When I said no consciousness without a brain I was not referring to simple celled creatures which may or may not have awareness or brains. Given I believe in evolution, there would no doubt have been a point when nascent 'not quite' consciousness went with nascent 'not quite' brains. Not really a useful distinction in my mind. Maybe I should have said where is consciousness without a material host? — Tom Storm
If many processes in life - and particularly within a cell - are shown not to be arbitrary or by chance — Gary Enfield
We have to be given a process that can inevitably lead to every outcome - because that is how the laws of Physics and Chemistry are formulated - using traditional mathematics with just one outcome for every scenario. — Gary Enfield
Even in concept, can you suggest any mechanism by which these molecules adapt their behaviour to different circumstances to produce the perfect, predictable, end outcome - such as a fully repaired section of DNA with a double break and pieces missing? — Gary Enfield
When anyone is able to suggest any credible way... — Gary Enfield
There are too many examples which break materialist notions. — Gary Enfield
We are having a debate about complex and personal things. Look out someone might get hurt! — Tom Storm
I had hardly abandoned the discussion when the original post had been just 5 days earlier! — Gary Enfield
This is a discussion group - so let's discuss.
Do you have any comments on the evidential subject matter? — Gary Enfield
But if it can be identified and measured, it is still materialism. — Tom Storm
Empiricism subjects everything to the tribunal of 'what can be sense and quantified'. What cannot be quantified is discounted a priori.
— Wayfarer
Yes. As I just explained, this is not mindless dogma. There's a fundamental and very compelling reason why that's the case. It's because we're talking to one another, two humans. The thing we share is the material world. Anything else is not shared, so there's no fact of the matter about it to be discussed. You might feel there's a purpose to life. I might not. It's irrelevant to any discussion because there's no shared content. If you feel the cup is on the table and I don't, we can both reach for it and find out. — Isaac
Nothing which the chemistry describes in chemical terms breaks the laws of physics and chemistry — Gary Enfield
The variable series of activities which these things deploy to achieve a predictable complex outcome, (eg. DNA repair) rather than an arbitrary outcome has yet to be explained, and until materialism can do this - it cannot claim to have proven its case by any means. — Gary Enfield
Have you even considered the possibility that it might be you who doesn't understand? — Isaac
It's not that materialism is all that anyone thinks. It's that it all we share. The table, the cup, you me, that fact that keys I'm hitting will make the words appear on your screen. So that is all we can talk about when it comes to matters we don't already all believe in. — Isaac
Dualism arose from the simple notion that if we can establish characteristics which break the mould of a single type of stuff, why not have both? — Gary Enfield
we can try to narrow in on the factors that Matter/Energy or anything else would have to overcome in order to produce (say) a mechanism based on codes. — Gary Enfield
Let's not argue about whether or not my characterization is true for now. How should I have responded to you? — T Clark
Materialism needs to acknowledge the things that appear to contradict it. — Gary Enfield
(emphasis added)And also defends the point of view that the emergence of life really is the emergence of a completely novel kind of order in the Universe that can't be fully explained in terms of physics and chemistry alone. — Wayfarer
Not sure Barbieri goes there. You have a quote? — Olivier5
The significance of this is that something has to bring the whole lot together because it is only as a whole, that life has viability - and therefore some mechanism/process needs to bring all the separate elements together in one place. But what could drive that circumstance other than chance? — Gary Enfield
Not sure Barbieri goes there. You have a quote? — Olivier5
This is the ontological claim of the chemical paradigm, the idea that all natural processes are completely described, in principle, by physical quantities. This view is also known as physicalism, and it is based on the fact that biological information is not a physical quantity. So, what is it? A similar problem arises with the rules of the genetic code: they cannot be measured and cannot be reduced to physical quantities, so what are they?
According to physicalism, biological information and the genetic code are mere metaphors. They are like those computer programs that allow us to write our instructions in English, thus saving us the trouble of writing them in the binary digits of the machine language. Ultimately, however, there are only binary digits in the machine language of the computer, and in the same way, it is argued, there are only physical quantities at the most fundamental level of Nature.
This conclusion, known as the physicalist thesis, has been proposed in various ways by a number of scientists and philosophers [8–14] and is equivalent to the thesis that ‘life is chemistry’.
Ernst Mayr, one of the architects of the modern synthesis, has been one of the most outspoken supporters of the view that life is fundamentally different from inanimate matter. In The growth of biological thought [15], p. 124, he made this point in no uncertain terms: ‘… The discovery of the genetic code was a breakthrough of the first order. It showed why organisms are fundamentally different from any kind of nonliving material. There is nothing in the inanimate world that has a genetic program which stores information with a history of three thousand million years!’
What I hold is that all we have access to is the physical world and the only reliable knowledge we can acquire for now (and perhaps forever) is through this lens. If tomorrow we prove there are souls or ghosts with evidence, I'll be happy to accept it. — Tom Storm
Cartesian anxiety, which refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".
Evolution is well established from observation of evolving organic systems like Covid19, so the proposition in the OP "without evolution" is not an option. — Pop
It is easy to forget that everything is evolving, not just living things but the entire universe is in motion and evolving, and emerging, and natural selection acts on everything, not just animate matter, but all matter - it culls non viable form. — Pop
I think it is enough to describe how inanimate matter becomes animate. — Pop
I'm not sure what this means, but the claim that natural selection acts on non-living matter is not supported by any science I've ever heard of. That's my non-dogmatic way of saying it's not true. — T Clark
It showed why organisms are fundamentally different from any kind of nonliving material. There is nothing in the inanimate world that has a genetic program which stores information with a history of three thousand million years!’
Are you arguing that inanimate matte dose not evolve? If so what is your argument? Describe one instance of inanimate matter that has not evolved. — Pop
The word "evolution" has a very specific meaning in biology — T Clark
No inanimate matter has evolved in that sense, by definition. If it had, it would be alive. — T Clark
The argument about biological information is however that organic life retains memory in a sense that inorganic matter does not. — Wayfarer
I think it's significant that you see the problem in terms of immaterial beings conceived as ghosts or souls. I see that as due to the influence of Descartes' particular form of dualism. As Edmund Husserl notes in The Crisis of Western Science, Descartes' intuition of consciousness as the fundamental ground of existence is profound and basically true, but he errs in treating the 'cogito' as an object, 'a little tag end of the world', is how he puts it.
The way I would explain it, is that the subject, the 'res cogitans', is never an object of cognition, except metaphorically. You can never actually make an object of the knowing subject. And there's no such thing as 'mind', either, except by inference. Mind is the subject of experience, or the subjective pole of experience, but is never an object of cognition, as such (which is why eliminativists insist it can't be considered as real.)
This has resulted in a deep-seated tendency in modern thought which was described by the philosopher Richard Bernstein as:
Cartesian anxiety, which refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other". — Wayfarer
A similar problem arises with the rules of the genetic code: they cannot be measured and cannot be reduced to physical quantities, so what are they?
The subject/question is what can we demonstrate to be the most reliable source of information about the world? No one has offered anything alternate yet other than some vague claims and an undifferentiated whinge about empiricism. — Tom Storm
If many processes in life - and particularly within a cell - are shown not to be arbitrary or by chance
— Gary Enfield
How would you show that? — Isaac
We have to be given a process that can inevitably lead to every outcome - because that is how the laws of Physics and Chemistry are formulated - using traditional mathematics with just one outcome for every scenario.
— Gary Enfield
In theory, yes. But a model which gives us six out of every ten is better than one which gives only five. Materialism only need show it's a better model than alternatives. — Isaac
When anyone is able to suggest any credible way...
— Gary Enfield
Here's your issue. Like Wayfarer, you're confusing what you personally find satisfying with something that should count as evidence for others. Why would I revise any of my beliefs based on what you find credible. It's only what I find credible that matters. — Isaac
There are too many examples which break materialist notions.
— Gary Enfield
There are none. You've simply not understood mainstream materialist claims. — Isaac
Nothing which the chemistry describes in chemical terms breaks the laws of physics and chemistry
— Gary Enfield
Okay so you are retracting your earlier wild claim that "these molecules do seem to break known principles that we apply to Matter/Energy." Macromolecules do not break any principles that I know of. — Olivier5
These are single molecules without any other perceived interaction that could cause a different outcome — Gary Enfield
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