How does superveniance substance metaphysics require any less speculative ifs? Superveniance became dominant at a time when physics looked completely different than it does now and has stuck around in philosophy, I'd argue, largely through inertia and the fact that no one replacement has become a rallying point for opposition.

If anything, the raison d'etre for substance metaphysics seems to be dying. The original goal was that different types of substances, Embedoclean elements for example, would explain why things have the properties do, why we see stabilities in the world (i.e. the different types of substance are ontologically basic) and change (different types of substance interacting).

The march of scientific progress has given us a long list of "substances" that turned out to be better defined as processes. Heat as average movement versus as a substance, caloric. Fire as a process reaction versus the substance phlogiston. How can particles supervene on a flame when different particles are involved in each moment?

We previously had life as composed of a sort of vital substance, elan vital, versus the now dominant view of life as process. Atoms turn out not be be basic substances. Fundemental particles have beginnings and ends and are not ontologically basic either. When we clear out space by slamming two gold nuclei into each other at 99% of the speed of light, quarks spontaneously form from the instability of the void.

Matter turned out to be able to be defined in terms of energy. Fundemental particles appear to be necessarily described in terms of fields (granted there are some work arounds to save the particle as the fundemental unit). Space-time seems like the best candidate for a remaining "substance," but that view is under critique from diverse areas, for Wilzek with space-time as a "metric field," to pancomputationalism.

Even within energy itself, we've seen the unification of the electromagnetic and weak force and the hope is to unify all the forces.

But if we unify our understanding of gravity, space-time as a metric field, and all the other fields into one thing, one substance, then substance does absolutely no explanatory lifting at all. It turns out there isn't multiple substances responsible for the way the world is, there is one type of "stuff" and the changes, process, in it account for all entities.

A world of process also fits with a reality where the being of the present is continually flowing into the non-being of the past, re local becoming. On that front though, the widespread sway of eternalism is probably the biggest barrier to any sort of shift. If you take it that all events exist at once, its more intuitive to think of the universe as an object, and thus as anything within it being "parts." I personally think eternalism has deep problems with coherence though. Events don't exist without beginning or end or "at all times," they seem to exist at just those times that they occur.

Right, but all the "stuff" is just mentation, mental stuff. We're all part of one disassociated cosmic mind for him, right? So, of course if all minds disappear there is nothing, because there is nothing but mind. Saying "all minds cease to exist," is equivalent with saying "the universe ceases to exist." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, yes. The idealist would say that if there are no minds, nothing exists. The materialist would object to that. I don't see how bringing process into the discussion removes that point of disagreement. The idealist and materialist are still going to disagree on what would exist if there are no minds. Even if consciousness/mind are processes, the (non-panpsychist) materialist is still going to claim mindless stuff exists and would continue to exist if all minds disappeared. The modern-day materialist is going claim Jupiter still exists in a mindless universe, right? Or has materialism undergone a radical change?

If I recall correctly, Kastrup allows that there was a period in the universe where there were no dissociated minds. He claims that only life produces minds, although I remember thinking that this is the weak point in his whole system because he doesn't really explain why this is the case; he just points to the fact that only living things appear to have these disassociated minds. Thus, we can have a universe that exists, with no life in it, but it still exists because the universe itself is a mind and all the objects we see are "made of mentation."

universal phenomenal consciousness is all there ultimately is, everything else in nature being reducible to patterns of excitation of this consciousness.

Mind is coextensive with the universe and preceding life and existing after it.

My point though is that differentiation between "universe as mentation" versus "universe as physical stuff" seems somewhat pointless in a process view because they're empirically, and arguably conceptually identical. Kastrup agrees with the methods of science, agrees with using empirical techniques to discover the processes at work that give rise to phenomena. Physicalists, by in large agree on these points too. The disagreement centers around whether the phenomena of empirical inquiry are essentially "what there is," because mentation is all there is, or if phenomena are representations of a lower level physical reality that is causally responsible for the phenomenal.

But if we think of being as something like a cellular automata running on a lattice, what is the difference? In Kastrup's view there is some sort of process that occurs, consistent with the theory of evolution and animal development, such that processes in the "universal mental field" give rise to the "dissociated consciousness" of living things. So it's the causal process that creates us and unique minds within the mental field, and all cause can be traced back to processes within that field. Likewise, process physicalism says the same sort of thing. There is a universal field and processes occur such that minds emerge from them. The process is doing all the heavy lifting explaining consciousness and causation as a whole here. What exactly does the adjective "mental" or "physical" field add? In both there is just one kind of "stuff" and processes in it do all the explanation.

It's like your object of study were arithmetic and being hung up on if 6 * 3 was written in pencil or pen.

Likewise, there is some speculation I recall in his book about the mental field having its own self-awareness/sentience, objects are essentially the thoughts of this field, but I don't recall it being central, more speculative. But even this speculation fails to differentiate it. A physical universe defined by process can have a self-aware universe, or a universe that becomes sentient over its development; it just depends on what type of process generates consciousness and if the universe is one of them.

So what's your point, Bob?

How does superveniance substance metaphysics require any less speculative ifs? Superveniance became dominant at a time when physics looked completely different than it does now and has stuck around in philosophy, I'd argue, largely through inertia and the fact that no one replacement has become a rallying point for opposition. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Pragmatically, recognizing that there are abstract levels of stuff supervening on other stuff is how humanity has been able to achieve the scientific advancements we have. The instrumentation physicists use to test theories is designed with such understanding in mind. People having an understanding of supervenience seems to play a rather critical role in us having the basis we have, for thinking about nature with the degree of accuracy that we do.

If this forum is any indication some philosophers seem to get obsessed with defining supervenience in a rigorous way. (Or tearing down attempts to do so.) It seems to me, that a person who recognizes supervenience has no need, or even use, for a rigorous definition. I see understanding things in terms of supervenience as an epistemic tool that it is important to know how to use. It's a matter of being able to zoom one's limited cognitive faculties in and out to look at things at different levels of abstraction. It's a matter of cognitive skill or talent.

,

But if we unify our understanding of gravity, space-time as a metric field, and all the other fields into one thing, one substance, then substance does absolutely no explanatory lifting at all. It turns out there isn't multiple substances responsible for the way the world is, there is one type of "stuff" and the changes, process, in it account for all entities. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not sure what your point is. My view is not based on that being false. My view is based on observed regularities. Including of course, sciences other than physics.

Is this related to my question, "What basis do you have to think that it is possible for a mind to exist, sans an information processing substrate for the mind to supervene upon?"

Hello Jorndoe,

non sequiturs [...] follow [...] therefore — Bob Ross

... are examples of deduction

A nonsequitur is not itself a deduction: the former is a hypothetical that has a false implication, and the latter is an argument wherein its premises necessitate its conclusion.

Not exactly, no. We're talking what the Pope, priests, gurus, imams, pujas, etc promote (be it simple complex sophisticated renditions), the Avestan Ahura Mazda, the Vedic Shiva, the Biblical Yahweh, the Quranic Allah, etc, the currently prevalent, elaborate religious faiths, often mutually incompatible (as mentioned), what people out there actually believe and sometimes practise:

Ah, I see. However, there are plenty of sophisticated theological arguments (which are formal) for these religions, such as Christianity; of which many of its mainstream followers are unaware of. I just think this “idealized” vs. “elaborate” distinction doesn’t really hold very well.

Maybe. I'd call them definitions, e.g. G is defined as a supposed 1st cause (like Aquinas did), or "super-designer", or ... As to the mentioned gap, the kalam/cosmological argument, for example, does not derive the Biblical Yahweh, cannot particularly differentiate those "historicized" deities or "the unknown" for that matter (incidentally admitted by one of the foremost promoters of that argument).

But they aren’t definitions, they are arguments. Aquinas defines and argues for God being a first-cause, and, thusly, his argument for that property of God is distinct from God’s definition.

The kalam cosmological argument is not supposed to prove the Christian God as existing, it simply proves (or attempts to prove) that there is a necessary being by positing the universe as contingent itself.

There's been realism versus idealism threads before. Maybe it's time for another. Hit it, if you have something good, it's one of those things the forum is about. Roughly 4/5 contemporary philosophers go with realism. 2009, 2020 A topic in its own right, all the way back to Plato ... (Descartes) ... Berkeley ...

If one holds that the representations they have are of mentality and that alive beings are immaterial minds; then the only manner of maintaining an ‘objective’ reality, which has many explanatory benefits, is to posit a universal mind, of which can be labelled as ‘God’. Thusly, God and reality become one. I find this compelling only insofar as I find objective idealism compelling, which, in turn, is predicated off of philosophy of mind (and, more specifically, giving an account of conscious experience).

I guess your take is more or less at odds with the entire elaborate category above? If my bare guess holds up, you'd have something in common with a few atheists:
I'm guessing atheism primarily is concerned with the former (elaborate), and agnosticism more found in the context of the latter (idealized) — both of which could be held by one person, and thus need clarification.

I am at odds, of course, with mainstream, ill-thought out, religious views; but I wouldn’t say that atheism itself is only or primarily concerned with those kinds of views: they don’t focus on the bad arguments for the God’s existence. Graham Oppy, for example, which you quoted before, certainly is not concerned with mainstream religious views and bad arguments: he concerned with rebutting his theist colleagues and defending his naturalism against them.

Those mentioned above aren't arguments, just poor explanations. Some reasons were listed.

Oh, got it. Well, I just didn’t find them convincing for the reasons already stated.

My point is that people should be most confident in their private, mental life existing then anything else; which you are implying they should be confident in the abstractions of 'physical' and public knowledge and you are going so far as to say you don't know if have the mental inner life. That's backwards to me.

Pragmatically, recognizing that there are abstract levels of stuff supervening on other stuff is how humanity has been able to achieve the scientific advancements we have. The instrumentation physicists use to test theories is designed with such understanding in mind. People having an understanding of supervenience seems to play a rather critical role in us having the basis we have, for thinking about nature with the degree of accuracy that we do.

Sure, from that we get atomic theory, cell theory, etc. However, note my examples above. Superveniance has also led science astray, particularly, it seems, at the more fundemental levels of inquiry (physics). The idea was that there must be a substance that supervened on phenomena to explain them. This is an intuition based in metaphysics, a philosophical position driving theory. It has turned out to be very wrong in key areas, e.g., heat, fire, life, and arguably the entire concept of "fundemental particles."

Many basic phenomena have been thought of in terms of sui generis substances and turned out to be process. I am at a loss for an example where something appeared to be a process and is better explained as substance.

If this forum is any indication some philosophers seem to get obsessed with defining supervenience in a rigorous way. (Or tearing down attempts to do so.) It seems to me, that a person who recognizes supervenience has no need, or even use, for a rigorous definition. I see understanding things in terms of supervenience as an epistemic tool that it is important to know how to use. It's a matter of being able to zoom one's limited cognitive faculties in and out to look at things at different levels of abstraction. It's a matter of cognitive skill or talent.

I don't deny that such a view is useful. Even in a process metaphysics, it makes sense to think of long term stabilities in process as substances in some cases. Superveniance being a practical explanatory expedient is not what I am arguing against. It is the metaphysical claim that phenomena such as consciousness must be explained primarily in terms of superveniance because substances are essential. If our grand ambition to unify the fundemental forces is ever successful, we will have reached a point where such substance no longer does any explaining because there is only one base substance. All higher level varieties of substance will then be emergent from lower processes.

Is this related to my question, "What basis do you have to think that it is possible for a mind to exist, sans an information processing substrate for the mind to supervene upon?"

Yes, directly. The view that consciousness must be explained in terms of "information processing," itself suggests that it is essentially process. Information is best thought of as a process, and "processing," is obviously a process. One of the key findings in the study of information is that it is "substrate [substance] independent." This is why conceptions of physics in which information is ontologically basic are best thought of in terms of process metaphysics. Digital physics, where "bits" are individual objects face insurmountable problems. Paul Davies covers this in "Immaterialism to Materialism and Back Again."

What exactly is going to supervene on conciousness? Throw a brain onto a table and it produces no conciousness, it requires a body, and indeed feedback from the body, input from the nervous system, the work of the endocrine system, metabolism, are all essential to explaining conciousness. Put a body in a void and you get no conciousness.

In fact, bodies can only produce conciousness in an extremely narrow range of environments. Change the composition of the surrounding atmosphere and conciousness comes to an abrupt end. Subject a body to all but a narrow range of temperatures and conciousness ceases.

How is this best explained? I would argue in the context of life being a far from thermodynamic equilibrium dynamical system. Many processes must be allowed to take place, based on a narrow set of conditions, for the process to continue.

This is the insight of embodied conciousness. It is a mistake to think "brains generate minds," because they demonstrably cannot, not alone. Minds disappear even if the structure of brains remains largely intact because it is the process that is essential. And this jives completely with computational and information theoretic theories of consciousness, because such process is substrate independent.

But then the question of superveniance is the wrong question. It reduced to "some nested processes must be in place for the process of conciousness to exist." Which is true, but trivial. Obviously if you remove some sub processes from a process it is no longer the same process.

I think the theories that involve mind emerging from a substrate are unconvincing-bordering-on-absurd. Do you think that if you wire a bunch of electric switches together and turn them off and on in some way the pain of stubbing a toe will emerge? Or the taste of of orange? Or the experience of seeing red?

Wouldn't these be theories of mind as emerging from a process? In your examples the substance/substrate is irrelevant.

I think the intuition that abacus beads can't form a mind is correct. However, the problem it targets merely comes from a mistaken reductive tendency to try to study conciousness as merely "what neurons do." But metabolism and feedback throughout the body are essential to conciousness. There are whole books on how the endocrine system effects conciousness that can make it seem like it is the main driver, the neurons ancillary dependants. This is obviously wrong too, the system is complex and there is a circular causality at work. "The Other Brain," is a great book on the massive amount of "work" that glial cells do in the brain. The neurons only take center stage, alone, because we have placed them there in our abstractions.

We have looked at action potentials firing because they are easy to measure and easy to model. But it's worth noting that neural networks based solely on Hebbian "fire together wire together," actually act nothing like real brains unless we force an amazing number of unnatural constraints on them. Neurotransmitters don't work through depolarization alone, they modify neuronal metabolism short to long term, change the shapes of binding sites for ligands, etc.

Then consider the evidence for quantum effects in the brain that's come out. Particle spin causing disparate psychological and physiological effects for inhaled gas, etc. Quantum activity in the brain has been argued against largely because it has become intertwined in philosophical issues over free will and goofy mysticism, and because specialists on conciousness tend to still operate under the received wisdom that there is a hard divide between a classical and quantum world, with quantum effects only occuring in very specific environments. We now know this classical/quantum hard divide to be absolutely false, but the door on criticizing this divide didn't really open up in physics until the 1990s, and so the legacy of the divide is strong.

Since quantum effects show up in photosynthesis and undergird all chemical reactions, it would be shocking if conciousness didn't involve quantum effects in some ways. I think people just conflate this with all sorts of woo that gets tagged on to anything quantum.

Why bring this up? Because it means that models based on neurons alone are likely gross simplifications. The idea that we could make brains out of water pipes rests on the assumption that if you model neuronal action potentials you model the CNS. This is very likely false in quite meaningful ways. If it is, then our intuition that abacus beads and pipes can't model conciousness might be easily vindicated. These substrates can't model brains because they are incapable of instantiating the same processes. A set of pipes replicating neuronal action potentials won't generate a mind because it isn't instantiating the same process at all, it is rather isomorphic to just a small, course grained part of the process that generates conciousness.

I personally think it's a mistake to think you could remove all the glial cells of a brain and still have conciousness, etc. This seems like a combination of looking for the keys where they light is because action potentials are easier to study and the problems of smallism, since global effects likely matter too.

My position is that it's (more) reasonable to be "confident" only in those experiences and facts which we do not have compelling (more-than-subjective) grounds to question or doubt. Reducing ontology (what there is) to epistemology (my/our experiences) makes idealism absurd (i.e. a form of philosophical suicide).

:rofl:

I had forgotten how much I dislike Camus. De Beauvoir and Richard Wright (when he moved to France) were definitely the stars of that set for me.

"Everyone who disagrees with how I see the world commits a form of mental suicide. They are looking for myths to make themselves feel better. We Overmen, on the other hand, we are clear-eyed and hard. We stare into the Void and laugh, such is our great strength."

"BTW, this conception of ourselves as Overmen is totally not the sort of self-aggrandizing fantasy myth of purpose that we are critiquing. No it's totally different."

Stace, Camus, etc. crack me up. I think they did a real number on the sociology of religion too, since the idea of "religion as escapist fantasy," remains incredibly popular. This seems to require a profound lack of experience with world religions though. Most aren't comforting. The Egyptian slave remains a slave in the same unchanging order forever; how is this not absurd? The Sumerian is at the mercy of recalcitrant gods and faces a dismal afterlife. What is more absurd than being raped by a swan and having that define one's identity?

The God of Calvinism is almost demonic in his desire to punish and human life is every bit as absurd as in existentialist atheism. Man is absolutely depraved and has no part in saving himself. He can do nothing and, on average, exists only to be tormented with no meaning attached to that existence save as his being an atomic instantiation of the process of divine justice — a process he cannot even fathom if he is not among the elect.

IMHO Nagel's comic stance is far more endearing and he asks better questions about what could make life not absurd.

If living for 40,000 years and being the ruler of a galaxy spanning empire is still absurd due to cosmic scales, what could not be? The existences of God(s) in no way seems to overcome absurdity, although this is often taken as axiomatic for some reason.. So which God, if any, overcomes absurdity? If Marxism is absurd because any progress in human history is absurd due to cosmic scales, in what sort of universe is progress not absurd? If only Earth existed would Marxism be not absurd?

It seems like there is something psychologically and philosophically deeper to the concept of absurdity and meaning here than meets the eye.

It seems to me like an atheist or theist face the same basic set of problems re absurdity; that all choice becomes meaningless from the viewpoint of absolute freedom.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/The%2520Absurd%2520-%2520Thomas%2520Nagel.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiuv-Ljqr6BAxWSIUQIHbswB_gQFnoECBIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1CdbUWlHJRrzwgiaCWZH1N

But metabolism and feedback throughout the body are essential to conciousness. There are whole books on how the endocrine system effects conciousness that can make it seem like it is the main driver, the neurons ancillary dependants. This is obviously wrong too, the system is complex and there is a circular causality at work. "The Other Brain," is a great book on the massive amount of "work" that glial cells do in the brain. The neurons only take center stage, alone, because we have placed them there in our abstractions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But there is still the same explanatory problem: brain states XYZ + body + quantum effects = the pain of stubbing a toe, but brain states ABC + body + quantum effects = the experience of seeing red, while brain states DEF + body + quantum effects = nothing. What is it about these brain states that leads to different experiences (or no experiences)?

Also, are you claiming it's impossible to create a mechanical analogue of a working brain + body + quantum effects? If we did, how would we know it's conscious? What if we simulated a working brain and body and quantum effects? Would the simulation be conscious?

What is it about these brain states that leads to different experiences (or no experiences)?

Right, that's proven a very difficult question. If I knew the answer I'd be collecting my Nobel Prize. My point is simply that process allows for strong emergence, totally new properties. Conciousness seems to fit the bill here. Thus, it's a strong incentive to move away from a metaphysics that denies the possibility of strong emergence. But note above that there are very many other findings in the sciences that suggest this shift as well. It's an abductive move I believe.

Also, are you claiming it's impossible to create a mechanical analogue of a working brain + body + quantum effects? If we did, how would we know it's conscious? What if we simulated a working brain and body and quantum effects? Would the simulation be conscious?

By no means. I'm saying that the "substrate independence," of the processes that give rise to conciousness violate our intuitions because they are generally framed in terms of gross simplifications of the processes that give rise to conciousness.

"If you made a model of all the neurons in the brain from steam pipes, it would have the same experiences as the brain being modeled," sounds ridiculous, and I'd argue that it this intuition probably holds for two reasons.

1. Conciousness probably doesn't just arise from neurons.

2. More importantly, if there is only one substance/thing underlying all of reality, then process is fundemental in explaining all things. If this is true, then you simply cannot make a brain out of steam pipes or any other materials and have it actually be the same process. Different materials = different process, by definition, because "materials" emerge from lower level processes.

This is tricky because we are used to the substance view, but recall that the atoms that the brain is made of is not eternal. These emerge from process, the line between matter and energy is not absolute. Atoms are long term energy well stabilities in process, but at they are still processes with beginnings and ends. So a brain "made from steam pipes," cannot be the exact same process as an organic brain, period. By making the thing out of different materials you are necessarily forming a different process, and in process more is different and different is different. Example: atoms are formed from a process that can be decomposed into field values for charge, etc., but adding more values doesn't give you more of the same basic output, instead you might get Chlorine instead of Helium.

"Information is substrate independent," is actually a misnomer in process metaphysics because substrate itself IS process. So, in pancomputationalism, the organic brain and the steam pipe brain are obviously not the same "computation," all the way down. They are instead isomorphic down to some arbitrary course grained level.

But I think it IS entirely possible that conciousness could arise from different types of materials. It's an open question. The question we have, reformated is: "at what level can we course grain the underlying process such that it doesn't effect the emergence of conciousness?"

However, I don't think MOST materials can be used to recreate a brain. A brain made of q tips and rubber bands might be simply unable to replicate the process at work in brains, particularly quantum processes.


What trips us up is that the same information can be encoded, and the same computation can be instantiated, in a variety of materials. But the different substrates do indeed make the systems different at some scale. There are simply isomorphisms between them, such that we can say they are the same at the right, arbitrary level of scale. With conciousness, the question becomes, "which isomorphisms are essential?" It's possible that almost all of the process is, in which case artificial life may need to be "grown" from cell-like structures. Hard to say since so little is known about it.

A field of strawmen not worth setting ablaze. :smirk:

You might be right, I haven't read The Myth of Sisyphus in a while and might be conflating it with the rest of the genre. I'll maintain that it rings true to me for Man Against Darkness though, which I've read recently. Also a bit for very late Nietzsche, but I've always figured his illness played a role in the self-aggrandizement in Ecce Homo.

You know, he starts with Hamlet being nauseous because choice is absurd in The Birth of Tragedy and ends at "I am dynamite," always felt like he was getting high on his own supply.

But objective idealism doesn't reduce ontology to epistemology.

My position is that it's (more) reasonable to be "confident" only in those experiences and facts which we do not have compelling (more-than-subjective) grounds to question or doubt

So, if I am understanding you correctly, you think that you do have compelling grounds to question that your have thoughts?

I don't doubt that I have them (i.e. cognitive functions) but instead question what they are and how they work. Clearly, "thoughts" (or experiences) are not only what they seem to us subjectively to be.

Oh, that's what I thought you were saying, since you replied "exactly" to my response saying how do you know you have thoughts if only accept public knowledge.

Whether a thought is more than what we can introspectively access does not negate the fact that we can know certain things from private knowledge, such as that we have thoughts.

:roll:

:heart:

A nonsequitur is [...] — Bob Ross

... negation of "follow". (¬(p ⇒ q))

However, there are plenty of sophisticated theological arguments (which are formal) for these religions, such as Christianity — Bob Ross

As already mentioned (except, incidentally point 2 above, again):

(be it simple complex sophisticated renditions) — jorndoe

The kalam cosmological argument is not supposed to prove the Christian God as existing — Bob Ross

Whether supposed to or not, it can't, hence mentioned gap (+ admission). ^{(Aquinas, notes)} There's been threads on the (kalam) cosmological argument before. The veracity/relevance thereof might be a topic in its own right. Feel free to fire one up, if you have something worthwhile.

I just think this “idealized” vs. “elaborate” distinction doesn’t really hold very well. — Bob Ross

So far, it's just an observation (not an argument as such) that you've not really given much reason to dismiss.

If one holds that the representations they have are of mentality and that alive beings are immaterial minds; then the only manner of maintaining an ‘objective’ reality, which has many explanatory benefits, is to posit a universal mind, of which can be labelled as ‘God’. Thusly, God and reality become one. I find this compelling only insofar as I find objective idealism compelling, which, in turn, is predicated off of philosophy of mind (and, more specifically, giving an account of conscious experience). — Bob Ross

You define ‘God’ = "a universal mind" due to Levine's explanatory gap / Chalmers' mind conundrum...? :brow: Either way, I suggest you make a realism versus idealism case in a thread of its own; it's not specifically related to theism. Seems like some comments in the thread are going that way.

Oh, got it. Well, I just didn’t find them convincing for the reasons already stated. — Bob Ross

You find "supernatural magic" a fine explanation...? :confused:

On the Sacred Disease is a work of the Hippocratic Corpus, written about 400 B.C. Its authorship cannot be confirmed, so is regarded as dubious. The treatise is thought to contain one of the first recorded observations of epilepsy in humans. The author explains these phenomena by the flux of the phlegm flowing from the brain into the veins rather than assigning them a divine origin. This turn from a supernatural to a naturalistic explanation is considered a major breakthrough in the history of medicine. — On the Sacred Disease (Wikipedia)

Yep, Christina did bring some good evidence/points to the table.

Just for fun, even though I'm an atheist, I'm going to play devil's advocate and argue against these ten points, mainly from the point of view of a Christian, which is the only world religion I'm educated on:

1. consistent replacement of supernatural explanations of the world with natural ones

This is an informal, inductive fallacy known as a faulty generalization. We can't conclude that because certain explanations from theists have proven to have been wrong in the past that they are therefore wrong in all of their explanations. For example, if we have natural explanations for lightning and rain now, that doesn't mean the theist's explanations that God created the universe and life are incorrect.

2. inconsistency of world religions

This is another informal inductive fallacy of faulty generalization. All the inconsistency of religions proves is that they can't all be true, not that they all are false. From the point of view of the Christian, only one religion needs to be true for their beliefs to be valid. And in fact, this is exactly what they teach -- that Christianity is the one, true religion.

3. weakness of religious arguments, explanations, and apologetics

This is a subjective assessment and an opinion only. Many theists find religious arguments, explanations and apologetics to be quite compelling.

4. increasing diminishment of god

No theist is likely to grant that God has diminished in any way. Going back to point 1, less supernatural explanations may be offered to explain things as our understanding of the world improves and we replace them with natural explanations, but that that doesn't mean God is rendered smaller or lesser in any way that is relevant to a Christian's beliefs, i.e. that what is really important is the personal relationship between man and God, salvation and the hope of an afterlife.

5. fact that religion runs in families

Another informal inductive fallacy since this doesn't prove the religion is false. If someone believes something to be true, of course they are going to pass it down through their family.

6. physical causes of everything we think of as the soul

A theist may concede that there are mysteries on this topic that neither side can currently explain. For the theist, there is the problem of how the immaterial soul interacts with the material body. For the naturalist, there is the hard problem of consciousness. Neither of them, however, will concede that their lack of a current explanation disproves their own position.

7. complete failure of any sort of supernatural phenomenon to stand up to rigorous testing

The theist can argue that supernatural phenomena are qualitatively different than natural phenomena and therefore we can't hold testing of such to the same standards or expect the same results. For example, if natural phenomena are regulated by natural laws, we can expect to be able replicate our tests with the same or similar results. But if supernatural phenomena are agency driven by a supernatural being acting of its own free will (God, an angel, a demon, etc.), then we have no reason to expect them to display the same regularity as phenomena governed by natural laws.

8. slipperiness of religious and spiritual beliefs

This is a subjective opinion. Many theists will assert they are remarkably consistent about their religious and spiritual beliefs, and may point out of the list of the attributes of God has stayed consistent for hundreds or even thousands of years (omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, omnipresence, eternality, etc.). In any case, a theist who alters or modifies his beliefs in response to objections or recognition of inconsistencies doesn't prove all of his beliefs are incorrect. As an example, a theist may give up a particular doctrine yet still retain his core religious beliefs about God.

9. failure of religion to improve or clarify over time

Theists could argue that this doesn't disprove a religion, as a religion doesn't need to improve or clarify in order to be true. One could even argue that a religion that is static could be a good thing if it means its teachings are true and unchanging. Alternately, theists may argue that theology is the study of God and has improved and clarified humanity's understanding of God over time, and that in some cases additional revelations have improved or clarified religion (e. g. the New Testament being about new revelations from God, the doctrine of the Trinity being discovered or revealed, etc.).

10. complete lack of solid evidence for god's existence

Again, this is a subjective opinion, since many theists will point out what they consider to be solid evidence which may be citations of medical miracles of naturally unexplained healing, group miracles like the Miracle of Fatima, out of body experiences, near death experiences, etc. Additionally, they may point to arguments like the Cosmological, Fine-Tuning, and others related to physical reality as being solid evidence for God's existence. If the theist is using facts about physical reality to prove God's existence, what is more solid than that?

Most of Christina’s points rely on a comparison of religious modes of inquiry and scientific method. But her assumptions about how science proceeds amounts to scientism, which confuses itself with science. Scientism assumes a single ‘scientific method’ which offers a mode of access to truth that is superior to all other modes. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool atheist but I believe that neither a religious belief nor a scientific paradigm can be proved true or false. In other words, evidence does not enable us to choose between rival paradigms, because change in science assumptions is neither deductive nor inductive. Instead, it involves shifts in metaphysical presuppositions, just as does change in religious belief. If religious belief doesn’t evolve then neither does scientific theory.
I’m an atheist not because religion lacks evidence or is ‘untrue’ but because I find my worldview allows the world to make sense to me in a more elegant and harmonious way.

:up:

:up:

For example, if we have natural explanations for lightning and rain now, that doesn't mean the theist's explanations that God created the universe and life are incorrect. — GRWelsh

Which atheists claim it does? I am also an atheist and I don't claim that the fact that lightening is a natural phenomena and not a product of angry gods, proves gods do not exist, it just provides further evidence against god posits. You are claiming that atheism and atheists are making claims, neither is making.

From the point of view of the Christian, only one religion needs to be true for their beliefs to be valid. And in fact, this is exactly what they teach -- that Christianity is the one, true religion. — GRWelsh

This offers no new insight. The odds of the Christian faith being the only true one, out of thousands of other, equally valid theistic proposals, remains probabilistically, very low indeed, despite the conviction of Christians.

Many theists find religious arguments, explanations and apologetics to be quite compelling. — GRWelsh

Many flat Earthers believe the Earth is flat. In 1 and 2 you tried to use fallacy as an argument and then in 3, you attempt an ad populum fallacy yourself.

No theist is likely to grant that God has diminished in any way. — GRWelsh

How about deconstructing theists?

Going back to point 1, less supernatural explanations may be offered to explain things as our understanding of the world improves and we replace them with natural explanations, but that that doesn't mean God is rendered smaller or lesser in any way that is relevant to a Christian's beliefs — GRWelsh

Yes it does, as they are then forced to alter their already bad apologetics, that they have previously used.

At this point I became bored, making the effort to respond to an atheist, playing a devil's advocate role for theists. I am not against trying to steelman the opposition, but only if the arguments used are valuable. So, I will leave it there.

Something I'll add is that a list of bullet points isn't the same thing as a list of arguments with premises leading to conclusions. A mere list of points or observations is much more easily dismissed than actual arguments would be. An intelligent theist isn't likely to feel challenged by that list of points and will likely give pat answers similar to what I gave.

Just because man has made leaps and bounds of progress in scientific fields does not mean he was not created by God or that god is redundant as an explanation, science could well be gods way of creation and therein lies the arrogance of the atheist equalling that of the theist. Whilst the latter claims god did it now the atheist says science did it (the big bang created the universe etc).

The only difference is, and where God has no place in the scientific community is when asking “well what came before the Big Bang?” to which the scientist can simply say we don’t know or propose various theories whereas the theist could just simply say God created it, which is as equally valid a theory as any proposed by science as the theory itself is unprovable.

But it does baffle the mind that when looking at various scientific phenomena such as lighting one can not but be in awe of its power though we know the explanation behind it.

The op is also a bit disingenuous and dismissive of some great Christian scientists such as Newton to name one of the heavyweights to prove such attention seeking point by a pretty much minor and unknown scientist such as Greta Christina,

[T]he atheist says science did it (the big bang created the universe etc). — simplyG

Strawman. If not, then cite an atheist who is also a scientist (i.e. astrophysicist / cosmologist) who makes this claim.

Erm, how about Stephen Hawking?

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/sep/02/stephen-hawking-big-bang-creator

:lol: Wrong. Read the book (and the article closely).

Admittedly I haven’t read his book a brief history of time, tried to a long time in my teens but was beyond me at the time so I don’t know exactly his views then regarding creation theory of universe but as far as the article I’ve linked is concerned he mostly says science did it rather than God by invoking laws of gravity in its creation rather than god. Perhaps I’m misreading him and your comprehension is better…