical entailments of God-denial that ought to cause one to seriously doubt that God-denial is the truth about the nature of reality. That is, this entailment itself doesn't show that God-denial is false (though other entailments do), but it does show that very few human beings -- including one's own atheistic-professing self -- are actually capable of *really* believing that atheism is the truth about the nature of reality.

No one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes that *everything* -- including atheism itself -- is meaningless. No one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes that it doesn't matter in the least what a person believes about the nature of reality. No one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes that it doesn't matter in the least how a person conducts his life.

Now, of course, the fact that no one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes this particular logically inescapable entailment of God-denial does not in itself prove that God-denial is the false view of reality. But it does expose a very serious cognitive dissonance involved in attempting to assert that atheism is the truth about the nature of reality -- if one doesn't believe the logically inescapable entailments of a proposition which one asserts, then one either doesn't really understand the proposition or one doesn't really believe the proposition in the first place. If one asserts that 1+1=2 and yet denies that 2+1=3, then one either does not understand what one is talking about, or one doesn't really believe what one has asserted.

It's a curiosity: atheism is odd, and possibly unique, in this regard -- atheism is a world-view the truth of which matters not in the least were it actually the truth about the nature of reality; the question of the truth of atheism matters only if atheism is not true.

Atheism demands that one overlook the fact that atheism necessarily means there is no objective morality, that good and evil are nothing more than subjective judgements of a mind that one can't actually trust to make such judgements.

This is another of the logical entailments of God-denial that ought to cause one to seriously doubt that God-denial is the truth about the nature of reality -- even the people who explicitly and publically assert that there is no such thing as objective-and-transcendent morality continuously demonstrate by their own behavior that they don't really believe what they have asserted!

Consider just one common example of their behavior belying their assertions --

Richard Dawkins (along with many other famous 'atheists') is on very public record of affirming the logical entailment of atheism that there are no such things as 'right' and 'wrong', that is, that there is no such thing as transcendent morality, and of affirming this as a logical entailment of atheism. Richard Dawkins (along with many other famous 'atheists') is *also* on very public record of asserting that this or that (e.g. rearing one's child as a Christian; being a "creationist"; punishing criminals because they have chosen to be criminals; being sexually jealous of one's spouse; and on and on) is 'wrong'. Richard Dawkins (along with many other famous 'atheists') constantly asserts that there is no "way things ought to be" ... and also constanly asserts that this or that "ought not be" -- this is a blatant self-contradiction: either he (and they) does not really believe the former assertion, or does not really believe the latter assertion(s).


Now, consider this immediate topic in light of the prior one.

Suppose it really is the case that there are no such things as 'right' and 'wrong', that is, that there is no such thing as transcendent morality. And after all, this really is a logically inescapable entailment of atheism.

And, suppose it really is the case that that *everything* really is ultimately and utterly meaningless, and thus it doesn't matter in the least how one conducts one's life. And after all, this really is a logically inescapable entailment of atheism.

Now, suppose those two propositions simultaneously -- for, after all, if atheism really is the truth about the nature of reality, then both propositions are true.

Does one now see how it is that so many 'atheists' constantly seek to shape public opinion by means of asserting self-contradictions?

Atheism demands that one overlook the fact that atheism necessarily means [that all our thoughts/judgements/conclusions are nothing more than the output] of a mind that one can't actually trust to make such judgements.

Atheists must believe that our noblest traits, our highest aspirations, our sublimest thoughts, are nothing more than electrical impulses and chemical reactions in a soulless meat machine, of no greater significance than combustion or sublimation. The love I feel for my family is simply a Darwinian survival mechanism.

If atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, then you cannot reason -- you cannot *know* anything ... including that you cannot know anything ... and including knowing that atheism is the truth about the nature of reality.

Everything that is coheres, and it cohers in God, and God alone: to deny the reality of God is to deny the coherence of reality. This doubtless explains why 'atheists' so readily retreat into irrationality as a means to protect their God-denial from rational critical evaluation -- contrary to their constant self-promotion, they are not committed to reason/rationality, but merely to refusing to acknowledge God.

Atheists must never face up to the inevitable implication of materialism that individual identity does not really exist - that we are simply complex bundles of matter and energy, which, if its configuration is somehow altered or destroyed, becomes something else.

This is one of the logically inescapable entailments of God-denial which shows it to be absurd, and thus shows it to be false, and thus shows its denial to be true.

When one encounters a God-denier saying such things as "Consciousness is an illusion" or "The 'self' is an illusion" or "There is no such thing as 'free-will'", that isn't just some blow-hard blowing hard (however much that 'atheists' tend to be blow-hards). These claims and other such claims are logically inescapable entailments of atheism.

And when one encounters a God-denier saying something like, "Well, I am an 'atheist', and *I* don't believe that consciousness is an illusion", then one simply is dealing with a blow-hard -- what this or that 'atheist' is willing to affirm does not alter the set of propositions which are logical entailments of atheism.

When one denies the reality of God, then logically and inescapably one has also denied the reality of one's own self: but this is absurd. Since one *knows* that it is absurd to deny the reality of one's own self, and since this absurd denial is logically entailed by the denial of the reality of God, then one *knows* that the initial or grounding absurdity is in the denial of the reality of God.

This is why I say that every 'atheist', as an 'atheist', is intellectually dishonest. This isn't just me being "mean"; this is me "following the logic where it leads" -- atheism is absurd (and thus is false); atheism entails obvious absurdities (and thus is seen obviously to be false); not a single one of the 'atheists' one will ever encounter has any rationally exculpating excuse for continuing to ignore the absurdity of God-denial; that is, every single 'atheist' one will ever encounter asserts the absurdity of God-denial knowing it to be absurd, and thus knowing it to be false.

As the Apostle Paul wrote 2000 years ago: men are without excuse in denying (and failing to love-and-worship) God. Pace Bertrand Russell, men do not deny the reality of God because they have "insufficient evidence". Rather, they deny the reality of God because they refuse to acknowledge the truth they already know.

It's logically impossible to reason with these people

The 'these people' with whom it is logically impossible to reason being the so-called atheists one encounters on the internet. And the 'when' of it is *whenever* the topic is clearly seen as related to God, or "religion", or the logical implications of denying the reality of the Creator-God.

Consider this exchange --

Ilíon: "While there are certainly 'atheists' who are *generally* honest, no 'atheist' is honest with respect the very question that defines them.

Even if there were no positive arguments for the reality of God, the obvious inescapable logical entailments of denying God prove that atheism is false. SInce there is no excluded middle, as "God is not" is false, then "God is" is true.

There is no way around this."

JDHuey: "Nobody on this blog has ever shown that there are any logical entailments resulting from God not existing. People here state that they have, but they are mistaken.
If God does not exist then the world is exactly like it is. We simply have no need for that hypothesis.

The AFR is flawed and certainly not obvious. Everything we know about how the mind works indicates that it is derived solely from our embodied selves - there are no ghosts in the machine."

Victor Reppert: "The entailments would have to be from the fact that mental states are not fundamental to the universe. This doesn't entail theism directly, though it does rule out the philosophies of mind that most atheists hold. Nagel would be an exception."

Victor Reppert: "In fact, one atheist on this site defended a Nagel-type atheist position, and two of his fellow atheists suspected him of being a Christian in disguise."

JDHuey: "This is the rub. I do not remember that anyone on this blog has really demonstrated that a mental process as envisioned by an atheist philosophy of mind has been ruled out. It has been asserted many times but never demostrated.

The arguments put forward by Searle are hardly convincing. In fact, when I read books that cover research in consciousnes by people like Stanislas Dehaene or Antonio Damasio, it becomes evident that a lot of the objections by Searle are based on faulty conceptions of how the brain works.

Even you seem to have a faulty concept of a 'brain state'. It seems to me that you use that term as if the brain were a static system that transitions from one state to another. But the brain is a continuously dynamic system with massively interacting networks. You can say that the brain is in a state of paying attention or is asleep or is aroused or is calm but those states are processes not configurations."

Victor Reppert: "Perhaps I can put this as follows. Suppose I say that I can build a cat out of legos. I mean a real cat, not something that looks like a cat. And, I have lots of legos, and can put those legos into many interesting configurations. Perhaps they even function dynamically, as opposed to statically. It seems to me that no matter how complex these lego-formations are, it won't produce a cat, simply because there is a fundamental difference in kind between legos and cats.

It seems to me that no matter how much detail you use to specify the state of the brain, so long as you don't fudge categories, no mental state is entailed by all the physical state-descriptions. The physical always leaves the mental underdetermined. Now we can project the mental into the physical, but then we are going to need a mind to do the projecting, and so we aren't really going from the physical to the mental in the required way."

JDHuey: "The problem is not that Legos are not like cats but that Legos are not like atoms. A cat is not the same kind of thing as an atom but it is composed of atoms.

If you have something that can serve the same function as an atom and you configure them into the same visual and functional configuration that we call a 'cat'. And the results looks like a cat and acts in all ways like a cat, then in what way is it not a cat?"

This "dialogue" could continue forever, and while JDHuey will certainly contradict himself (increasingly so as it continues), he will *never* admit to anything. He will make all manner of assertions (never backing them up) that are false, but need to be true for atheism to be the truth about the nature of reality, demanding Victor Reppert prove them false, and never admitting when Reppert has done so.

It is logically impossible to reason with people who do that sort of thing.

Why mental states are not physical states

Victor Reppert has a recent small post, Why mental states are not physical states. As is his habit, or modesty, he doesn't take the idea he's (tentatively) exploring to its logical conclusion, which is that we -- embodied rational beings -- are the proof that God -- the unembodied Rational Being of all beings -- is.

In a comment to his OP, I do take the idea to that conclusion (of course), and I might as well share it with you (or course). But the *main* point of this post is to demolish the *denial* of what Reppert wrote --
Victor Reppert:

If mental states are physical states, then the truth about what someone believes should follow necessarily from the state of the brain/physical world. But it doesn't. If we line up all the physical facts, we have every atom traced, the argument from The brain is in state X therefore he must believe, say, that God exists, cannot follow necessarily. The state of the physical always leaves the state of the mental indeterminate. But what my thought is about is determinate, not indeterminate. Therefore my belief is not a physical state.

Me, taking the idea to its logical conclusion:

... and thereby do we know that naturalism and materialism and indeed atheism (*) is false.

(*) For, it isn't the physicalism that shows naturalism and materialism to be false, it is the determinism.

An even better word to have used than 'determinism', even if I have to coin it myself, is 'machinality'.

Contrary to the assertions of some of the God-deniers who admit the inescapable problem with 'materialism', yet vainly imagine that there is some 'atheism' out there free of the flaw (*), the flaw -- the logical entailment of the denial that we ourselves even *can* exist -- the flaw goes deeper than mere 'materialism'; the flaw is in God-denial itself.

What is at the heart of 'atheism'? What does it *mean* to say that "God is not"? The heart of 'atheism', the meaning of God-denial, is the assertion that there is no Person -- no Agent -- who is "the ground of all being". That is, whatever it is that may properly be said to be "the gound of all being", that thing is not a person, is not an agent, and, consequently, does not, and cannot, posses the properties that distinguish persons from non-persons and agents from non-agents.

One of the properties that distinguish persons from non-persons and agents from non-agents is freedom; in fact, freedom is the main characteristic of agency. As agent is active, rather than passive; and agent is not merely acted upon, but rather, acts. An agent is free to initiate novel causal-webs, rather than merely being acted upon by pre-existing causal-webs.

When God-deniers deny the reality of God -- deny that God, a Person, an Agent, is *the* fundamental reality -- then they are denying that it is even possible for there to be *any* agents and *any* persons. When God-deniers deny the reality of God, they are asserting that *everything* that is is a machine, a passively deterministic entity, whether or not it has any material component.

To deny the reality of the Divine Person(s) is also -- necessarily -- to deny the reality of human persons; this is why I keep saying that "You are the proof that God is!"

Some God-deniers try to get around that cardinal difficulty of atheism (and disproof of it) by ad hoc positing that perhaps 'Mind' or 'Consciousness' or some similar concept is "fundamental to reality", and as 'atheism', per se doesn't (appear to) deny the possibility, that therefore 'atheism' isn't seen to be necessarily false, and is off the hook for internal incoherence.

But, there is no such thing as 'Mind', nor any of the related concepts to which they ad hoc appeal, unless there is an actually existing mind. When the God-deniers try this particular stunt, what they are really doing is trying to after-the-fact smuggle God into the foundation of their world-view, via the cellar door, while continuing to shout out the front door and all the windows that there is no God.


(*) Not that they *ever* do more than vaguely wave their hands and declare the problem solved to their satisfaction.

John Moore, denying Repper's reasoning (as, being a God-denier, he *must*):

Yes it does. If we line up all the physical facts, with every atom traced, then we can see precisely what the brain believes. We can see how particular sensory inputs will activate particular neural pathways and eventually produce motor output such as a speech act saying "I believe X."

I wish I could understand why Victor says it doesn't. Please provide more explanation.

Looking at a computer circuit, we can see that particular inputs inevitably lead to particular outputs. That's how the electrical circuit works. The brain is also a kind of electrical circuit. It is hugely complex and made of different stuff, but the brain still looks entirely physical. If we knew what every atom was doing, we could predict exactly what the brain would do.

Let us try to pretend that Mr Moore really believes what he is asserting (he doesn't). Moveover, let us try to pretend that what he is asserting really is the truth about reality, and about human beings (it isn't). What would it *mean* were these things true? What would be the logical entailment of these assertions were they true?

Victor Reppert: "If mental states are physical states, then the truth about what someone believes should follow necessarily from the state of the brain/physical world. But it doesn't." (I suspect that Mr Reppet means something very different from what he actually wrote; but I also believe that most readers will *get* what he means.)

John Moore: "If we line up all the physical facts, with every atom traced, then we can see precisely what the brain believes. We can see how particular sensory inputs will activate particular neural pathways and eventually produce motor output such as a speech act saying "I believe X.""

By his *own* assertion, Mr Moore doesn't actually believe what he is asserting -- for, in the world-view he pretends to believe, there is no such thing, nor can be, as 'belief'. God-deniers *use* words such as 'believe' and 'choose', while emptying them of any meaning at all.

Rather, both he and Mr Reppert are simply making noises (or typing letters) because their particular brain-states, at this particular moment in the unfolding history of the material world, compel their mouths (or fingers) to produce those noises (or typed letters). In a moment, Mr Moore's brain-state may well change -- perhaps he will hear the sound represented by the letters "tomato", and that sound will set in motion a series of brain-state changes -- such that his brain-state will then compel him to "contradict" what he has just said.

Who can say? Certainly not Mr Moore, for he -- by his own admission -- knows nothing, nor believes anything, nor can do either.

If Mr Moore's assertion -- for he offers no *argument* -- (and the world-view behind it) were indeed true, then his act of asserting it is utterly meaningless, as is Mr Reppert's argument to the contrary.

Mr Moore is *explicitly* asserting that minds are produced by, are effects of, brains. He is *explicitly* asserting the he, and Reppert, and you and me, are machines. In this case, physical/material machines. He is *explicitly* asserting that we are passively determined at every instant by the prior history of the material/physical world. He is *explicitly* asserting that we do not, and cannot, choose to do this or that (recall: even if he uses that word, he first empties it of any meaning), but rather that whatever "speech act", say, we may perform is merely the mechanical-and-inevitable result of prior material states.

Usually, God-deniers try to not be this explicit about what God-denial actually entails.


Some semi-prominent 'atheists' like to make the devistating "argument" that Christians "belong at the kids' table"; for, after all, we persist in believing "irrational" things.

But, the truth is that until a man acknowledges that God is (which is a different matter from whether Jesus the Christ is God), he not only has no place a "the adults' table, but also not at "the kids' table". Rather, the God-denier belongs on the floor, with the other non-rational animals.


By the way, this is a little game of which God-deniers (and leftists and DarwinDefenders) are inordinately fond-- "I wish I could understand why Victor says it doesn't. Please provide more explanation." -- I call it "Deny and Demand": deny the explanation you have been given without ever engaging it, and demand another.


============ Edit 2015/02/08 ===============

Shackleman: "Granted, I think "emergence" lacks much merit, but I still think you've left room for them to retreat to it."

It only looks that way because people (you, in this case) are used to -- have been conditioned to -- allow them to do that. Somehow, materialists took over the intellectual life of the West two or three *centuries* ago. By this point in time, we're all so used to the implicit materialism into which we're born, that we rarely *examine* the underlying assumptions and entailments ... nor question the moves made by the intentional materialists.

Shackleman: "Have you not left room for the atheist to claim that agency can "emerge" from a universe which exists initially without agency? I think that's what they'd do, and point to "evolution" as the driving force to get them there."

'Emergence' is a Great Word of Magick amongst materialists and atheists. But, in reality, it's even more empty than the word 'instinct' used by butterfly col ... I mean, evolutionist biologists.

Allow me to first illustrate the issue by means of an aphorism (that I just made up) which is also an analogy and a metaphor -- "A tiger may emerge from a jungle ... proveded there is already a tiger in the jungle." (Do note my use of 'may': the tiger has some choice in the matter).

The atheist, whether or not he cops to being a materialist, who tries to escape this logical entailment of the denial of the reality and personhood of God (to wit: denial of the reality of the human person) by appealing to 'emergence' is akin to the man who states that there is no tiger in the jungle, but that, nonetheless, purely by chance occurrance, one might emerge from it at any time.


Now, consider this --

Let us posit the existence of some initial state of affairs, some world -- which may or may not be material (this point is important) (*) -- in which all events/occurrances are the mechanical effects of logically prior (**) events/occurrances. This is simple cause-and-effect: the logically prior event(s)/occurrance(s) is(are) the cause(s) of the logically subsequent event(s)/occurrance(s), the effect(s), necessarily.

Thus -- for this is just another way of stating the above paragraph -- given the condition of this 'world' at state 'S0', then it is mechanically inevitable that its condition at state 'S1' will be as it will be. That is, state 'S1' is fully determined by state 'S0'. This necessarily applies no matter which state one chooses to account as being state 'S0'.

Look again at what Mr Moore said -- what I have said above is *exactly* what he said, just more general-in-application, less linked to materialism, and more precisely stated.

But, notice: this world I have described is merely an abstract description or model of what the 'atheist' claims is true of *this* world, and of us. This world I have described is the theoretical instance of what the 'atheist' says is the truth about the particular instance in which we find ourselves -- thus, if the theoretical instance cannot fully account for the particular instance, then the theory is at best incomplete. The theory may also be flat-out wrong.

So, which is it? Is the 'atheist' theory flat-out wrong, or is it just incomplete? (Hint: it's flat-out wrong)

Look again at the theory -- state 'S1' is fully determined by state 'S0'. Thus, state 'S2' is fully determined by state 'S1', and state 'S3' is fully determined by state 'S2', and so on, world without end.

When the 'atheist' tries to appeal to 'emergence' to "explain" the existence in this theoretical world of entities which are *not* fully determined by the world's prior states, then he is rendering his theory-of-the-world incoherent --which is to say, Self-contradictory, which is to say, necessarily false (and not merely incomplete). For, while a set of self-consistent statements may be nonetheless false, no set of self-contradictory statements can ever possibly be true.

When the 'atheist' tries to appeal to 'emergence' to "explain" the existence in this theoretical world of entities which are *not* fully determined by the world's prior states, then he is saying that somewhere between state 'Sn' and state 'Sn+1' a *POOF* occurs, and out of absolutely nowhere, with absolutley no cause, that which was never in the world, not even as a potential, just appears.

And, of course, if the inattentive listener lets the 'atheist' get away with that bit of Magick, it turns out that the "agency" he has poofed into the world isn't *actually* agency: it's just the word 'agency' applied to mechanical necessity. As I said before, 'atheists' do (and must) empty such words of content and meaning, for the meaning contradicts their world-view.


(*) This 'world' may, or may not, be wholly material, or at least have a material component along with an immaterial component, ot may be wholly immaterial -- it doesn't matter. All that matters is that this world is logically consistent, that no part of it contradict the whole; for, if it is not logically consistet, if it is not coherent, then it cannot be a world.

(**) And perhaps temporally prior, but that's not important; just as this 'world' may be wholly immaterial, so, too, may it be a-temporal. All that is absolutely required of it is that it be logically consistent.

And what would that be?

I saw a bumper-stickerish avatar over at Jordan's LJ blog. It said, "You are the end result of four billion years of evolution. Fucking act like it."

And I can't help but think that whatever behavior it is that he thinks is beneath the majesty and/or dignity of the "end result of four billion years of evolution" is *precisely* how one should expect an "end result of four billion years of evolution" to behave.

For, after all, how else *could* the "end result of four billion years of evolution" behave than however it is that it is behaving?

It just never ceases to amaze me that evolutionists *still* don't understand their own world-view.

Another case of 'You are not your brain'

'News' at Uncommon Descent: Woman of 24 found to have no cerebellum in her brain

Although it is not unheard of to have part of your brain missing, either congenitally or from surgery, the woman joins an elite club of just nine people who are known to have lived without their entire cerebellum. A detailed description of how the disorder affects a living adult is almost non-existent, say doctors from the Chinese hospital, because most people with the condition die at a young age and the problem is only discovered on autopsy (Brain, doi.org/vh7).

However, in this woman, the missing cerebellum resulted in only mild to moderate motor deficiency, and mild speech problems such as slightly slurred pronunciation. Her doctors describe these effects as “less than would be expected”, and say her case highlights the remarkable plasticity of the brain.

Such cases not only "highlight the remarkable plasticity of the brain" but *also* highlight the falseness of the atheistic/naturalistic claim that minds are explained by brains (as see here and here)

On an athestic response to Easter

For Easter, Michael Egnor put up a small post, wherein he quotes an essay of one Nathaniel Peters concerning a recent reflection of Pope Francis concerning grace and Pelagianism:

On this greatest of holidays, Nathaniel Peters has an essay on Pope Francis' beautiful reflection on grace and pelagianism.

Peters:

One of the greatest theological diseases we find in contemporary Catholicism [Ilíon: and amongst Christians in general] is pelagianism, the notion that we’re all basically good people whose moral improvement and salvation is the result of our good actions. In this mindset, God’s grace becomes less consequential because it’s less necessary. [On this false view,] At its heart, Christianity is about doing good things.

Throughout history, great theologians have combated pelagianism: Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and, in our own time, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Benedict XVI. They have reminded us that, at its heart, Christianity is a love story in which God seeks us out and draws us closer to himself. The first move belongs to God, and any real good we do is a gift from him, enshrouded with his own love. In this understanding, God’s grace has the primacy and priority. ...

As we seek the Lord and His grace, Francis reminds us that our encounter with Him is a gift, freely given to us and unearned by us. Our good works are not what earn us grace. They are grace, working in us.

His gift to us was earned, but not by us.

Happy Easter to all.

Naturally, a certain of the foolish and self-contradictory lying atheist-and-leftists who infest Engor's blog just had to spout off:

What a lovely religion Christianity is! Asserting that basically all humans are totally depraved.

Frans de Waal has recently published a book 'the Bonobo and the Atheist' dealing with the evolution of morality in social animals, including wolves, elephants, whales, gorillas, common chimps and bonobos.

Were he not an atheist, he'd be an adherent of pelagianism. He notes that the human urge to help and cooperate is innate. On neuroimaging studies, activation of centres to cooperate occur earlier and more easily than those causing self serving actions.

Thomas Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog"), were he not an agnostic, would have been an adherent of utter depravity, insisting that humans are basically selfish and egoistic, with only a thin veneer of altruism for show. 'Scratch an altruist, and a hypocrit[e] bleeds'.

He'd fit nicely in the Catholic Church were it not for the fact that he'd be unlikely to seek a relationship with God.

I'm glad I don't belong to a religion that insists that I have to seek 'grace' before I can do any good. And even then, I'm not responsible for any good I do.

'bachfiend': "What a lovely religion Christianity is! Asserting that basically all humans are totally depraved."

One has merely to observe other human beings to see the truth "that basically all humans are totally depraved" One has merely to be honest about oneself to admit the truth that one, too, is totally depraved.

So, what 'bachfiend' is here objecting to in Christianity is that it demands honesty concerning human beings ... and concerning one's own self. Ultimately, this self-idolaty, this refusal to admit that oneself is morally depraved, is at the root of all anti-Christianity.

BUT NOTICE: 'bachfiend' -- an explicit-and-rabid God-hater -- is asserting a moral objection to Christianity! TO WIT: that Christianity is morally depraved because it insists that all human beings are both morally depraved and utterly helpless to make themselves moral, that we are unable to lift ourselves by our own bootstraps to a "higher moral plane".

Consider this carefully: 'bachfiend' explicitly denies that there is any such thing as a moral obligation, that there is such a thing as moral goodness, that anything can possibly be morally wicked. But, that doesn't stop him from constantly making moral assertions (*).

His religion, both in its metaphysics (that is, God-denial) and in its practical application (that is, evolutionism), demands that he deny the reality of morality.

Well, as luck would have it, no one ever said that 'atheists' were logically or rationally consistent.


(*) All 'atheists' -- just as all other human beings -- constantly make moral assessments and moral assertions. It doesn't matter whether the 'atheist' is a rabid God-hater, as 'bachfiend' or as most of the regulars at Skeptical Eye, on the one extreme, or a more measured or low-key 'atheist', who can generally keep his disdain under control, as Jordan or Bede. Human beings cannot *not* make moral judgments.


'bachfiend': "Frans de Waal has recently published a book 'the Bonobo and the Atheist' dealing with the evolution of morality in social animals, including wolves, elephants, whales, gorillas, common chimps and bonobos.

Were he not an atheist, he'd be an adherent of pelagianism. He notes that the human urge to help and cooperate is innate. On neuroimaging studies, activation of centres to cooperate occur earlier and more easily than those causing self serving actions."

Which is to say, morality s not *real*: what we call 'morality' is just certain behaviors, supposedly evolutionarily advantageous -- in the past, but we're all over that, now, now that we have 'Science!' -- caused by the way our neurons generally fire, for most of us, most of the time. If 'Evolution!' had just happened to go a different way than it just happened to go, well then, our ideas of "morality" might well be different.


'bachfiend': "Thomas Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog"), were he not an agnostic, would have been an adherent of utter depravity, insisting that humans are basically selfish and egoistic, with only a thin veneer of altruism for show. 'Scratch an altruist, and a hypocrit[e] bleeds'.

He'd fit nicely in the Catholic Church were it not for the fact that he'd be unlikely to seek a relationship with God."

Apparently, Thomas Huxley understood the meaning of the metaphysics he was pushing.

A valiant attempt at the impossible

In a recent thread over at Victor Reppert's blog, 'Martin' (and to a lesser extent, 'ingx24') is making a valiant attempt at doing the impossible: reasoning with a typical internet atheist.

The (ahem) argument concerns the (false-and-foolish) insistence of 'im-skeptical' that the human brain *is* the human mind; that is, that 'mind' is fully explicable by matter --- or, to put it more abstractly, that philosophical materialism, or 'naturalism', accurately and fully explains, without remainder, all of reality.

'Martin' is arguing the position (which happens to be the truth of the matter) that 'mind' is not, and in principle cannot ever be, explained by 'naturalism'; that is, that the reality of minds is contrary to the logical entailments of philosophical materialism, and that ergo, 'naturalism' does not, and cannot ever, accurately and fully explain, without remainder, all of reality.

Eventually, 'Martin' presents an argument against naturalism/materialism with respect to minds very similar to my reductio ad absurdum *of* naturalism/materialism, my "you are the proof that God is" argument.

Here is an "executive summary" of the valiant attempt --

im-skeptical: How does consciousness fit into nature? More easily than dualism. The concept of a soul or some kind of external being adds absolutely nothing to explaining our subjective experience. The fact is, we have subjective experience, and we are products of nature. I think if you could see the conscious experience different animals, you would see a whole range of levels of consciousness from pure automaton to sentience to human consciousness. My question for you is, at what point in this continuum does it become necessary to introduce the external soul, and what is accomplished by it?

Martin: The arguments for dualism are deductive, so saying that they have no explanatory power does nothing, absolutely nothing, to refute them.

For example, the problem here is that consciousness is subjective, or private, whereas matter is public and observable by anyone (in principle). The gulf between the two is, perhaps, unbridgeable. It isn't something being "postulated" to explain any fact; rather, it is a datum itself in need of explanation.

I pretend to be skeptical: Still no answer to my question.

Martin: I already answered that implicitly: the "soul" is not a hypothesis, among others, to explain a set of facts. Rather, it is directly deduced from the impossibility of matter giving rise to it. OR... one of the premises fails in the dualist's arguments. But criticizing it for not being able to explain anything does not refute any of the premises, and so is a misplaced objection.

I pretend to be reasoning: In my statement, I did not claim to refute the existence of a soul. I did say that it really doesn't help to explain why we have consciousness. If you think it does, I would like to understand that. It's like saying I can't see something with my eyes unless I have someone standing behind me to do the seeing for me. Well, he might be able to see, but how does that make ME see? You might say the one standing behind me is really ME, but I can't see what it explains. I am myself. When my brain stops functioning, my conscious experience stops, too. There's no evidence of any sort that tells me otherwise. Having a ghost just complicates the picture unnecessarily.

I pretend to be reasoning: In my statement, I did not claim to refute the existence of a soul. I did say that it really doesn't help to explain why we have consciousness. If you think it does, I would like to understand that.

Martin: I think I've said, by my count three times now, that the soul is not an explanatory posit at all. So even if it fails to explain something, that is not a mark against it because that's not something it's trying to do. Rather, it's an existence claim that is itself a part of the world in need of explanation.

I pretend to be reasoning: When my brain stops functioning, my conscious experience stops, too. There's no evidence of any sort that tells me otherwise. Having a ghost just complicates the picture unnecessarily.

Martin: I've outlined several, and they are generally in this form:

1. All minds have feature X
2. No matter has feature X
3. Therefore, no minds are matter

If you wish to deny the conclusion, then that entails denying one of the premises. Either minds do not have feature X, or matter does have feature X or can produce feature X. If you cannot refute either premise, then you have no rational basis for denying the conclusion.

Halus interruptus: Martin,
im-skeptical already agrees with you that we are conscious beings. And he also said that he was not trying to refute the existence of a soul. He was pointing out that he sees no reason for accepting that claim of existence.

If you wish to persuade others that the soul actually exists, then you need to provide evidence for it. For example, if it could be shown that the soul explains how humans and animals are conscious that would be a good reason for accepting its existence.

I don't know what 'dictionary' means: I do refute the premise that no matter has feature X. My brain is a material thing. My mind is a product of the brain. You have no rational basis for claiming that premise is true, unless you can show that it is true. (Yes, I've heard the arguments. They all simply assume that a mind can't be produced by material causes, but they never demonstrate the truth of that claim.)

Lest my point in referring to 'im-skeptical' as "I don't know what 'dictionary' means" be misunderstood or missed, I will interrupt here to explain.

Notice that 'im-skeptical' says "I do refute the premise that no matter has feature X." But, he did noting of the sort: he refuted nothing. What he did is assert (for the umpteenth time) the very point under dispute -- and simultaneously hand-wave away any and all arguments that show his assertion to be false. As we shall see, he will do the same concerning the argument 'Martin' is presenting.

For whatever reason, 'Martin' let this instance of misuse of the term 'refute' go. He'll later take 'im-skeptical' to task for incorrectly labling a statement "an assumption".

================
You see, when 'im-skeptical' (or most any 'atheist') "reasons" as an atheist, his mere assertion of the denial of what you have said in dispue of his God-denial becomes the "refutation" of it; his rebranding of your conclusion to an "assumption" makes it so, and so makes you guilty of begging the question. That is, even should you get him (or most any other 'atheist') to agree to a set of premises, and then soundly and validly reason from those premises to a conclusion directly contrary to his God-denial or logical entailments of it, he will simply decree that your conclusion is actually an assumption of your argument and that you were begging the question all along, and that therefore his God-denial (or its entailments) stands unchallenged and undefeated.

This is an example of *how* atheists/materialists, nearly to a man, "reason". This is an illustration of *why* is it logically impossible to actually reason with most of them; for they are not engaged in reasoning in the first place. It is not the case that they are simply and honestly mistaken about the nature of reality. It is not the case that they had arrived at their 'atheism' via reason, with a simple mistake made along the way, such that one can reason them out of the mistake. It is not the case that if only one is patient enough and "kind" enough, one can lead them to see and correct the error(s) in their thinking about the fundamental nature of reality.

Rather, it is that they will not reason correctly when sound reason would lead them where they will not go.

Yet, at the same time, so as not to leave a false impression, it is not *only* 'atheists' who "reason" in this manner of setting aside sound reasoning, and retreating into un-reason and anti-logic, when reason disputes the beliefs and/or assertions a person desires to believe are beyond dispute -- most "liberals" will do it, all outright leftists do it, all 'post-modernists' do it, all DarwinDefenders do it. Hell! even some Christians do it: for instance, many (most?) Calvinists do it; many (most?) Catholics do it with regard to the Reformation, especially regarding the 'solas'; and among the regulars at Victor Reppert's blog, 'BenYachov' does it much of the time, and 'B.Prokop' does it most of the time (but then, he's actually a leftist, rather than a Christian).

==================
Also, consider the post by 'Hal' (whom I referred to as "Halus Interruptus"):
"im-skeptical already agrees with you that we are conscious beings. And he also said that he was not trying to refute the existence of a soul. He was pointing out that he sees no reason for accepting that claim of existence."

Sure, at one point, 'im-skeptical' did indeed say, "In my statement, I did not claim to refute the existence of a soul. I did say that it really doesn't help to explain why we have consciousness." And, in point of fact, he never does even attempt to refute the reality of the human "soul". Nevertheless, and this is the point upon which 'Hal' intends to obfuscate, 'im-skeptical' asserts the denial of the reality of the human "soul" ... and asserts that he himself has burden of proof for that denial.

"If you wish to persuade others that the soul actually exists, then you need to provide evidence for it."

'Hal' likewise asserts the denial of the reality of the human "soul". And, as 'im-skeptical' does, he asserts that the burden of proof for a reality that we all directly experience lies upon the one who assents that this experience is real, rather than upon himself who denies it.

"For example, if it could be shown that the soul explains how humans and animals are conscious that would be a good reason for accepting its existence."

And then, 'Hal' demands that 'Martin' "prove" this reality that we all directly experience by means of a category-error ... which category-error 'Martin' has already repeatedly explained is beside the point.

=================
This is *how* 'atheists' (and "liberals" and leftists and DarwinDefenders) "reason" and "argue". This is *why* a rational man cannot reason with them.

This is *why* I so frequently assert that a particular 'atheist' (or "liberal" or leftist or Darwinist) is intellectually dishonest: because most of them are. And once a particular one has shown himself to be intellectually dishonest, it is unwise, and frequently immoral, to go on pretending that he isn't.

=============
Continuing with the (ahem) argument:

[later]
.
Martin: Which raises yet another argument for dualism:

1. No matter has any meaning unless that meaning is assigned by a mind (for example, the squiggles "dog" means "dog" only because we assign that meaning to those squiggles; without us minds around doing that, the squiggles don't mean anything at all)
2. All thoughts have meaning. Your thoughts right now are no doubt "how can I refute this argument?". That's the meaning your current thoughts probably have.
3. Therefore, either A) no thoughts are matter, or B) thoughts have meaning only because they are assigned that meaning by a mind.

If you choose A, you are a dualist. If you choose B, then you go to infinite regress because you are trying to explain a mind in relation to a mind, and thus not explaining it at all.

Martin: Do electrons have meaning apart from someone interpreting them to have meaning? Do the squiggles on this screen mean anything apart from the English language and its users? I don't know any materialist who would deny that words, arrows, stop signs, etc only have their meaning because us humans assign meaning to them.

I cannot allow myself to understand the point: You are correct, and that's not the issue at hand. It is: Can my material mind assign meaning, or is it only your immaterial soul that can do it?

Martin: You are jumping the gun. The only issue in premise one is that no matter has any meaning apart from humans interpreting it that way. A stop sign means stop only because us humans have decided it means that. In virtue of just its physical properties, independent of human interests and language, it doesn't mean stop or anything else. And you appear to agree. So that's premise one. Matter is meaningless.

And the second premise is that thoughts have meaning. From which [two premises] it follows that no thoughts are matter.

I am allowed to assert just anything at all: Not unless you assume that thoughts are not the product of a purely material brain, but of the soul. A bad assumption if you are at all interested in looking at the empirical evidence.

Martin: I don't think you understand how logic works. It isn't an assumption, its an argument. If you affirm that matter has no meaning, and that thoughts do have meaning, then it follows that thoughts are not matter. To deny this conclusion entails denying that either thoughts have meaning, or that matter is meaningless.

Martin: Almost everything we say you somehow manage to not understand. I don't whose fault this is.

What ingx24 is saying is that if, for example, someone believes they are Jesus Christ, while they can obviously be mistaken about that. But what they cannot be mistaken about is the fact they believe they are Jesus Christ.

If you see a ghost, you can be mistaken about seeing a ghost but you cannot be mistaken about the fact that you think you see a ghost.

OK, now I will back up and point the reader to a couple of posts by 'im-skeptical' that got the above (ahem) argument going:

I'm intellectually dishonest, but don't you dare say that I am: Perhaps it's a little late to comment on the OP, but seriously? Theists are shocked that an atheist would be less than completely deferential to them? My earlier comment about the pot calling the kettle black applies here as well.

"people rage against God (note that the fury is directed at the Father and the Son) because they think He restricts them and interferes with what they want to do. Thus, God is viewed as oppressive and is rejected as an authority and ruler over their lives."

Right. Atheists who don't believe that God exists, feel oppressed by him. Schumacher understands us better than we understand ourselves. Maybe it's this kind of condescending attitude that atheists find frustrating.

I'm a liar, but don't you dare say that I am: After listening to the first round, I note that Craig's opening remarks included jewels like:
- Atheists think it's OK to walk into a school and start killing children.
- Atheists have a hihilistic worldview.

This is the kind of crap we hear every day.

As to the second post quoted here -- I and others pointed out in the thread the "misunderstanding" enshrined in 'im-skeptical's false assertion about what Craig said. The reader is free to peruse that thread and find those slap-downs of this set of lies -- which lies, by the way, are very commonly asserted by 'atheists' whenever a Jew or Christian makes the logical point that morality cannot even exist if atheism were the truth about the nature of reality. As Victor Reppert might say, this "misunderstanding" is a "common theme of atheists".

As to the first whining post quoted here -- reason alone demonstrates to us that atheism is false, that reality is not like that. This has been known in the Western Tradition for a good 2500 years, that is, for a full 1000 years before the Hebraic Special Revelation became the cornerstone and central organizing principle for all of Western Civilization. While reason alone cannot give us Christianity, it can give us something very like Judaism.

For a good 2500 years in the West, reason alone has demonstrated to us all that atheism is false: And *still* there are those among us who deny the reality of God and of morality -- and who wage literal, death-dealing war upon the rest of us whenever they get their hands upon the levers of State power.

These God-deniers in our midst are not simply mistaken in their denial. They do not deny the reality of God because they are too stupid to do otherwise. The only other logically available category of general explanation for why they continue to deny the clear deliverance of reason is that they are intellectually dishonest ... they deny what reason demands we acknowledge because they will not assent to it.

What? Do you think Saint Paul was just blowing smoke out his ass when he "diagnosed" God-deniers 2000 years ago?

There are no other options aside from these three ... *therefore* 1) having established that "God is" is true; 2) having established that 'atheists' are mentally capable of understanding the logic which established that "God is" is true; 3) having established that 'atheists' cannot prove it false (and make no rational effort to do so); 4) having established that 'atheists' continue to thumb their noses at the clear deliverance of reason, it becomes utterly fitting to conclude that they are intellectually dishonest, that their position never was something they reasoned themselves to (and thus that they cannot be reasoned out of it by rational argument), and then to try to grub around in their psyches so as to see if we can understand what is really going on with them.


Edit (2013/02/18):
Will you look at that! Right on cue, almost as though he were a mindless puppet, 'im-skeptical' explicitly accuses 'Martin' of begging the question:

grodrigues: ...I asked you what "religious dogma" were you referring to, and what empirical evidence do you have in mind, since ingx24's argument, if it works like he says he does, was primarily directed at naturalists like yourself. In other words, I am asking for once to actually be intellectually honest and substantiate your claims.

I will not reason, but don't you dare say that I won't: Feel free to go on ignoring what I said. You asked, I answered. It's like talking to a pile of bricks.

But I have been asking for substantiation to the claim that rational thought can't come from material things like the human brain, and all I get is circular arguments with no substantiation for the claim. So why don't you object to real intellectual dishonesty? Oh, I know...

Martin: I provided an argument above, and you not shown which premise is false. I however did provide justification for each premise.

Isn't it way too amusing and ironic that "I_assert_that_I_have_no_mind" is complaning about trying to talk to a pile of bricks?

'Am I a Body or Do I Have a Body?'

Wm.Vallicella: Am I a Body or Do I Have a Body?

Wm.Vallicella: More on my Non-Identity With My Living Body

[I hope I can find the time to comment upon this]

Emergence, Again

'Emergence' is a totemic word amongst materialists (whether they claim to be "theists" or claim to be 'atheists'); that is, (they believe that) the word has Magickal Powers to solve, by its mere utterance, the logical difficulties of, and contradictions inherent in, materialism.

Earlier today, 'The Deuce' (who really ought to get back to blogging, rather than facebooking) and 'Crude' each made a comment about 'emergence' that I'd like to share with Gentle Reader.

The Deuce: ""Emergence" is one of my big pet peeves too. It's simply a throwaway term. All "emergence" means is "X comes from Y somehow". When a materialist responds to an argument [which shows] that it is logically impossible for X to come from Y by citing "emergence", all they're really doing is reiterating their belief that X comes from Y (the very issue under contention) in spite of any logical difficulties. It's not even a counterargument."

Crude: "Re: emergence, absolutely. I also see the gimmick of 'If you stack all these legos in the shape of a circle, the circle 'emerges' from the lego shapes. See? Now, that's how mind emerges from the brain!'"

Crude's comment neatly captures the essential meaning ascribed to the word 'emergence'.

Dueling Neuroscientists

Via Michael Flynn: -- Dueling Neuroscientists "Patricia Churchland, who devotes her mind to demonstrating that she has no mind, versus Raymond Tallis, who rather thinks he does."

Emergence ... and Vallicella

This item touches on but is not about Stephen Hawking's new book.

Rather, this post is about the content and subject-matter of this old post and this one. Specifically, it's about my claim and argument that "a whole may never be greater that the sum of its parts" and about William Vallicella's (the 'Maverick Philosopher') refusal even to consider what I had said to that point (and to let it stand on his blog) or to let me further explain to his friend my objections to and criticisms of his (the friend's, and perhaps Vallicella's, though I'm not sure about him) belief in 'emergence' or 'supervenience' as truly being an aspect of reality.

As I was listening to a YouTube "video" (here, on Glenn People's blog) of William Lane Craig discussing some of the public claims about the content/argument of the recently published (at the time, not yet released) book by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow ('The Grand Design'), a realization (and simplification) came to me concerning the concept of 'emergence.'

First, I'll present my transcription of part of Dr Craig's talk, starting at the 2:58 mark:

... So, there's nothing that I can see, so far, that is really different or new in this book, 'The Grand Design.' So, what I would encourage readers to do is to first read 'Reasonable Faith' [a book by Craig], where I interact with Hawking's views on the origin of the universe and the 'fine-tuning' of the universe, and then in light of that discussion ask yourself the following questions as you look at Hawking's new book:

Number one, what new developments, what new theories are featured in this new book; is it simply a re-explanation of the Harting-Hawking Model and the 'Many Worlds' hypothesis, or is there something new here? If there is not anything new, that's fine, but then we want to ask, how has Professor Hawking then responded to the criticisms of his earlier work that have been issued in the interim. There have been many responses in the literature to Professor Hawking's earlier claims, so does he respond to those criticisms, and if so, how?

Secondly, with respect to the claim that the universe came into being spontaneously from nothing, Professor Hawking writes in the Wall Street Journal article, "As recent advances in cosmology suggest, the 'laws of gravity' and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing. 'Spontaneous creation' is the reason there is something, rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist." End quote.

Now, what we need to ask Professor Harking here is, how is the word 'nothing' being used in these sentences? Does he mean by the word 'nothing' what the metaphysician or philosopher means, namely, 'non-being;' does he mean literally 'nothing' in the sense of 'non-being?'

And if he is using it in this philosophically correct sense, then he needs to address the metaphysical problems of how 'being' can arise from 'non-being.' If his theory suggest that 'being' literally originates from 'non-being,' without any sort of cause, then that, I think, is metaphysically problematic and requires an explanation. One problem that would be raised is, then, why it is that only universes of this sort come into being from non-being? Why not anything? Why not bicycles or Beethoven? Or root-beer?

If universes can pop into being from non-being, without a cause, then why can't anything and everything just pop into being from non-being without a cause? You cannot say that it is only due to certain quantum gravitaional constraints, because if there's truly 'non-being' then there is no quantum gravity, there is nothing, and nothingness cannot be constrained because nothingness isn't something, it is 'non-being.' ...

The realization/simplification which came to me is this: the belief in 'emergence,' and the belief that "a whole may indeed be greater that the sum of its parts," is *precisely* the belief that "'being' can arise from 'non-being'."

Now, I had always understood this ("in my gut," so to speak); I had always understood the term/concept 'emergence' to be philosophically and logically specious, to be a word on a par with 'abracadabra!,' which is why I oppose (and mock) the belief. I had always understood 'emergence' to be the belief that something can indeed just pop into existence (which is why I oppose, and mock, the belief). But I had not understood it, and my opposition to it, articulated in just this simple and direct philosophical manner.

The Hermeneutics of Stephen Hawking

In their recently co-authored book ('The Grand Design'), Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow inform the world that they have rendered The Creator "not necessary" -- it's 'Science!' don't you know. (See this minor review in USA Today: "Hawking book explains creation of universe minus God")

Now, the 'Science!' worshippers (who, in fact, tend to hate the real thing) can be counted upon to believe, or at least to assert -- for they do so with monotonous regularity every time 'Science!' does away with God -- that we "religious" people (you know, Jews and Christians, for those are the only “religions” (*) anyone cares about getting rid of) are sure to be fearful and enraged, or at the very least nonplussed, by this newest (ha!) pronouncement of 'Science!'

Already, I’ve read several non-fearful and non-enraged and very much plussed reactions to and/or analyses of the claims of these Speakers For 'Science!.' One of the best I’ve encountered is the following -- Michael Flynn (‘The Ofloinn’): The Hermeneutics of Stephen Hawking

Mr Flynn’s conclusion is most amusing.


(*) When westerners speak of some generic, and thus non-existent, "religion," especially when they mean to denigrate "religion," they generally mean specifically Christianity, or if they are of Jewish origin, Judaism. Such denigrators will sometimes, either explicitly or by implication (or even merely insinuation) use "religion" to also include Islam ... when the mean to elide the differences between Biblical religion and Koranic religion, and attribute to Christianity (or Judaism) the aspects of Islam which horrify westerners.


Edit (2010/09/26):
Here is a YouTube "video" (on Glenn People's blog) of William Lane Craig discussing some of the public claims about the content/argument of the book (at the time of the talk, not yet released).

This also relates to Crude's comment -- "To put a different spin on what Flynn argued, this is a lot like saying that God isn't necessary to explain the universe, because Pure Act will do that job. And to someone who doesn't know much philosophy, that may actually sound correct. To someone who does, they're going to remember that for Aquinas and others, "Pure Act" was another word for God."

The distinction to which Crude alludes is that between 'actuality' and 'potentiality.' An entity which is "pure act" has no potentiality to it: it is what it is (which just happens to be similar to God's self-revealed name in Exodus 3:14 "I am who/what I am"). An entity which is "pure act," as it has no potentiality to it, cannot be other than it is ... and it cannot change, for to be able to change is to possess potentiality.

Edit (2010/09/27):
Keep in mind a point Mike Flynn made in his analysis of these supposedly new "theories" -- that the word 'universe' is being used equivocally. He didn't explicitly use that word, but that what shakes out when one thinks about it:

... At one time the term "world" meant the universe. Then "world" was restricted to "planet" and the universe was called the "universe." Now Hawking [and others] is not talking about the universe, that is, the collection of all things that exist. He is talking about

a single, self-contained physical structure, comprising a “spacetime manifold” and particles and other things moving around in that spacetime.

IOW, the term "universe" is now being restricted to a "space-time continuum" within a structure of many such manifolds. Call the larger structure "a system of universes." ...

Thus, These "new" "theories" are really just another way of advancing the age-old atheistic claim that "the 'universe' is eternal and uncaused."

A Conversation with David

Recently, I received an email from 'David,' asking whether I'd be open to continuing a small discussion we'd had in a thread on Edward Feser's blog. So, this thread is intended to facilitate that. If Gentle Reader has a pertinent question or comment, I have no objection the posting of them.

The converstaion with David was about "wholes" and "parts" and the relationships thereof ... and thus, indirectly, about the concept of 'emergence, belovéd of materialists ... and about "scientific explanations" ... and thus, indirectly about reason and logic and intentionality and rationality.

The first two (lengthy) posts I duplicate below are my comments directed to Mr Feser's original post. I think they're indirectly applicable to the conversation with David.

Ilíon wrote (commenting on E.Feser's post) --

On 'the problem of intentionality' and concepts and symbols --

'Symbols' are inherently meaningless entities (a physical or a non-physical "object") which minds use to stand for (i.e. symbolize) other entities. Among the entities for which a 'symbol' may stand are:
1) other symbols;
2) numbers;
3) logical operations;
4) concepts;
5) states (physical or otherwise);
6) objects (physical or otherwise);
7) pretty much anything at all.

A symbol's meaning is entirely ascribed; a symbol has no meaning apart from that which one or more minds have determined to conventionally attribute or impute to it. A symbol's "meaning" is a pretense by one or more minds; the "pointing to" of a symbol is not in the symbol, it is rather in the mind or minds which are agreed to use that symbol to point to that other entity (which may itself be meaningless).

Thus, two Summerian merchants may use cross-hatchings pressed into clay to symbolize how many sacks of grain the one shall trade to the other for how many goats. Thus, two modern businessmen may use electro-magnetic patterns to represent how many dollars (which are themselves merely symbols) the one shall trade to the other for how many machine parts, and which precise type(s) those machine part are to be.


"As John Searle has put it, the robot’s symbolic representations - like words, sentences, and symbols in general - have only derived intentionality, while human thought has original or intrinsic intentionality."

To say that symbols have "derived intentionality" is imprecise and easily misleading; symbols have "ascribed (or imputed) intentionality" -- all intentionality of a symbol is extrinsically ascribed or imputed to it. By a mind.


"The electrical processes and physical parts of the system [i.e. of the robot] would have had no meaning at all otherwise [than by the design of its builders]. By contrast, the thoughts of the designers themselves have meaning without anyone having to impart it to them. As John Searle has put it, the robot’s symbolic representations - like words, sentences, and symbols in general - have only derived intentionality, while human thought has original or intrinsic intentionality."

A robot may be designed to be a symbol manipulating machine (*), but that's the most it can do: manipulate inherently meaningless objects -- and only so long as the rules by which the manipulations are to be performed can *also* be represented symbolically.

And, every symbol which the robot is capabale of manipulating may itself but symbolize some other symbol. That is, there is no requirement that a robot's symbols symbolize ("point to") any actual meaning or even any actual physical object. There is no meaning in the robot, anywhere -- and the robot understands nothing, and never can understand anything.

In contrast, a thought or concept is not a symbol, but rather is intrinsically meaningful, and cannot by used as a symbol (**).

Now, we obligately use symbols to communicate our concepts/thoughts one to another. This is probably at the root of the difficulty so many have with fully grasping the truth that symbols are utterly meaningless.


(*) And, it seems to me, a machine which cannot manipulate symbols cannot rightly be called a 'robot.'

(**) One may choose to use the symbols one normally uses to stand for some concept to stand for some other concept, but the one concept itself is not standing for the other concept.

Ilíon wrote (commenting on E.Feser's post) --

On 'the problem of rationality' --

"Rather, we are able to go from one thought to another in accordance with the laws of logic. Now, it might seem that the robot of our example, and computers generally, can do the same thing insofar as we can program them to carry out mathematical operations and the like. But of course, we have had to program them to do this. We have had to assign a certain interpretation to the otherwise meaningless symbolic representations we have decided to count as the “premises” and “conclusion” of a given inference the machine is to carry out, and we have had to design its internal processes in such a way that there is an isomorphism between them and the patterns of reasoning studied by logicians. But no one has to assign meaning to our mental processes in order for them to count as logical."

The reason we can design and program a robot/computer such that we can use it to simulate a logical inference is because we can use meaningless symbols to represent not only objects or states or concepts but also to represent logical operations. If the last were impossible, then computers would be impossible.

Yet, the computer is always and only a machine designed for the manipulation of utterly meaningless symbols. The computer does not, and cannot, ratiocinate; it manipulates symbols.

A computer is but a glorified abacus, and symbol manipulation is not thought -- the difference between a robot or computer (which is to say, in both cases, a computer program) and a mind is not a difference of degree, but of kind. Symbol manipulation may be (and frequently is) used by human minds as an aid to clarity of thought, but it is not itself thought.

A computer is but a glorified abacus -- and no one in his right mind ever imagines that an abacus could ever think, or that one could ever be a mind.

Why then does anyone (asserting himself to be thinking clearly) imagine that a computer program could think or could be a mind, if only it were complex enough and/or running on a fast enough machine? Does the design of the physical machine, such that electro-magnetic patterns are used to represent the material beads of an abacus change the nature of symbol manipulation? Does the design of the physical machine, such that no person must be detailed to manually flip the virtual beads change the nature of symbol manipulation? Does the design of the physical machine, such that the sub-machine which flips the virtual beads can do so millions of times per second change the nature of symbol manipulation?


"Of the three, the problem of rationality seems to get the least attention from contemporary philosophers. Fodor himself thinks that this problem is the one contemporary philosophers have most plausibly been able to solve in a way that vindicates materialism, and that they have done so (contrary to what my statement of the problem suggests) precisely by thinking of rational thought processes as computational processes over formal symbols encoded in the brain."

They "solve" the problem with respect to materialism, and in materialism's favor, by wholly misrepresenting the problem, and generally by improperly/falsely conflating symbol manipulation with thought.

Flipping physical beads on an abacus, or flipping virtual beads in a computer's CPU, or the changing of electro-chemical states in the brains of human beings or other animals is not itself thought and cannot "give rise" to thought. But, such physical/material state change is all that materialism has to work with to "explain" all that exists, including thought and concepts.

David wrote --

Ed,
I enjoyed reading the post. For an average guy, there is much to ponder. Hope you take questions from average guys. If not Ilion (“Troy?” Or “ I the Lion?”) seems like a smart guy.

I can bring images to my mind. I can literally see in my mind’s eye my wife when she is not here. I can see her fair skin, blonde hair, her blue eyes, and can concentrate on her high Nordic cheek bones. I can willfully change the image of her from 19 when I married her to today at 41. I can purposefully make the picture of her sitting and reading her Bible or laughing at the stories of my day in business.

What is that image and how does it fit into the categories you mentioned? I’m not asking how the image is produced, but what is that image itself? It seems beyond material, even though I need my physical brain to produce the image.

Edward Feser wrote --

Hello David,

What exactly the image is is a big topic. My only point was that while it seems obviously immaterial on a modern, mechanistic conception of matter -- it doesn't seem like a complex arrangement of colorless, odorless, tasteless particles; we don't observe anything like that when we look in a guy's brain; etc. -- when we reject that conception of matter and think in hylemorphic terms the issue just isn't so clear.

Part of the problem here is that we moderns have a natural tendency to think of a material substance as a collection of basic parts and to think of everything true of it as somehow a truth about the arrangement of those parts. Hence we think: "I don't see how the atoms, or molecules, or neurons, or whatever all add up to a mental image." But that's just the wrong way to think about the issue from the get go. Part of the point of hylemorphism is that we need to break free of this "how does the whole arise out of the parts?" way of thinking.

Related to this, I suspect that many people symathetically encountering A-T for the first time unreflectively tend to maintain an essentially atomist understanding of matter and then think of a "substantial form" as something that gets added to the atoms or whatever. The atoms (or whatever we think of the smallest elements as being) are somehow the most fundamental thing about a material substance ontologically speaking, and anything else ahs to be either constrcuted out of them or added on from outside. But that too completely misses the point. From a hylmorphic point of view, my having a mental image, like my having a stomach and eyeballs, is no less ontologically fundamental than my being made up of atoms. Hence however we characterize "matter," it has to be consistent with that fact.

The bottom line is: Materialists are not only wrong to say that amtter is all that exists. They also don't even understand what matter itself is in the first place. Unfortunately, most moderns work with an essentially materialist cocneption of matter, which means most modern dualists don't understand what matter is either. If we don't see that hylemorphism is a radical challenge to what moderns tend to take for granted, we haven't understood it.

David wrote --

Thanks Prof. Feser for taking the time to answer my question. Thanks also to Ilion (given name or fan of Homer?) for the dry humor and honest response.

I must admit I have a hard time seeing the world as not the sum of its parts. I worked my way through a BS in Chemistry at the CSUF (an average student) because I thought that was a good way to understand the world and a promising way to make a living. When I fix my car or repair my leaking plumbing I think in terms of parts. I think also about this in terms of my theology--God as a Trinity and having certain characteristics.

Can you give me some examples of systems that can't be understood best as the sum of its parts or are best understood without thinking about the parts that make them up?

Forgive me if I sound simple.

Ilíon wrote --

David: "I must admit I have a hard time seeing the world as not the sum of its parts. ..."

One of the parts of a thing -- and which nearly everyone seems to go out of his way to overlook -- is the design or plan or "organizing principle" of the thing. In more A-T terms, this would be its 'form.'

Relatedly, another ignored or overlooked part of a thing is the process (or 'work') by which the various component parts of the thing came to be organized in the particular relationships which hold between them. In more A-T terms, this would probably be its 'efficient cause.'

I think that that silly aphorism, "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts" is both a reflection of and a cause of or contributor to this habit of (and sometimes insistence upon) not seeing the immaterial parts of a physical thing.

For example, one may have all the material parts which might comprise a house or a car (or a single brick of that hypothetical house) and still not have a whole house or car (or brick). Or, one may have all the chemicals (down to the level of the exact individual atoms and molecules) which might (or formerly did) comprise an organism and still not have an organism, but rather herely a goo of chemicals (or a corpse).

One seemingly has all the parts comprising the thing -- to be precise, one has all the parts that are visible to a materialistic reductionist mindset -- and yet one does not have a whole house or car or brick or organism.

David wrote --

Thanks Ilion,

I think I understand your ideas. But, when I think of "parts" I also think of the properties they have. I put Sodium metal and Chlorine gas together in a flask and they order themselves as NaCl (table salt) because of the ionic properties of the atoms. So, the design principle was inherent in the properties that make the "parts."

This example doesn't work for a house which takes human forethought and effort to construct. Would you make a distinction between "natural" systems and "human" systems?

If I'm not using all the right terminology, just bear with me. I'm genuinely trying to understand.

Ilíon wrote --

David: "But, when I think of "parts" I also think of the properties they have. I put Sodium metal and Chlorine gas together in a flask and they order themselves as NaCl (table salt) because of the ionic properties of the atoms."

That's one explanation for the observed phenomenon; whether it's the truth of the matter ... well, God knows. We don't, and can't. Mind you, I'm not saying that it's not the truth of the matter, but only that we can't really know that it is the truth of the matter.

That's a weakness of scientific explanations; we rarely, if ever, know that a scientific explanation really is an explanation. And, we can't use science to separate the potentially true ones from the false ones.


Allow me an illustration --

I'm a computer programmer. I currently write PC programs using object-oriented languages; originally, I wrote mainframe programs using assembler. But, even then, there were multiple layers of abstraction between the work I did in writing programs (and in my understanding of what I was doing) and what *really* went on when one of my programs executed.

But, it's 2010 and I've moved on from those days. So, let us say that I have written some program you wish to use. I've given you a copy of it and I'm explaining to you how to use it.

So, I'll say something like, "When you click on this button, 'thus-and-such' will happen."

But, the truth of the matter is that that explanation has no relationship to what really happens, and it has little relationship or similarity to my own "internal" explanation of what happens. I, being the author of the program, and you, being the user of it, care about quite different abstractions or models of the program and what *really* goes on when it executes.

Suppose the buttons used in the program are instances of a button I custom wrote. There are a different ways I might have gone about doing this ... and you likely don't care. You likely don't care that I wrote the code for the button, and you're even less likely to care about the various ways I might have gone about doing so. But, suppose that you do care. How, merely by using the buttons, are you ever going to decide whether I created the button in this manner or that? The answer is, you can't differentiate unless you can swing some deeper level of analysis (say, getting a copy of the source code for the button).

Now, I didn't make a point of mentioning this to you ('cause I didn't deem it important to your use of the program), but you later notice that when you hover the mouse cursor over a button, its appearance changes; and, when you click a button, its appearance changes yet again.

Is this change of appearance of the buttons just "eye candy," or is it functional (and there are at least two modes in which this might be functional)? That is, is the change of appearance somehow necessary for the button to do what it does? Or, is it intended as a visual cue to the user, but strictly speaking is unnecessary to the program's functionality? Certainly, you might explain the behavior in any of these three ways, but which explanation is correct? And, how can you decide between them without, again, managing a deeper analysis than that available to you as a user of the program.


Now, in this program, some of the buttons perform one action when you click them and perform a different (though perhaps related) action when you hold down the shift-key and then click them.

Are these "shift-click" buttons instances of a second custom written button, or are they instances of the button I'd mentioned previously? From your perspective, they're a totally different type of button. But, are they really? And, how can you decide?

And, keep in mind, the descriptions I've been giving really have little, to no, relationship to what really goes on when the program is executed ... including something so basic as speaking of "clicking the button."


Scientific explanations of the world are analogous to the explanations of a program by its users. They may be descriptive, and they may be useful (one certainly hopes so), and some may be more useful than others. But, absent an ability to "get under the hood," so to speak, there is no way to know that they're the truth of the matter.


David: "This example doesn't work for a house which takes human forethought and effort to construct. Would you make a distinction between "natural" systems and "human" systems?"

It appears to us that natural systems or reactions (say, the formation of table salt, or the formation of ice crystals) "must happen" (or "just happen," as some materialists assert these days) given certain conditions. But, we can't know that to be the actual case; what we know is that we haven't observed otherwise and that it has been useful to us to assume it to be the case.

But, even if the reactions must happen ... why must they? Ultimately, is it really that the "rule" by which the reactions happen is itself something that just happened; or, ulimatly, is it that the "rule" really is a rule, that the rule was intended and was designed into the fabric of physical reality? That is, ultimately, are there only causes (as in cause-and-effect), or are there reasons (as in ground-and-consequent) for what happens?