Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

It defies any scientific definition, far beyond anything which can be produced from material reactions alone

Back to totally baseless blind faith assertion. Well, I guess if you're happy with your impoverished fairy tale view of things, then that's okay for you. However, best not kid yourself that it has anything at all to do with logic, reason, or evidence or that it is in the least bit convincing, let alone attractive, to those of us who value those things.

[Maeght]

.......... far beyond anything which can be produced from material reactions alone

He asserted.

[Alan Burns]

You don't 'know', Alan.

It seems to me that you simply aren't content to just believe and that, instead, you've contrived a hook to hang your God on comprising repetitive fallacy-ridden theobabble involving souls and consciousness. Also, as far as I can see, you are ploughing a lone furrow here since I'm not aware that neurologists are looking for evidence of God or that theologians see neurology as providing support for divine agency.

But despite all the neurological research to date, they have not really got past the arguments put forward by Gottfried Leibniz over three hundred years ago -

In Section 17 of the Monadology Leibniz presents an argument that is concerned with the relationship between mentality and machines. This passage is often referred to as Leibniz’s mill argument. It runs as follows:

[W]e must confess that perception, and what depends upon it, is inexplicable in terms of mechanical reasons, that is through shapes, size, and motions. If we imagine a machine whose structure makes it think, sense, and have perceptions, we could conceive it enlarged, keeping the same proportions, so that we could enter into it, as one enters a mill. Assuming that, when inspecting its interior, we will find only parts that push one another, and we will never find anything to explain a perception. And so, one should seek perception in the simple substance and not in the composite or in the machine.

[Gordon]

But despite all the neurological research to date, they have not really got past the arguments put forward by Gottfried Leibniz over three hundred years ago -

In Section 17 of the Monadology Leibniz presents an argument that is concerned with the relationship between mentality and machines. This passage is often referred to as Leibniz’s mill argument. It runs as follows:

[W]e must confess that perception, and what depends upon it, is inexplicable in terms of mechanical reasons, that is through shapes, size, and motions. If we imagine a machine whose structure makes it think, sense, and have perceptions, we could conceive it enlarged, keeping the same proportions, so that we could enter into it, as one enters a mill. Assuming that, when inspecting its interior, we will find only parts that push one another, and we will never find anything to explain a perception. And so, one should seek perception in the simple substance and not in the composite or in the machine.

Much as Liebniz is a notable figure, do you think his views are authoritative as regards neurology in the 21st century?

[torridon]

But no matter how much technical description you apply to it, in essence it is just individual atoms and molecules reacting with their immediate neighbours.  What you are implying is that a specific arrangement of these atoms and molecules can generate what comprises our conscious awareness.  Which implies that a rock could in theory be zapped into a conscious human just by re arranging the molecular structure. 

Well that is what the evidence suggests, very broadly speaking. We are made of universe stuff, just rearranged.  I eat a hamburger; via processes of digestion etc some of that hamburger gets rearranged into cellular structures of a form that support the information flows that we feel as sentience.  Ditto when a monkey eats a banana.   Claiming this process to be magic merely blinds one to any understanding of the nature of things and how they work.

[torridon]

Can you not see the obvious fact that the arrangement of the atoms and molecules is just a material mechanism which transmits information using their scientifically determined reactions?  They can in no way be shown to be generating conscious perception of their activity.  Atoms and molecules react - they do not perceive.

Atoms and molecules react - correct
they do not perceive - correct

However, perception emerges from billions of such primitive reactions.  Each reaction at a low level is an individual information transformation.  Higher level phenomena such as perception are information flows that derive from such lower level informational transactions.  Your argument is tantamount to claiming that houses cannot exist because houses are made of bricks and bricks aren't houses.

[Alan Burns]

Atoms and molecules react - correct
they do not perceive - correct

However, perception emerges from billions of such primitive reactions.  Each reaction at a low level is an individual information transformation.  Higher level phenomena such as perception are information flows that derive from such lower level informational transactions.  Your argument is tantamount to claiming that houses cannot exist because houses are made of bricks and bricks aren't houses.

A house is just a label we apply to an externally perceived pattern of bricks.  It is still a load of bricks.

[Gordon]

A house is just a label we apply to an externally perceived pattern of bricks.  It is still a load of bricks.

Your 'externally perceived', Alan, does seems like unnecessary hyperbole - 'I see a house'is sufficient, where 'the house I see contains bricks' can qualify that - so what?

[Alan Burns]

However, perception emerges from billions of such primitive reactions.

But what does it emerge into?  For it to work you will need some form of receptacle for all these primitive reactions.

[Alan Burns]

Your 'externally perceived', Alan, does seems like unnecessary hyperbole - 'I see a house'is sufficient,

No.  The concept of house only exists in the eye and mind of the perceiver. 

[Stranger]

But despite all the neurological research to date, they have not really got past the arguments put forward by Gottfried Leibniz over three hundred years ago -

Yes, 'they' have. Leibniz lived in the 17/18 Centuries, before pretty much all of the main insights and relevant scientific discoveries that contribute to the modern approaches.

[Stranger]

No.  The concept of house only exists in the eye and mind of the perceiver.

...and said mind is a complex information processing entity. Oh... a bit like a brain, perhaps.

[floo]

AB's posts are getting more and more surreal.

[Gordon]

No.  The concept of house only exists in the eye and mind of the perceiver.

How is the concept of a house all that different from a house?

Concepts tend to be far less specific and even intangible: for example, altruism, compared to the assembled bricks, wood, cabling and mortar we refer to as a house. You are both over-thinking and not thinking clearly - I suspect that is because you are so very busy manufacturing the spurious hook I mentioned previously; the one you hang your God on.

[torridon]

However, perception emerges from billions of such primitive reactions.

But what does it emerge into?  For it to work you will need some form of receptacle for all these primitive reactions.

Not sure into 'into' and 'receptacle' are quite the right terms, but broadly speaking, we could reply 'mind'.  Mind being a focal point for all perception and cognition.  Perception becomes part of that information vortex.

[Alan Burns]

Much as Liebniz is a notable figure, do you think his views are authoritative as regards neurology in the 21st century?

But in essence, neurology has got no further than discovering what Liebniz aptly describes as "parts that push one another" - in other words, reactions.  So we still have the dilemma put forward by Liebniz that material reactions alone, no matter how complex, do not define perception.

[Alan Burns]

But what does it emerge into?  For it to work you will need some form of receptacle for all these primitive reactions.


Not sure into 'into' and 'receptacle' are quite the right terms, but broadly speaking, we could reply 'mind'.  Mind being a focal point for all perception and cognition.  Perception becomes part of that information vortex.

But these words and phrases you use - "mind", "focal point of perception", and "information vortex" have no definitive definition in material terms.  There has to be a single entity of conscious perception for all this information in your brain.  And it can't be defined or compared to the instinctive, predictable behaviour of animals which can be entirely defined by material reactions.  Conscious perception is not a reaction, just an awareness of reality.

[Stranger]

But in essence, neurology has got no further than discovering what Liebniz aptly describes as "parts that push one another" - in other words, reactions.  So we still have the dilemma put forward by Liebniz that material reactions alone, no matter how complex, do not define perception.

This has already been dealt with. We know a great deal more than in Liebniz's time.

Liebniz thought he had a killer argument about why atoms couldn't exist, too.

...material reactions alone, no matter how complex, do not define perception.

Yet again, why keep repeating the same thing? Unless you can tell us what is required for perception, you cannot know that "material reactions" cannot produce it.

[Shaker]

This has already been dealt with. We know a great deal more than in Liebniz's time.

Liebniz thought he had a killer argument about why atoms couldn't exist, too.

So did Ernst Mach at the beginning of the 20th century. He's fared about as well.

[Shaker]

But these words and phrases you use - "mind", "focal point of perception", and "information vortex" have no definitive definition in material terms.  There has to be a single entity of conscious perception for all this information in your brain.  And it can't be defined or compared to the instinctive, predictable behaviour of animals which can be entirely defined by material reactions.

Here comes the argument ad snowflakium again

[Stranger]

There has to be a single entity of conscious perception for all this information in your brain.

According to all the evidence, it is the brain. You seem to have this bizarre and unfounded idea (which is one of the problems with Liebniz's argument) that an "entity of conscious perception" is a simple, indivisible thing.

[Gordon]

But in essence, neurology has got no further than discovering what Liebniz aptly describes as "parts that push one another" - in other words, reactions.  So we still have the dilemma put forward by Liebniz that material reactions alone, no matter how complex, do not define perception.

Prepare yourself for a shock: Liebniz wasn't a neurologist, and knowledge in general has moved on a tad since his times.

You are using a fallacy again too: an argument from authority, and ironically, given we are discussing neurology, you a citing someone as an authority who isn't one (given he's been dead these last 301 years).   

[Gordon]

Conscious perception is not a reaction, just an awareness of reality.

Could that awareness of reality just be a reaction to reality? I know you like your buzzwords, Alan, but perhaps you are indulging in tautology here.

[torridon]

But these words and phrases you use - "mind", "focal point of perception", and "information vortex" have no definitive definition in material terms. 

We don't have 'definitive' definitions for anything Alan, so what should we do, throw out all the knowledge that we have accrued to date through observation and enquiry and substitute in its place your lexicon of souls and gods which have entirely no evidence and no definition at all ? Is that really a forward step for an enquiring mind ?

There has to be a single entity of conscious perception for all this information in your brain.  And it can't be defined or compared to the instinctive, predictable behaviour of animals which can be entirely defined by material reactions.  Conscious perception is not a reaction, just an awareness of reality.

And any prey animal that was not aware of the predator creeping up on it would not survive to pass on the mechanisms by which that awareness is procured.  All creatures with brains have highly developed and refined perception of their surroundings, this is what brains do for us; try living without a brain and we would not survive for more than a second or two.

As for a 'single entity' of perception, it would be slightly more accurate to talk in terms of a 'focal point' of perception; the word 'entity' can suggest something of distinct ontology operating within a creature; this makes no sense and there is no evidence in support of it. We get no further forward by imagining that a dolphin has to have another little invisible dolphin inside it to be the thing which experiences sight and sound and awareness.  That is what brains brains do, they synchronise and orchestrate all those multitudinous information flows procured via external senses and a central nervous system into an apparently singular synthesised information flow that we might call 'experience'.   Your 'single entity of perception' is better described as the 'conscious self' which is a derivative product of brain function, not something separate to it.

[Shaker]

try living without a brain and we would not survive for more than a second or two.

You're on R & E; wrong audience.