Searching for GOD...

[torridon]

There can be no such thing as natural consciousness.  We can have natural reactions and natural behaviour, but these in themselves do not imply conscious awareness.

That's just barking, of course they imply conscious awareness. Consciousness evolved on this planet over 500 million years ago out of the Cambrian explosion and is available to all creatures with brains and sense organs.  Consciousness is the integration of all those internal and external information flows.  There would be no point in having eyes if they did not yield visual experience.  Consciousness varies clearly, not only from species to species on broad scales, but from individual to individual on more intimate scales, and from moment to moment within an individual.  You're way behind the curve on your evolutionary biology.  Why is that ?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Rhi,

Ideas are not ‘things’ in the same way that guns are. An idea in itself cannot hurt anyone.

Nor can a gun.

It’s actially a really important concept in mental health, to understand that thoughts are just thoughts, however distressing they may be.

Yes I know.

That’s not to say that ideas need to be introduced in age appropriate ways; of course they do.

Exactly so. I happen to hate everything about guns, but a (responsible at least) NRA person would presumably say the same thing about introducing them in age-appropriate ways to children – by having professional instruction, going to firing ranges to practice etc.

It just seems to me that for this purpose we’re talking about a difference without significance. An argument you could make about the proper way to introduce ideas to children could also be made about guns. That’s not to say that, if I were king for a day, I wouldn’t ban all guns in civilian hands, and that I wouldn’t insist on as much free exchange of ideas as possible. I’m just not sure though that, deep down, I could make a rational argument to justify the two positions.

[BeRational]

I love guns, but completely understand and share your concerns.

[Alan Burns]

That's just barking, of course they imply conscious awareness. Consciousness evolved on this planet over 500 million years ago out of the Cambrian explosion and is available to all creatures with brains and sense organs.  Consciousness is the integration of all those internal and external information flows.  There would be no point in having eyes if they did not yield visual experience.  Consciousness varies clearly, not only from species to species on broad scales, but from individual to individual on more intimate scales, and from moment to moment within an individual.  You're way behind the curve on your evolutionary biology.  Why is that ?

Biology can be used to investigate material behaviour and induced reactions, but it does not define conscious awareness or how it works.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Biology can be used to investigate material behaviour and induced reactions, but it does not define conscious awareness or how it works.

That's obviously not true (if by "biology" you actually mean neuroscience), which already investigates and tells us a great deal about consciousness and will no doubt tell us more as new discoveries are made. You've had explained to you several times now that an incomplete explanation for a phenomenon does not give you licence to insert a personal conjecture into the knowledge gap that itself has no explanatory value whatever (because you can tell us nothing at all about it other than the word "soul") so I don't know why you've just returned to the same mistake.

Anyway, a question for you: If you were made education minister tomorrow would you introduce a policy for "soul" to be taught as a fact alongside the facts biology already teaches?

[Rhiannon]

Blue, no, a gun on its own cannot hurt someone, but as it is external to us we can stop making guns.

An equivalence to ideas about radical religion, terrorism and martyrdom is the ideas that we have about guns. In the US, for example, it is ideas about guns that stop gun reform.

The problem for me is that once we start ‘banning’ ideas for the common good, where does a line get drawn? Banning anti abortion views? Banning anti religion views, or anti secularist views? Time was  suffrage views were ‘dangerous’. Pro gay views were ‘dangerous’.

And how sexy it is for an inadequate young man to be promised death in a blaze of glory and squillions of virgins when presented with it as a new idea? Isn’t it better to grow up learning it’s a load of old pony?

[SusanDoris]

I know I'm stating the very obvious here, but One of the realities about things like guns is that, once invented, they cannot be uninvented. It is a terrible thing that they are so misused, but however much we want there to be no guns, that is never going to happen.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

That's obviously not true (if by "biology" you actually mean neuroscience), which already investigates and tells us a great deal about consciousness and will no doubt tell us more as new discoveries are made. You've had explained to you several times now that an incomplete explanation for a phenomenon does not give you licence to insert a personal conjecture into the knowledge gap that itself has no explanatory value whatever (because you can tell us nothing at all about it other than the word "soul") so I don't know why you've just returned to the same mistake.

Anyway, a question for you: If you were made education minister tomorrow would you introduce a policy for "soul" to be taught as a fact alongside the facts biology already teaches?

I am fully aware that you presume that there must be a means of conscious awareness being generated solely from material entities, but I would hope that biology teachers make it clear that such presumptions and not scientific facts.  And there is still no feasible definition for what comprises conscious awareness or how it works.  Emergent properties just describe the perceived behaviour of lots of individual elements interacting, but without any definition of what comprises the single entity of awareness which is you and me.

[torridon]

Biology can be used to investigate material behaviour and induced reactions, but it does not define conscious awareness or how it works.

Of course it does, you are talking nonsense.  Not just 'biology', but it is from many branches of life sciences, in particular paleobiology, from which we have been able to fix the date of the evolution of consciousness, in vertebrates at least, to around 540 mya. For other life forms, we are not so sure about the dates.  It was around this time that organisms first started evolving sense organs and more complex neural structures evolved to integrate multimodal sensory data with internal data of a central nervous system. This has been such an advantageous adaptation that it has been highly and ubiquitously conserved ever since.

[Alan Burns]

Of course it does, you are talking nonsense.  Not just 'biology', but it is from many branches of life sciences, in particular paleobiology, from which we have been able to fix the date of the evolution of consciousness, in vertebrates at least, to around 540 mya. For other life forms, we are not so sure about the dates.  It was around this time that organisms first started evolving sense organs and more complex neural structures evolved to integrate multimodal sensory data with internal data of a central nervous system. This has been such an advantageous adaptation that it has been highly and ubiquitously conserved ever since.

Sense organs do not imply consciousness.  They all we can say is that they generate observable reactions.

[torridon]

Sense organs do not imply consciousness.  They all we can say is that they generate observable reactions.

Of course they imply consciousness.  What would be the point of having eyes if you could not see with them ? What would be the point of having ears if you could not hear with them.  Visual perception and auditory perception are absolutely components of conscious experience.  This is why we have brains, to integrate all these flows into a single flow of experience.

[Maeght]

An interesting discussion on the Octopuss on Radio 4 this morning, about how it has a decentralised control system (its legs can 'think' independantly). This related to a book about the evolution of intelligence. Some comments were that we are discovering a greater level of sentiance in the animal kingdom than previously imagined (it noted that Otopuses can recognise individual humans for example), and also that when talking of consciousness we should refer to human consciousness or otherwise since different creatures have different senses so will have a totally different view of the world to us.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vladdo,

Wrong again. The Catholic education guidelines contain an explicit instruction to teach its knowledge with the same rigour and discipline as other subject areas teach their knowledge. There was no, "but really we should be a lot more circumspect about the former because they're just our faith beliefs" or similar. This in essence is the difference between religion in faith schools ("this stuff is factually true") and RE in secular schools ("this stuff is what various cultures believe to be factually true").

That Gabriella decided they meant something other than the plain meanings of the words they used is a matter you should take up with her.

Again with this guy.....complete misunderstanding of words such as creed, belief and faith.

The last twitching of another expired Hillside argument.

[Gordon]

Sense organs do not imply consciousness.  They all we can say is that they generate observable reactions.

Give it up, Alan: aside from being relentlessly silly it is quite obvious you are trying, and failing, to contrive a spurious gap into which you can insert your version of 'God'.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

An interesting discussion on the Octopuss on Radio 4 this morning, about how it has a decentralised control system (its legs can 'think' independantly).

Chris Hitchens legs had the same ability apparently.

[Alan Burns]

Of course they imply consciousness.  What would be the point of having eyes if you could not see with them ? What would be the point of having ears if you could not hear with them.  Visual perception and auditory perception are absolutely components of conscious experience.  This is why we have brains, to integrate all these flows into a single flow of experience.

Unless we have a definition of what comprises conscious awareness and how it works, you can't just presume that observable physical reactions imply conscious awareness.  Animals certainly react to the visual imaging and other information provided through sense organs, but reaction alone is not conscious perception.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Rhi,

Blue, no, a gun on its own cannot hurt someone, but as it is external to us we can stop making guns.

We can also, conceptually at least, stop “making” certain ideas. I think I’m right in saying that in Austria for example it’s illegal to be a holocaust denier. If everyone complied then presumably the idea would die. Of course some people could break the rules and propagate that idea nonetheless, but the same could be true of a country that banned gun manufacture only to find an underground industry kept doing it anyway.   

An equivalence to ideas about radical religion, terrorism and martyrdom is the ideas that we have about guns. In the US, for example, it is ideas about guns that stop gun reform.

Well yes but while guns are obviously physical things and ideas are not, I still struggle to see much conceptual difference between “ideas don’t kill people, people do” and “guns don’t kill people, people do”. 

The problem for me is that once we start ‘banning’ ideas for the common good, where does a line get drawn? Banning anti abortion views? Banning anti religion views, or anti secularist views? Time was  suffrage views were ‘dangerous’. Pro gay views were ‘dangerous’.

Of course – my every instinct is not to ban free speech at all except in the most extreme of cases (incitement to violence for example). The best way to deal with holocaust deniers for example is not to silence them, but rather to let them say their piece and then to use reason and evidence to expose them for the idiots they are. That’s why I have a problem with some religious positions by the way – “we can say whatever we want about our beliefs but you can’t criticise that because that’s blasphemy” is surely wrong. If free speech is to mean something you can’t have one side demand it for themselves and deny it to others.     

And how sexy it is for an inadequate young man to be promised death in a blaze of glory and squillions of virgins when presented with it as a new idea? Isn’t it better to grow up learning it’s a load of old pony?

Very sexy I’d imagine if your entire education consisted of rocking back and forth reciting the Q’uran in Madrasas. Of course it’s better to explain the counter-arguments, but how could that happen in that environment? Blasphemer! Apostate! Burn him! Burn him!

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Anyway, a question for you: If you were made education minister tomorrow would you introduce a policy for "soul" to be taught as a fact alongside the facts biology already teaches?

As you ignored the question I asked you, here it is again: If you were made education minister tomorrow would you introduce a policy for "soul" to be taught as a fact alongside the facts biology already teaches?

[torridon]

Unless we have a definition of what comprises conscious awareness and how it works, you can't just presume that observable physical reactions imply conscious awareness.  Animals certainly react to the visual imaging and other information provided through sense organs, but reaction alone is not conscious perception.

Gee, you're soooo confused.  Perception comes first, reaction comes in response to perception.  There is no reason to doubt that creatures with sense organs are having sensory experience and sensory experience is a fundamental component of conscious experience.  It is our quite reasonable presumption that sense organs imply sensory experience, any other explanation for their existence would be utterly bizarre.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vladdo,

Another caricature.

Wrong again. Your lying defines your behaviour here - it's your character, not a caricature of it.

[Alan Burns]

Give it up, Alan: aside from being relentlessly silly it is quite obvious you are trying, and failing, to contrive a spurious gap into which you can insert your version of 'God'.

As I have said before, Gordon, it is not so much a gap as an unbreachable chasm.   The presumption that conscious awareness is nothing more than a property of material entities will always remain a presumption.  And from the realisation that we are more than just a deterministic material property comes the awareness of our amazing gift of our consciously driven freedom to think, choose, to create, to believe .......

[bluehillside Retd.]

Alan: If you were made education minister tomorrow would you introduce a policy for "soul" to be taught as a fact alongside the facts biology already teaches?

[Gordon]

As I have said before, Gordon, it is not so much a gap as an unbreachable chasm.   The presumption that conscious awareness is nothing more than a property of material entities will always remain a presumption.  And from the realisation that we are more than just a deterministic material property comes the awareness of our amazing gift of our consciously driven freedom to think, choose, to create, to believe .......

So, and ignoring your usual fallacies, are you aware of either neuroscientists investigating consciousness using 'souls' as a hypothesis, or any religious organisations, such as your own RCC, advancing a case for 'souls' affecting consciousness as you keep claiming?

[Alan Burns]

Gee, you're soooo confused.  Perception comes first, reaction comes in response to perception.  There is no reason to doubt that creatures with sense organs are having sensory experience and sensory experience is a fundamental component of conscious experience.  It is our quite reasonable presumption that sense organs imply sensory experience, any other explanation for their existence would be utterly bizarre.

But there is no scientific definition of what comprises perception or how it works.  It is not just information transfer, it is perception of information.  You are just making presumptions based upon observed material behaviour and reactions.

[Alan Burns]

Alan: If you were made education minister tomorrow would you introduce a policy for "soul" to be taught as a fact alongside the facts biology already teaches?

Biology is not about souls, it is about the material workings of the human body.