US Scientists enlist clergy in evolution battle

Reuters reports how scientists have enlisted the help of the clergy in battling creationism.

ID is hardly dead, it has changed once again to 'teach the controversy' or 'critically analyze' to avoid the legal minefield. This is the time for scientists to stand up and join with others to expose what is wrong with intelligent design and it's 'teach the controversy' approach.

Meet Me in St. Louis: NCSE at AAAS NCSE's Eugenie C. Scott, Wesley R. Elsberry, and Nick Matzke will be in St. Louis, Missouri, for the AAAS annual meeting from February 16 to February 20. Elsberry and Matzke will be staffing NCSE's booth in the exhibit hall, where information about NCSE, and signed copies of Scott's book Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction, will be available. Scott will be busy, too, moderating a clinic on "Teaching and Learning Science: Addressing the Issues Collaboratively"; presenting a talk in the "Science Under Attack" symposium along with Jon D. Miller, Rodger Bybee, Gerry Wheeler, Emlyn Koster, and Phil Plait; giving a talk in the full-day "Anti-evolutionism in America: What's Ahead?" symposium along with Jon Alston, James Murray, Mary Haskins, Wes McCoy, Johanna Foster, Robert Dennison, Gerald Skoog, Steve Randak, Gerald Wheeler, Wilfred Elders, Warren Eshbach, Michael Zimmerman, Martha Heil, and Paul Forbes; and speaking in the "Evolution on the Front Line" symposium along with George Coyne, Peter Raven, filmmaker James Cameron, Francisco Ayala, Kevin Padian, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and reporter Cornelia Dean. Also, NCSE Legal Advisory Committee member Steve Gey will be speaking in the "Field Strategies: What Proponents of Evolution Need to Know" symposium.

Other collaborators* include the following organizations:

Academy of Science of St. Louis

American Association of Physics Teachers

American Federation of Teachers

American Institute of Biological Sciences

American Institute of Physics

American Society of Plant Taxonomists

Association of Science-Technology Centers

Botanical Society of America

Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS)

Biophysical Society

Carnegie Academy for Science Education at the Carnegie Institution of Washington

Colorado Science Forum

Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

Geological Society of America

Kansas Citizens for Science

Maryville University, St. Louis

Missouri Botanical Garden

Missouri Citizens for Science Education

National Academy of Sciences

National Association of Biology Teachers

National Association of Physics Teachers

National Center for Science Education

National Education Association

National Science Teachers Association

Saint Louis Science Center

Saint Louis University

Saint Louis Zoo

Science Teachers of Missouri

Sigma Xi

Society for Developmental Biology

Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville

University of Missouri - St. Louis

Washington University Science Outreach

Washington University in St. Louis

Lenny wrote: Nice of them to do so now, after ID is all but dead after their crushing defeats in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

ID is hardly dead, it has changed once again to 'teach the controversy' or 'critically analyze' to avoid the legal minefield.

This is the time for scientists to stand up and join with others to expose what is wrong with intelligent design and it's 'teach the controversy' approach.

Creationism is the Hydra. Cut off a head and it grows another.

Don't be fooled into believing ignorance and superstition is dead because of the defeats in Dover and Ohio. Legal action can wound the goals of the c/id advocates but they can only be defeated by education.

This is the time for scientists to stand up and join with others to expose what is wrong with intelligent design and it's 'teach the controversy' approach.

Reuters reports how scientists have enlisted the help of the clergy in battling creationism.

— Lenny

Nice of them to do so now, after ID is all but dead after their crushing defeats in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Where the hell were they ten years ago?

"The God of religious faith is a god of love. He did not design me."

Needless to say, Fr. Coyne fails to explain exactly how the second sentence is specifically supposed to follow from the first. I see nothing within astronomy (Coyne's field), nor within the Bible, (supposedly Coyne's field, let us pray hard), nor even within common sense, where the second sentence follows from the first sentence.

Needless to say, Fr. Coyne fails to explain exactly how the second sentence is specifically supposed to follow from the first. I see nothing within astronomy (Coyne's field), nor within the Bible, (supposedly Coyne's field, let us pray hard), nor even within common sense, where the second sentence follows from the first sentence.

FL:

In any case, I don't see why these two Coyne statements can't be regarded as two separate, independent statements of faith. They need not be interrelated at all.

"The God of religious faith is a god of love. He did not design me." Needless to say, Fr. Coyne fails to explain exactly how the second sentence is specifically supposed to follow from the first. I see nothing within astronomy (Coyne's field), nor within the Bible, (supposedly Coyne's field, let us pray hard), nor even within common sense, where the second sentence follows from the first sentence.

— FL

Since science and religion have traditionally made "strange bed fellows" the scientific community should view any type of reconciliation with a certain amount of skepticism.
Religious establishments,made be supportive to science ,but, only to a point. The Global Catholic Network" said this.
Evolution as Philosophy
What is the attitude of the Catholic Church towards the theory of evolution? Considered strictly as a scientific theory, evolution starts with the hypothesis or conjecture that higher forms of life have developed from lower forms over a period of millions of years. The scientist then tries either to prove or disprove this hypothesis by searching for evidence to be found in the geological record. If he can show that there is a record in the rocks which shows the development of some lower form of animal into a higher form, he has proven his hypothesis. Consequently, there has been a great effort among scientists to search the geological record for evidence that modern man has indeed descended from the lower animals like the ape. There are, however, too many missing links in the record to allow any reputable scientist to claim that evolution is a proven fact.
The Catholic Church is united with these Christians in opposing evolution AS A PHILOSOPHY. With the Protestants, the Church insists that God created the world and that man has an immortal soul. The Church, however, does not oppose evolution AS A SCIENTIFIC THEORY. The reason is that she does not hold for an absolutely literal interpretation of those chapters of Genesis. Thus the Church sees no necessary conflict between the belief that God created the world from nothing and the scientific hypothesis that the world has evolved over millions of years. Again, the Church sees no necessary conflict between the belief that God created directly the souls of Adam and Eve and the scientific hypothesis that Adam and Eve descended from non-human ancestors. Thus even if can be proven scientifically beyond a reasonable doubt that man has descended from some lower animal like the ape, the Church will not have to change its position. Thus the Church is content to let the scientists go about their business and will only react when some step beyond the limits of science in making the claim that the theory of evolution has made Christianity obsolete.
So science is acceptable to the church only to a point, when science reaches that point (as it invariable will)what then?

For that matter, why are NO non-Darwinist clergy of any denomination quoted at all in this article? The story is important, but where's ~both~ sides of it?

From JONBOY's post: The Catholic Church is united with these Christians in opposing evolution AS A PHILOSOPHY. With the Protestants, the Church insists that God created the world and that man has an immortal soul. The Church, however, does not oppose evolution AS A SCIENTIFIC THEORY.

Some of the statements coming out of the Catholic Church are similar to the statements that Copernicus could be taught as a hypothesis but not as a fact (otherwise you risk being shown the instruments of torture).

After the Dover decision, one of our local news papers has had a flurry of letters-to-the-editor from advocates pushing ID, "teach the controversy", "teach the problems with evolution", "evolution can't be proven", "freedom of speech for opposing views", in other words, the whole gamut of arguments being used to still get their religion into the science classroom. The local newspaper treats these as being equal in value to letters pointing out the specifics of the Dover decision. We still have a long way to go.

I like the idea expressed by someone in another thread that we continually connect ID with creationism (it is legitimate to do so, as was shown in the trail). We also need to talk publicly about the tactics use by the IDC crowd, specifically their dishonest claims, quote mining, their wedge document; just a little matter-of-fact information that paints them in their true colors.

I've noticed how shocked people are when they find out how the Dover board members behaved and lied. It seems to get their attention that something doesn't smell right about IDC. If this can be shown to be the general pattern, maybe more folks will start being a little more skeptical of IDC claims.

the scientific community should view any type of reconciliation with a certain amount of skepticism.

Like IDers can claim to accept the age of the Earth and micro-evolution, Leon Wiseltier, the author of the book critique, accepts some things, but not this new fangled evolutionary psychology - no, that's scientism and guilty of everything IDers fault materialistic science for in the Wedge document.

Speaking from a strictly scientific point of view, I can't support evolution as a philosophy either, because--- as a philosophy--- it's not testable against the empirical world. As for your question about what the Catholic Church will do if (or when) scientists "step beyond the limits of science in making the claim that the theory of evolution has made Christianity obsolete", I'm sure they'll oppose those non-scientific claims. But that's not a rejection of science. That's a rejection of a philosophical stance. Frankly, I think scientists should only be "supportive of science", as you put it, up to the point where it departs from a reliance on empirically testable hypotheses. Being "supportive of science" in the philosophical realm strikes me as an oxymoron. Are you perhaps defining science differently than I am? For me, if it isn't testable against the natural world, it doesn't qualify as science--- at least that's my rough definition. Good fences make good neighbors. IMO, it's in the best interest of scientists to draw the line pretty much where the Catholic Church is drawing it--- and to police it on both sides.

— B. Spitzer

In fairness, it should be pointed out that many behavioral scientists (none of them IDers or creationists or anti-evolutionists) do not accept that most human behaviors have genetic rather than cultural sources, and thus reject the very core thesis of evolutionary psychology.

B Pitzer said, "As for your question about what the Catholic Church will do if (or when) scientists "step beyond the limits of science in making the claim that the theory of evolution has made Christianity obsolete", I'm sure they'll oppose those non-scientific claims. But that's not a rejection of science.That's a rejection of a philosophical stance". Science,(even within the boundaries of its neutral explanation of the natural world),often raises questions to the veracity of certain philosophical teachings. There is obvious scientific contradictions within these statements," With the Protestants, the Church insists that God created the world. " Again, the Church sees no necessary conflict between the belief that God created directly the souls of Adam and Eve and the scientific hypothesis that Adam and Eve descended from non-human ancestors".
With the recent advancements in abiogenics and human genealogy, you can construct all the fences you like,but perhaps, unfortunately for the church, science will continue to keep moving them.

... you adapt to an evolving culture, well, culturally, and if you don't have the genetic resources to do so and the breed you fail to pass on your genes ---....

In fairness, it should be pointed out that many behavioral scientists (none of them IDers or creationists or anti-evolutionists) do not accept that most human behaviors have genetic rather than cultural sources, and thus reject the very core thesis of evolutionary psychology.

JONBOY: Science,(even within the boundaries of its neutral explanation of the natural world),often raises questions to the veracity of certain philosophical teachings. There is obvious scientific contradictions within these statements," With the Protestants, the Church insists that God created the world. " Again, the Church sees no necessary conflict between the belief that God created directly the souls of Adam and Eve and the scientific hypothesis that Adam and Eve descended from non-human ancestors". With the recent advancements in abiogenics and human genealogy, you can construct all the fences you like,but perhaps, unfortunately for the church, science will continue to keep moving them.

J. G. Cox -

Someone - I believe it was P. Z. Myers - had a quote I liked. "Everything is 100% genetic and 100% environmental." I'll explain what this means soon, but first...

Technically, what stats like the ones you mention are trying to estimate is the fraction of the variance that is "determined" by one broad group of "causal" factors or the other. Often, such numbers are based on twin studies, making the oversimplified but possibly reasonable assumption that seperated-at-birth identical twins are "genetically identical" but "environmentally different". I don't mean to be dismissive of twin studies, which can be of great value, but the potential weaknesses behind the assumptions need to be borne in mind.

When someone makes the claim about IQ scores that you have quoted, what they mean is essentially this...

"If we took a population of genetically identical babies and scattered them throughout the world in diverse environments to be raised, and then twenty years later we gave them all IQ tests, and we took the mean, the variance, the standard deviation, and so on of the measures, we would expect the variance to be only 30% of what is observed when we give IQ tests to the general population". I happen to think that this is probably wrong, and that the variance would be greater than this, but that's another story. And I'm no expert on IQ tests. And as you said, "whatever they measure".

IQ tests can be very useful in certain clinical situations, especially when a normal or high score rules out certain types of problems (for obvious reasons, a low score can far more easily be the result of many confounding issues). But that's about it.

In fact, genes interact with the environment throughout an individual's development and life. In fact, the genes in the parents germ cells are interacting with the environment even before they combine to form a zygote. It's all always both.

I've personally been a believer in evolutionary psychology, broadly defined, long before I knew it had a name. (Also, I suspect that there may be exaggeratedly "pure" academic "evolutionary psychologists" with whom I don't agree.) By which I do NOT mean that human personality traits or talents are "all genetic", let alone that "people who happen to be on the bottom socially must be genetically inferior", or any offensive and unkind nonsense like that, but rather, that much of our behavior is indeed governed by instinct, instincts that evolved and were selected for in our ancestors for millions, in some cases billions, of years. Did the "environment" "teach" you to know when your bladder is full (this is an extreme example, of course)?

Interestingly, one of the places where this idea was most positively received was at a meditation class I took at a yoga center a few years back (no, I don't do yoga or meditate regularly these days, although I probably should). When I mentioned, tentatively, that much of our behavior is rather thoughtless, instinctive, and emotional, the teacher pointed out that this is more or less exactly what yogis and Buddhists believe, and part of what meditation is about.

It's easy to get comfortable with Judge Jones' decision and supporting opinion and the reversal by the Ohio Board of Education, but it's premature to celebrate. Now begins the long grind of making evolution, accurately taught, the standard in every K-12 science classroom in the country. That will take some doing.

The public and the media focus on the high profile events like those in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Kansas, but every day thousands of classroom teachers are teaching evolution according to their standards and their views, and those standards are too often far removed from what we'd expect to see. Last week the Toledo Blade reported on biology/life science teachers in the Toledo Public Schools and how they taught evolution. Disturbingly the Blade's reporters had little difficulty finding teachers who teach creationism and deprecate evolution or those who simply skip it. That was in a big city system. Imagine the small town systems which inquiring reporters never visit and what goes on in them, unnoticed by everyone but the local fundamentalist congregations. From my experience visiting schools throughout this country over four decades what the Blade found is quite common. A significant portion of teachers either never mention evolution (doing so would elicit strong reaction from parents, and administrators don't like that at all) or actively teach against it. State syllabi are nice, but in most states they have little real influence on what happens at the local level. Parents and taxpayers need to visit their local systems and find out what is actually being taught. If you're a biologist, volunteer to help the biology teachers as a visiting lecturer. Push evolution for all its worth. Teachers who oppose evolution will be exposed and may leave the system. Teachers with weak spines will have their spines stiffened. Only through education over the long haul--and I mean decades--can change be effected and evolution given its proper place in biology and in the minds of the public.

And how would you propose to test the idea that God directly created the souls of the first humans?

@ keanus

I agree. What we are confronting is, IMO, a deep-seated belief that is tightly integrated into many people's identities. That sort of thing is only changed by constant pressure and requires turnover among generations. Compare it, perhaps, to how difficult and how slow has been the continuing eradication of racism in the U.S. Thus, the support of the clergy, however late we may feel it has come, is of great value as a way of increasing that pressure and spreading it into other aspects of people's lives.

Comment #80977 Posted by PvM on February 20, 2006 01:57 AM The NCSE was there in St Louis during the AAAS annual meeting But there were more participants Other collaborators* include the following organizations: 1. Academy of Science of St. Louis ...... 35. Washington University in St. Louis

Evolutionary psychology does not deny cultural influences on behavior.

As long as ones religious claims never collapse into anything specific or defined they are safe from science's critical eye, but they are also meaningless obfuscation without such specification and definition.

...let us pray hard

... what's the argument about.

"it should be pointed out that many behavioral scientists (none of them IDers or creationists or anti-evolutionists) do not accept that most human behaviors have genetic rather than cultural sources, and thus reject the very core thesis of evolutionary psychology."

Has it occurred to you to see if you can find more about Coyne's viewpoints by (gasp) listening to some of his presentations or (eek) reading his comments beyond the few excerpts in newspapers. Then you would find out why the sentences do make sense.

As long as ones religious claims never collapse into anything specific or defined they are safe from science's critical eye, but they are also meaningless obfuscation without such specification and definition.

Just like Aesop's Fables.

But if I want to be taught accurate spiritual truth by a knowledgeable, Bible-believing, God-honoring, Christ-centered Catholic priest or Protestant pastor; and if I want to see how that spiritual truth is supposed to interface with the discipline of science so I can communicate my personal faith better to a science-dominated world; then gimme Coyne's boss instead.

to give FL credit, i think he just did shake his fist a bit harder.

:p

is that helping yet, FL?

You can never argue about a silly little story that admits it's not true. (Do the Bible and Koran now admit they are not true?)

Science does not need religion to help it. Let science be true to itself and it will prevail over superstition and ignorance and wishful thinking.
Science debases itself and makes a monumental mistake if it makes appeal to particular religious groups, and seeks their help, rather than standing on its own two feet.
It makes itself weaker by stooping to ask for the assistance of one superstitious set of people in the fight with another.
Superstion cannot touch science. Science must be clear in this self-knowledge. It must not falter here. Its strength lies within its own essential nature - which is utterly different in kind to religion.
If it betrays itself here, the calamity will be far greater than anything that ID creationism can cause in a straight battle for intellectual truth.
Science cannot lose this fight so long as it is true to itself. ID is inane and must lose, so long as science explains itself with straighforward honesty. Nothing else is required.

Do you admit you are wrong about what the core of evolutionary psychology is?

I am sure you are quite aware, the vast majority of Christians worldwide view the Bible as allegorical, and not as literal "true" history.

Evolution or no evolution, ID or no ID, there's just NO excuse for a Christian anything (let alone an professed Christian minister) to run around talking like Richard Dawkins on steroids.

Lenny, just to be clear, you're not saying there is no evidence for genetic components to human behavior are you?

You're just arguing not to minimize the environmental effects in combination with genetic components, yes?

I'm not wrong about it. (shrug)

I am aware that claim is often made --- but it is only half true according to the polls I've seen. Some religious claims are still taken seriously, the existence of a supernatural soul, Jesus being son of god, performing miracles, heaven, hell... It's not just Adam and Eve.

I'm not wrong about it. (shrug)

No, you are wrong.

It's true that my religious opinions are no more authoritative than anybody else's.

It's also true that my ability to deliver pizza hot and on time is better than that of many others.*

There's a lesson here: some things are subject to verification (measurable performance of motivated, dedicated pizza delivery person LPG over that of untrained, unmotivated chutzpah delivery persons like BFTP, LF et al., or, perhaps, CC). Some things are not subject to verification and one of those is religious opinion, of any kind.

Some days, it seems we waste a whole lot of time on the unverifiable around here. Even if there were really nothing better to do, which frankly I doubt, there's always, well, pizza.

*(When not sabotaged by leaky second-hand kayaks, anyway!)

Lenny, just to be clear, you're not saying there is no evidence for genetic components to human behavior are you? You're just arguing not to minimize the environmental effects in combination with genetic components, yes?

But if your bitch is with those who take the Bible literally, then why can't you just SAY that your bitch is with those who take the Bible literally?

Evolution or no evolution, ID or no ID, there's just NO excuse for a Christian anything (let alone an professed Christian minister) to run around talking like Richard Dawkins on steroids.

Please explain to me how "evolutionary" can be anything other than "genetic". If it's "cultural", then it's not "evolutionary", is it.

But if your bitch is with those who take the Bible literally, then why can't you just SAY that your bitch is with those who take the Bible literally?

Because it should be obvious

Good-bye Lenny Flank, you're just being a jerk now.

normdoering: Define what exactly a soul does, please. Many mental attributes can be tested to demonstrate their origin in the function of our biological neural nets.

Oh my Gawd --- after all these months, maybe years, on PT you've never really understood the theory of evolution you're defending!

Cultural is pretty much the same as environmental in evo-psych, its that natural thing that does the selection in natural selection.

As long as ones religious claims never collapse into anything specific or defined they are safe from science's critical eye, but they are also meaningless obfuscation without such specification and definition.

— normdoering

Good-bye Lenny Flank, you're just being a jerk now.

I've never seen any good evidence that any specific human behavior is genetically determined to any significant degree.

Cultural is pretty much the same as environmental in evo-psych, its that natural thing that does the selection in natural selection.

Perhaps you had forgotten the research on schizophrenia, as an obvious example?

think about it for a second, Lenny. If there were no selective pressures on human behavior, we would never have evolved our behavior repetoire to be as flexible as it is to begin with.

After all, if it ain't genetic, it can't be evolutionary, can it.

I think the problem is that there are two different ideas here. Lenny is arguing Biological Evolution, and others are arguing Universal Darwinism.

Or maybe I'm talking crazy because my blood sugar is low. I think that may be it.

I think Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene, 1976), Daniel Dennett (Darwins Dangerous Idea, 1995), Susan Blackmore (The Meme Machine, 1999) and some others might disagree with you on that point.

that is not a survival behavior that has been selected. Saying that genes for schizophrenia mean that behavior is genetically determined is no different than saying that genes for lung cancer mean that behavior is genetically determined.

...our behaviors are NOT genetically straightjacketed

Lenny. Dare I suggest that behaviour is an emergent property arising from an interaction between the organism (i.e. a bag of genes and chemical stuff), other organisms, and the environment, and that those organisms exhibiting successful behaviours (e.g. ability to adapt or modify behaviour, or conversely those that exhibit beneficial superstitious behaviour) will be selected for, hence their gene complement will pass on. (Unless of course the asteroid crashes down on top of them, in which case superior fitness is irrelevant). In this sense behaviour or the capacity to adapt behaviour is an evolutionarily successful strategy.

Therefore culture and cultural behaviours may be evolutionarily successful strategies, and the propensity to behave in certain ways may be selected for.

So endeth the rant.

I think they're wrong. The whole idea of "memes" is nice-sounding, but nothing to do with biological evolution.

uh, are you saying lung cancer is classified as "behavior"??

I think you are saying that genetic determinism isn't 100% for just about any human trait you can name. am i correct?

do you wish to do this or not?

Therefore culture and cultural behaviours may be evolutionarily successful strategies, and the propensity to behave in certain ways may be selected for.

I sat through plenty of colloquia in my psychology department on sociobiology, and my main problem with it is that there wasn't much actual science to it. Sure, there were a lot of imaginatively entertaining stories about how a certain human behaviour might have evolved, usually accompanied by some egregious analogy to animal behaviour (such as mallard "rape" or ant "slavery") and often coloured by the use of some technical-sounding language. But there were never any discussions of actual mechanisms, or reference to evidence in primates, or for that matter, much examination of the prevalence of human behaviours in cultures outside of the speaker's, and practically no consideration of alternative hypotheses, especially those involving cultural explanations.

(For example, I've seen plenty of writers note that women's criteria for mates are much more strongly influenced by financial success than men's criteria, who seem to favour attractiveness. Sure, this would fit with the notion that women invest more in reproduction, and therefore need mates will resources themselves. Of course, in our society, where women on average earn less than men, this behaviour would also be completely rational, and thus not need an evolutionary explanation. I haven't seen any study of the mating preferences of very wealthy women, or very poor men, but looking at the marriages of Britney Spears and Julia Roberts, I'd say the alternative, rational choice hypothesis is not unlikely. To be compelling, evolutionary psychology has to offer explanations for phenomena that are counter to conscious, rational choice.)

Evolutionary psychology strikes me as very similar to connectionism in artificial intelligence, or string theory in physics -- it make huge promises, and people seem so dazzled by them that they don't bother to ask the hard questions about the specific claims being made, and the evidence offered to back them up. It's as if they get a pass from the regular criteria we use to judge other scientific endeavours.

That's not to say that there isn't good, solid, rigorous work being done in the area of evolutionary psychology, just that such work for the most part isn't the stuff that gets pointed to as the core of the discipline.

Evolutionary psychology strikes me as very similar to connectionism in artificial intelligence, or string theory in physics --- it make huge promises, and people seem so dazzled by them that they don't bother to ask the hard questions about the specific claims being made, and the evidence offered to back them up. It's as if they get a pass from the regular criteria we use to judge other scientific endeavours.

My two cents about evo-psych.

We have a very broad range of behaviours allowed by our genetic make-up (our evolutionary history).
Cutural/environmental influences can shape a lot of our behaviours within these broad limits.
Then shouldn't evolutionary psychology be about what kind of environmental/cultural factors or triggers cause certain psychological and behavioural phenomena?

My two cents about evo-psych.

We have a very broad range of behaviours allowed by our genetic make-up (our evolutionary history).
Cutural/environmental influences can shape a lot of our behaviours within these broad limits.
Then shouldn't evolutionary psychology be about what kind of environmental/cultural factors or triggers cause certain psychological and behavioural phenomena?

Sorry 'bout the double.

Lenny is arguing Biological Evolution, and others are arguing Universal Darwinism.

Comment #81107 Posted by Leigh Jackson on February 20, 2006 05:57 PM Science does not need religion to help it. Let science be true to itself and it will prevail over superstition and ignorance and wishful thinking. Science debases itself and makes a monumental mistake if it makes appeal to particular religious groups, and seeks their help, rather than standing on its own two feet. It makes itself weaker by stooping to ask for the assistance of one superstitious set of people in the fight with another. Superstition cannot touch science. Science must be clear in this self-knowledge. It must not falter here. Its strength lies within its own essential nature - which is utterly different in kind to religion. If it betrays itself here, the calamity will be far greater than anything that ID creationism can cause in a straight battle for intellectual truth. Science cannot lose this fight so long as it is true to itself. ID is inane and must lose, so long as science explains itself with straightforward honesty. Nothing else is required.

Science cannot lose this fight so long as it is true to itself. ID is inane and must lose, so long as science explains itself with straightforward honesty. Nothing else is required.

both you and Lenny are making these claims without reference to the "specific claims" being made. Just like anybody, when discussing the value of any scientific hypothesis, it's best to refer to the actual data involved, the actual methods used to collect the data, etc.

cool. i look forward to it!

From post 81107: "...Science does not need religion to help it. Let science be true to itself and it will prevail over superstition and ignorance and wishful thinking..."

If religion was not a problem, then there wouldn't be a need for PT except as an educational site. The problem is that majority of Christians in the mainstream are as poorly versed in the doctrine of their denominations as they are in science. So they are easily manipulated by the small but vocal and active conservative Christian cults. When asked, "What's it going to be, God or Darwin", they pick God because they think that is the only anwser. This is a problem because all these people vote for school boards and congressmen.

So its just as important to educate mainstream Christians about the compatibility between science and mainstream doctrine, as it is to educate them about the science itself. The battle science is facing is due to widespread ignorance of both the nature of scientific pursuits and the nature of their denominations' theologies.

This is why its important to have clergy speaking out about this. They need to help defuse the issue so the average church goer doesn't feel its necessary to take the default "God" position in what is really a false dichotomy.

Join forces with your local clergymen in the mainstream Christian denominations. They have the ear of their congregations.

Support your local clergy in this effort. Everyone here who attends church should look into your own denomination's position on science and religion and encourage your clergymen to be vocal about it. When the average person hears that ID and the other flavors of Creationism is not only bad science, but also bad theology, the world will be a better place for all of us.

Don't underestimate a population who thinks it is acting in the name of God. You have seen the danger of that all around the world these last few years. An educated population (both scientifically and theologically) will not have this problem.

Certainly evolutionary psychology can be applied to Homo sapiens just as it applies to any other social animal or even perhaps protist. Having that ability to consider our past and future and to communicate about it to others of our species gives us a higher consciousness than other animals of course, but evo-psych can make some pretty confident deductions about ourselves that we can take as pre-emptive action in the effort to behave properly and practically.

"The God of religious faith is a god of love. He did not design me."

I am not sure that line will carry much weight with most religious people. I can only assume that the Good Reverand means to say that God is not the creator, does not intervene in the affairs of nature, and has no influence over the destiny of the universe. In other words, God is entiterly an observer. Well, what good does his/her/its love do for us? What use does one make of such a God? Most people will see right through this empty-shell theology as a joke, just as they see right through the "Bible as all allegory" line. And it removes the only real argument in favor of God's existence, that the universe was created by a creator.

Christianity is "radically creationist," Father George V. Coyne said, but it is not best described by the "crude creationism" of the fundamental, literal, scientific interpretation of Genesis or by the Newtonian dictatorial God who makes the universe tick along like a watch. Rather, he stresses, God acts as a parent toward the universe, nurturing, encouraging and working with it.

He calls "mistaken" the belief that the Bible should be used "as a source of scientific knowledge," which then serves to "unduly complicate the debate over evolution."

He points to the "marvelous intuition" of Roman Catholic Cardinal John Henry Newman who said in 1868, "the theory of Darwin, true or not, is not necessarily atheistic; on the contrary, it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of divine providence and skill."

Cardinal Schonborn "is in error," the Vatican observatory director says, on "at least five fundamental issues." "One, the scientific theory of evolution, as all scientific theories, is completely neutral with respect to religious thinking; two, the message of John Paul II, which I have just referred to and which is dismissed by the cardinal as 'rather vague and unimportant,' is a fundamental church teaching which significantly advances the evolution debate; three, neo-Darwinian evolution is not in the words of the cardinal, 'an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection;' four, the apparent directionality seen by science in the evolutionary process does not require a designer; five, Intelligent Design is not science despite the cardinal's statement that 'neo-Darwinism and the multi-verse hypothesis in cosmology [were] invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science,'" Father Coyne says. Christianity is "radically creationist" and God is the "creator of the universe," he says, but in "a totally different sense" than creationism has come to mean.

Carol wrote: I am not sure that line will carry much weight with most religious people.

I can only assume that the Good Reverend means to say that God is not the creator, does not intervene in the affairs of nature, and has no influence over the destiny of the universe. In other words, God is entirely an observer. Well, what good does his/her/its love do for us? What use does one make of such a God?

Most people will see right through this empty-shell theology as a joke, just as they see right through the "Bible as all allegory" line. And it removes the only real argument in favor of God's existence, that the universe was created by a creator.

Carol can only assume that to reject literalism of the Bible means to say that God is not the creator, does not intervene in the affairs of nature, and has no influence over the destiny of the universe. In other words, God is entirely an observer. Well, what good does his/her/its love do for us? What use does one make of such a God?

What use does one make of such a God?

Comment #81078 Posted by Paul Flocken on February 20, 2006 04:09 PM Did anyone notice that not a single company or trade group was listed? Did corporate America participate in any way? None of the drug conglomerates? None of the biotech companies? Has any corporation whose bottom line is affected by the sciences decided to go on record as supporting proper science education? Is there any fear of boycott backlash by fundies?

And it removes the only real argument in favor of God's existence, that the universe was created by a creator.

Anyway, I presume that these drug and biotech companies understand that macroevolution theory plays no role in their technologies.

Also, these companies do not have to worry about a boycott by the fundies. The fundies need the drugs and other products that these companies provide.

He's a wingnut. He's not responsible for any maroonish, cartoonish comments that any of his personas may omit, though his continued appearances here are probably not going to be that helpful in his quest to evade the mental health authorities.

for those not quite as simple as Larry, you might find this article an interesting start as a summary of how evolutionary theory impacts businesses:

http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/bull.html

this just barely scratches the surface.

...oh, and there's always talk origins, of course (the place larry appears afraid of for some reason):

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA215.html

Oh my Gawd --- after all these months, maybe years, on PT you've never really understood the theory of evolution you're defending!

You finally noticed. Like most warriors, he's a blunt instrument.

... "soul", I tend to think of it in terms of consciousness and meaning--- two notions that are inextricably tangled up with the subjective point of view. ... we can't examine the subjective experience itself.

...we don't even have a conceptual framework in science that is capable of relating energy and matter to consciousness ...

In any case, while different people might give somewhat different definitions of what a soul is and what it does, I imagine that all of those definitions would discuss concepts that are largely or entirely beyond the reach of empirical testing. That was the point of my post: that we're not talking about a scientifically testable claim, and therefore not about something that science can support or refute.

As for your comment on Wieseltier's review, I have to disagree with your verdict. I don't think he's rejecting evolutionary psychology entirely. I think he's pointing out that a lot of what goes under that banner is untestable speculation, owing more to ideology or philosophy than to empirical evidence.

I have to say that I've found that to be true about some of Dennett's other writings, and I think it's bad for science to label ideology or philosophy as "science" when the empirical evidence has not been established.

When the general public gets science and scientism confused, the effect is like that of counterfeit money. Bad science drives out good, just as bad money drives out good. It's in our best interest to make sure people don't get 'em confused with each other.

I think Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene, 1976), Daniel Dennett (Darwins Dangerous Idea, 1995), Susan Blackmore (The Meme Machine, 1999) and some others might disagree with you on that point.

This talk of "scientism" is nonsense from people desparately afraid of having yet another false belief overturned by science. Do people who think they have been abducted by aliens think so because they really have been abducted by aliens, or because of psychological factors? This is an empirical question, and a legitimate area of scientific inquiry. Dennett's "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" addresses a quite similar empirical question. But hey, religion and science are compatible -- if science demonstrates that people believe in God for psychological reasons just as people believe they have been abducted by aliens for psychological reasons, that doesn't prove that there is no God, and people are free to continue to believe in God.

Over and over in Dennett's career, he has been castigated for making radical-seeming materialist arguments that have later become mainstream among cognitive scientists and philosophers of mind. His "Consciousness Explained", which was dismissed by many as "consciousness explained away", has been borne out in numerous ways. Notable is his prediction, on the last page, that significant changes to an image made during saccades would go unnoticed. This prediction has been borne out in spades -- the perceptual blindness isn't limited just to changes made during saccades, leading to numerous studies of "change blindness" and "inattentional blindness". Anyone can experience it for themselves at http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/cbvenice.html , http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/demos.html , and a number of other googlable sites.

Dennett bases his work on synthesizing elements of cutting edge science. The charge of "bad science" is in fact anti-scientific, based on ignorance of the evidence together with strong ideological prejudices.

But hey, religion and science are compatible --- if science demonstrates that people believe in God for psychological reasons just as people believe they have been abducted by aliens for psychological reasons, that doesn't prove that there is no God, and people are free to continue to believe in God.

This talk of "scientism" is nonsense from people desparately afraid of having yet another false belief overturned by science. Do people who think they have been abducted by aliens think so because they really have been abducted by aliens, or because of psychological factors? This is an empirical question, and a legitimate area of scientific inquiry. Dennett's "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" addresses a quite similar empirical question. But hey, religion and science are compatible --- if science demonstrates that people believe in God for psychological reasons just as people believe they have been abducted by aliens for psychological reasons, that doesn't prove that there is no God, and people are free to continue to believe in God.

— Popper's Ghost

As I see it, God is nothing more than an attempt to explain the order in nature,by those who do not understand the mathematics of chance, the principles of self-organizing systems, or the psychology of the human mind. Science cannot tell us whether there is a force or entity or idea beyond our knowledge that deserves to be known as God. What it can say,is that all though the universe is a complex place,and events within it may seem to be contrived, that people are able to misattribute these events (with the products of their own minds), to powerful external agents(Gods).
Some religious people regard scientists as foul heathens,they aren't all that foul, but on the other hand,they do tend to be heathens.
The most fundamental principle of science is that beliefs must be predicated on empirical evidence --- and in more than two thousand years of recorded history, no one has yet produced a shred of empirical evidence for the existence of God,of course,that hasn't kept most people from believing.Many scientists understand all this piety and faith, by assuming that belief in God is one of the many primitive superstitions that human beings are in the process of shedding. God is a myth that has been handed down from one generation of innocents to the next, and science is slowly teaching them to cultivate their skepticism and shed their credulity.
But this conceptualization of religious belief misses an important point, namely, that people don't believe in God simply because they are told to by their elders, but because they are compelled to by their own experience. When people look out on the natural world and declare that there must be a God because all of this could surely not have happened by chance, they are not overestimating the orderly complexity of nature. Rather, they are underestimating the power of chance to produce it.

Some religious people regard scientists as foul heathens,they aren't all that foul, but on the other hand,they do tend to be heathens.

— JONBOY

How would you test for, "You should be honest," or the principle of parsimony, which could be roughly stated as, "When faced with two theories which equally-well fit all available evidence, you should choose the theory which involves the least number of assumptions"? Are these statements simply so much meaningless obfuscation? This seems unlikely. Are they testable in the same sense that empirical scientific hypotheses are? This seems unlikely as well. One could imagine trying to modify the statement, "You should be honest" by trying to specify what you mean by honest at a much lower level of abstraction, such as "You should not lie in to your teacher regarding whether or not you finished a given assignment," and likewise, one could try to replace "should" with an identification of certain concrete consequences which one may wish to avoid, such as receiving a lower grade, so that it ultimately becomes "Lying with regard to whether or not you finished a given assignment will result in your receiving a lower grade," but certainly even if this later statement is testable, it no longer means the same thing, nor could it provide the same sort of general guidance which the statement it presumably "replaced" provided. As a rule, the principle of honesty is not something which one acts by reference to in order to achieve any particular end --- if it were, then one could settle whether or not such advice was appropriate, presumably, by whether or not acting in accordance with that principle would result in the achievement of that end. Nor is it something which would normally be taken to apply in fairly delineated contexts, but not others, although some ethicists would of course argue that there are certain contexts in which it does not apply, for example, when dealing with a thief. What of the principle of parsimony? Can this be tested? Presumably, one might consider two theories which equally-well fit the evidence, and then, as later evidence came in, see which theory better explained the evidence: the simpler one or the more complex? However, additional auxiliary or ad hoc assumptions may "save" either theory. And if one actually regards the principle of parsimony something which requires testing, would it make sense to regard any particular set of evidence as counting against a given "empirical" theory? Could any evidence ever count against the principle itself? There exists instances of normativity which are fairly fundamental to human existence, which, while not testable in the same sense as an empirical hypothesis, would not generally be regarded as "meaningless obfuscation." Indeed, in the case of the principle of parsimony (when expressed in one form or another), there exists one such form of normativity without which the very notion of empirical, scientific knowledge would appear meaningless.

— JONBOY>The most fundamental principle of science is that beliefs must be predicated on empirical evidence --- and in more than two thousand years of recorded history, no one has yet produced a shred of empirical evidence for the existence of God,of course,that hasn't kept most people from believing.Many scientists understand all this piety and faith, by assuming that belief in God is one of the many primitive superstitions that human beings are in the process of shedding. God is a myth that has been handed down from one generation of innocents to the next, and science is slowly teaching them to cultivate their skepticism and shed their credulity. But this conceptualization of religious belief misses an important point, namely, that people don't believe in God simply because they are told to by their elders, but because they are compelled to by their own experience. When people look out on the natural world and declare that there must be a God because all of this could surely not have happened by chance, they are not overestimating the orderly complexity of nature. Rather, they are underestimating the power of chance to produce it.</quote> As I understand it, the scientific methodology is largely based upon Karl Popper's Principle of Falsifiability, which acts as a line of demarcation between scientific claims, and claims belonging to metaphysics, ethics, philosophy, art and religion. Do you personally believe that all of your beliefs are predicated on empirical evidence? If so, do you believe that you should be honest? And if you are a proponent of science, do you believe in the principle of parsimony? And at this point, I will ask you the same questions I had for normdoering earlier -- and provide you with some of my own analysis, which you may or may not find helpful... <quote author=

Some religious people regard scientists as foul heathens,they aren't all that foul, but on the other hand,they do tend to be heathens.

— JONBOY

The most fundamental principle of science is that beliefs must be predicated on empirical evidence --- and in more than two thousand years of recorded history, no one has yet produced a shred of empirical evidence for the existence of God,of course,that hasn't kept most people from believing.Many scientists understand all this piety and faith, by assuming that belief in God is one of the many primitive superstitions that human beings are in the process of shedding. God is a myth that has been handed down from one generation of innocents to the next, and science is slowly teaching them to cultivate their skepticism and shed their credulity. But this conceptualization of religious belief misses an important point, namely, that people don't believe in God simply because they are told to by their elders, but because they are compelled to by their own experience. When people look out on the natural world and declare that there must be a God because all of this could surely not have happened by chance, they are not overestimating the orderly complexity of nature. Rather, they are underestimating the power of chance to produce it.

— JONBOY

How would you test for, "You should be honest," or the principle of parsimony, which could be roughly stated as, "When faced with two theories which equally-well fit all available evidence, you should choose the theory which involves the least number of assumptions"? Are these statements simply so much meaningless obfuscation? This seems unlikely. Are they testable in the same sense that empirical scientific hypotheses are? This seems unlikely as well. One could imagine trying to modify the statement, "You should be honest" by trying to specify what you mean by honest at a much lower level of abstraction, such as "You should not lie in to your teacher regarding whether or not you finished a given assignment," and likewise, one could try to replace "should" with an identification of certain concrete consequences which one may wish to avoid, such as receiving a lower grade, so that it ultimately becomes "Lying with regard to whether or not you finished a given assignment will result in your receiving a lower grade," but certainly even if this later statement is testable, it no longer means the same thing, nor could it provide the same sort of general guidance which the statement it presumably "replaced" provided. As a rule, the principle of honesty is not something which one acts by reference to in order to achieve any particular end --- if it were, then one could settle whether or not such advice was appropriate, presumably, by whether or not acting in accordance with that principle would result in the achievement of that end. Nor is it something which would normally be taken to apply in fairly delineated contexts, but not others, although some ethicists would of course argue that there are certain contexts in which it does not apply, for example, when dealing with a thief. What of the principle of parsimony? Can this be tested? Presumably, one might consider two theories which equally-well fit the evidence, and then, as later evidence came in, see which theory better explained the evidence: the simpler one or the more complex? However, additional auxiliary or ad hoc assumptions may "save" either theory. And if one actually regards the principle of parsimony something which requires testing, would it make sense to regard any particular set of evidence as counting against a given "empirical" theory? Could any evidence ever count against the principle itself? There exists instances of normativity which are fairly fundamental to human existence, which, while not testable in the same sense as an empirical hypothesis, would not generally be regarded as "meaningless obfuscation." Indeed, in the case of the principle of parsimony (when expressed in one form or another), there exists one such form of normativity without which the very notion of empirical, scientific knowledge would appear meaningless.

— I

normdoering: Relating energy and matter to consciousness? Oh, good lord! You're really on the wrong track, the wrong level of explanation. It's the brain you want to relate to consciousness. You're not one of those Deepak Chopra mystical types who think consciousness collapses quantum waves, are you?

Lenny,
All human behavior can be described as the pursuit of food and/or sex.
Everything else is "cultural", that is, it is the expression of those hungers within the social restraints that we find ourselves. The constant is still the same.
I hope this is still relevant to the thread.

Science debases itself and makes a monumental mistake if it makes appeal to particular religious groups, and seeks their help, rather than standing on its own two feet.

Why is it so "debasing" to ask someone else for help in explaining something or propagating an important truth? It is a scientist's duty to report the knowledge he gains to whoever will listen (or at least to those who fund his work); and if a priest or minister hears what the scientist reports, then it is his duty to pass it on to his flock, in order to help them on the road to enlightenment.

The above-quoted paragraph is about as silly as saying that weather-forecasters "debase" themselves by asking ministers to pass on relevant blizzard or hurricane warnings to their flock.

Science debases itself and makes a monumental mistake if it makes appeal to particular religious groups, and seeks their help, rather than standing on its own two feet. It makes itself weaker by stooping to ask for the assistance of one superstitious set of people in the fight with another. Superstion cannot touch science. Science must be clear in this self-knowledge. It must not falter here. Its strength lies within its own essential nature - which is utterly different in kind to religion.

Tulse wrote:
"To be compelling, evolutionary psychology has to offer explanations for phenomena that are counter to conscious, rational choice."

I think what evopsy does is explain why we make choices that we can rationalize in different ways. It is the fact that those choices seem rational to us that shows that our psychology directs us to make those choices.
By the way, that word should be pronounced "eve-opsy"

All human behavior can be described as the pursuit of food and/or sex. Everything else is "cultural", that is, it is the expression of those hungers within the social restraints that we find ourselves. The constant is still the same. I hope this is still relevant to the thread.

— Dan

Tim C,Time precludes me engaging in a in depth reply to your questions.Do you have a personal site to which I will respond later today? I would like to raise one thought,without involving my own personal convictions.You said. 'Do you personally believe that all of your beliefs are predicated on empirical evidence? If so, do you believe that you should be honest? And if you are a proponent of science, do you believe in the principle of parsimony".As a confirmed atheist,I would answer yes to the first part of your question.
As a proponent of science I would accept that parsimony would have a function toward analytical thinking.However,it could be argued that there is no clear and agreed-upon definition of 'parsimony' or 'simplicity, as a guiding principle in the search for knowledge.
Therefore we must first define the various forms of parsimony and show why it is needed as a scientific guideline.
Epistemological parsimony is a concern among scientific theories and
science must always work from some assumed starting points and aim for practical certainty, some foundations of scientific beliefs are the principle of induction, the criterion of falsiability, and the law of non-contradiction. Unfortunately my poor understanding of ofontological parsimony does not permit me to offer any worth while observations

Tim C,Time precludes me engaging in a in depth reply to your questions. Do you have a personal site to which I will respond later today?

— JONBOY

I would like to raise one thought, without involving my own personal convictions.You said. 'Do you personally believe that all of your beliefs are predicated on empirical evidence?'If so, do you believe that you should be honest? And if you are a proponent of science, do you believe in the principle of parsimony". As a confirmed atheist,I would answer yes to the first part of your question.

— JONBOY

As a proponent of science I would accept that parsimony would have a function toward analytical thinking. However,it could be argued that there is no clear and agreed-upon definition of 'parsimony' or'simplicity, as a guiding principle in the search for knowledge. Therefore we must first define the various forms of parsimony and show why it is needed as a scientific guideline. Epistemological parsimony is a concern among scientific theories and science must always work from some assumed starting points and aim for practical certainty, some foundations of scientific beliefs are the principle of induction, the criterion of falsiability, and the law of non-contradiction. Unfortunately my poor understanding of ofontological parsimony does not permit me to offer any worth while observations.

— JONBOY

There exists instances of normativity which are fairly fundamental to human existence, which, while not testable in the same sense as an empirical hypothesis, would not generally be regarded as "meaningless obfuscation." Indeed, in the case of the principle of parsimony (when expressed in one form or another), there exists one such form of normativity without which the very notion of empirical, scientific knowledge would appear meaningless.

— I

I am not sure that line will carry much weight with most religious people. I can only assume that the Good Reverand means to say that God is not the creator, does not intervene in the affairs of nature, and has no influence over the destiny of the universe.

— Carol Clouser

In other words, God is entiterly an observer. Well, what good does his/her/its love do for us? What use does one make of such a God?

Most people will see right through this empty-shell theology as a joke, just as they see right through the "Bible as all allegory" line.

And it removes the only real argument in favor of God's existence, that the universe was created by a creator.

And you have this even more bizarre idea that Christians don't have other arguments. Ones they possibly find more convincing. You know, they believe in "the Resurrection" and all that, complete with multiple eyewitness accounts.

FL Said:
"Coyne's boss, Pope Benedict XVI has informed the media (which I presume would include the one-sided Reuters reporter) that God is into the "intelligent project" business.
Now THAT's a Christian clergyperson on the job."
I don't think so:
VATICAN NEWSPAPER ENDORSES DOVER DECISION; CALLS ID UNSCIENTIFIC

The official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, has published an
article by Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the
University of Bologna, praising Judge John E. Jones III's decision in
Kitzmiller v. Dover and calling intelligent design unscientific. According
to the New York Times, "The article was not presented as an official church
position. But in the subtle and purposely ambiguous world of the Vatican,
the comments seemed notable, given their strength on a delicate question
much debated under the new pope, Benedict XVI."

Controversy over evolution has swirled in the Vatican after the publication
of Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn's July 2005 editorial that called Pope
John Paul II's 1996 letter to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences "rather
vague and unimportant." He has since tried to clarify his remarks by
saying he sees "no difficulty in joining belief in the Creator with the
theory of evolution, but under the prerequisite that the borders of
scientific theory are maintained."

from http://www.aibs.org/public-policy-reports/public-policy-reports-2005_12_06.html

Note, I provide references for my quotes. Yours (FL) may have been made up whole cloth for all we can tell. And it certainly contradicts the official statements.

Cheers.

"Subjectivity" and "consciousness" are terms common to attacks from people eager to deflate the ambitions of cognitive science and artificial intelligence. They suffer the same "not-quite-defined" problems as the concept of the soul. It's also, ultimately, just a god-of-the-gaps argument, a negative claim; "you can never explain subjectivity objectively." I don't think that's going to be true for much longer. Already we can say many things about subjective experience and test theories. For example, Michael Persinger's electromagnetic helmet can create religious experiences.

— normdoering

I think what evopsy does is explain why we make choices that we can rationalize in different ways. It is the fact that those choices seem rational to us that shows that our psychology directs us to make those choices

— Dan

You are right! All of the mainline churches have supporting statements for evolution in particular and science in general at Voices for Evolution, but they need to be more vocal at the local Letter to the Editor level. I have only seen one Presby fellow write such a letter. From Columbus, OH.

Comment #81202 posted by Sir_Toejam on February 21, 2006 04:32 AM for those not quite as simple as Larry, you might find this article an interesting start as a summary of how evolutionary theory impacts businesses: http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/bull.html Comment #81203 posted by Sir_Toejam on February 21, 2006 04:42 AM ...oh, and there's always talk origins, of course http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA215.html

Comment #81196 Posted by Andy H. on February 21, 2006 03:47 AM Anyway, I presume that these drug and biotech companies understand that macroevolution theory plays no role in their technologies.

Also, these companies do not have to worry about a boycott by the fundies. The fundies need the drugs and other products that these companies provide.

Comment #81168 Posted by Sir_Toejam on February 20, 2006 09:48 PM then why are we here?

I'd hold that toast, myself.

since when did logic prevail in this "fight"?

I too believe that scientists should be left to do science... for the most part. But nobody is better qualified to speak to the science done than the folks who actually do it. I'll toast folks who go the extra mile to air their data in the public arena. It's not required, nor does it affect the science, but boy does it provide ammunition in this fight.

Larry please tell me what the difference between macro-evolution and micro-evolution is.

Paul

Comment #81220 Posted by 'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank on February 21, 2006 08:12 AM Um, what about those religions that don't have any gods?

... the physical world is "closed under causation". In other words, everything that your body does, including all of its verbal outputs, such as "I see red", arise from purely physical processes, can be fully explained by such processes, and do not require any "consciousness" to account for them.

...as Dave Chalmers famously argued, it would be possible to have a world that is physically identical to ours, yet populated by zombies, creatures that are exact duplicates of us except without consciousness, ...

Lenny forgive me if I am wrong, I may not be remembering correctly, but you are a Zen Buddhist, yes?

Does that discipline properly bear the name 'religion'.

If it does, does it make any supernatural claims?

Does it draw on anything supernatural?

Tulse -

I'm still waiting for an email from you so we can coordinate a reading group re:

genetics and human behavior.

If anybody else is interested (looks like Norman might be, and Flint has had interesting input on this topic in the past), zip me an email so we can work out the details of what the background literature should be, what specific papers we should address should be, and where we will hold public discussions of same.

again, here's my email:

fisheyephotos AT hotmail DOT com

cheers

Larry please tell me what the difference between macro-evolution and micro-evolution is.

If you know that you are seeing red, and you must to use the words "I see," then you must be conscious to some degree. Either that or you have a bogus definition of consciousness.

— normdoering

Nope. Daniel C. Dennett dealt with that BS in "The Unimagined Preposterousness of Zombies" years ago.

Of course I know that I am conscious (that's the "subjective" bit), but what is at issue is how you would determine that (that's the "objective" bit). More specifically, given that the causal chain that ends with the production of the sounds "I see red" can be fully described in purely objective physical terms, without reference to my qualia, beliefs, or other subjective mental states, how would you possibly determine that there was "something extra" going on in the grey goo in my skull?

have you examined the animal studies that have attempted to elucidate whether various species have a sense of "self"?

— Sir_Toejam

from STJ: have you examined the animal studies that have attempted to elucidate whether various species have a sense of "self"?

I always wonder what the point of view of, for example, an echolocating bat is like.

— B. Spitzer

"Subjectivity" and "consciousness" are terms common to attacks from people eager to deflate the ambitions of cognitive science and artificial intelligence. They suffer the same "not-quite-defined" problems as the concept of the soul. It's also, ultimately, just a god-of-the-gaps argument, a negative claim; "you can never explain subjectivity objectively." I don't think that's going to be true for much longer. Already we can say many things about subjective experience and test theories. For example, Michael Persinger's electromagnetic helmet can create religious experiences.

— normdoering

Of course I know that I am conscious

... what is at issue is how you would determine that (that's the "objective" bit).

More specifically, given that the causal chain that ends with the production of the sounds "I see red" can be fully described in purely objective physical terms, without reference to my qualia, beliefs, or other subjective mental states, how would you possibly determine that there was "something extra" going on in the grey goo in my skull?

I'm quite familiar with Dennett, believe me, ...

...but his "argument" isn't really one. He begs the question when he asserts that zombies would have "beliefs", when the onus is on him to explain how such a purely mental entity would necessarily arise from purely physical matter.

What physical fact could you bring to bear to decide the matter? Is there any?

When I observe another individual, what I observe is that individual as a physical object. I do not experience their thought processes ---

...not in the sense in which I experience my own, but rather infer those thought processes, largely by analogy with my own and what thoughts would make me behave similarly or show similar expressions. But with respect to my own consciousness, I have my own internal perspective, ...

...that I experience myself as a physical object within a world of physical objects. But even when I look at myself as a physical object external to my own consciousness, I am not seeing my thoughts, emotions, sensations or intentions as aspects of that physical object in the world.

My perspective on the world is fundamental for me, as your first-person perspective is fundamental for you. But neither is reducible to the other, nor to the world as described in terms of physical objects, which both you and I have in common.

...that internal perspective which each of us has is more basic, it is that upon which a third-person perspective is built. And even when you or I study another individual, perhaps by performing some magnetic resonance imaging, and attempt to find out what physical processes correspond to various mental processes, we can do so only by communicating with that person, and then understanding their mental references by analogy with our own.

normdoering: If the zombie hypothesis is true, then it has to be possible for you to be a zombie without knowing it. That's the only way you could have zombies talking about consciousness without being conscious.

I'm not sure that I understand what you're saying here.

As I understand the zombie argument, it posits the existence of a machine or machines, with no more subjective "self" than any other machine. A conscious being, if presented with a set of stimuli X, responds with the set of outputs Y. This hypothetical machine has been programmed so that, for the same set of X, it will give outputs Y as well. (Obviously this is a heck of a programming job, but this is all theoretical anyway.) You seem to be saying that only conscious beings can respond with outputs Y--- that it is not even theoretically possible to build a machine that will give the appropriate outputs.

...he imagines scenarios to which he is not entitled. If, ex hypothesi, zombies are behaviorally indistinguishable from us normal folk, then they are really behaviorally indistinguishable! They say just what we say, they understand what they say (or, not to beg any questions, they understandz what they say), they believez what we believe, right down to having beliefsz that perfectly mirror all our beliefs about inverted spectra, "qualia," and every other possible topic of human reflection and conversation. ... It must be conceded as part of the concession that zombies are "behavioral" twins of conscious beings; if it is likely that we conscious folks would develop mentalistic vocabulary, then it must be exactly as likely that zombies do. It is just such lapses as this one ... that feed the persistent mis-imagination of zombies and make them appear less preposterous than they are.

If that's what you're saying, I don't understand why it's not theoretically possible.

When I observe another individual, what I observe is that individual as a physical object. I do not experience their thought processes ---

— normdoering

Until you start talking to them. You might be looking at a sculpture, or a robot, or a computer hologram. But whether man or robot, I say language reveals thought processes. Enough thought processes that if you talk to them long enough the language user will reveal whether it is conscious (depending on what you mean by conscious). For example, a lot of people here have speculated on William Dembski's and Michael Behe's thought processes as revealed in their writing without ever seeing these men in the flesh.

Yes, it's mostly inference and guess work, but in time they start conforming in their behavior towards are theories about them and we can say we really do understand their thought processes to the degree we can predict their behavior. You may not experience their thought processes, but you can tell they are there and apply a scientific method to it.

— normdoering

I can understand that communicating that meaning was the purpose of that individual's actions, infering that the person I see has purposes like my own. Likewise, when I see a string of characters with "Posted by normdoering..." at the beginning, I could simply regard these as patches of light on my monitor, as a string of characters, as the result of so many electrical signals in a piece of meat located somewhere in the world, or as a string of characters which are words which are intended by someone to mean something. Each of these perspectives are correct, but the latter ones are not reducible to the others.

— I

...not in the sense in which I experience my own, but rather infer those thought processes, largely by analogy with my own and what thoughts would make me behave similarly or show similar expressions. But with respect to my own consciousness, I have my own internal perspective, ...

— normdoering

Do you really? Might it be possible that other people understand your thought processes better than you yourself do? Might it be possible for them to see mistakes in it and layers of ignorance and come to understand your thought processes and perspective on things better than you?

...that I experience myself as a physical object within a world of physical objects. But even when I look at myself as a physical object external to my own consciousness, I am not seeing my thoughts, emotions, sensations or intentions as aspects of that physical object in the world.

— normdoering

I'm sorry to hear that because that means you're really an unconscious zombie and not truly human.

My perspective on the world is fundamental for me, as your first-person perspective is fundamental for you. But neither is reducible to the other, nor to the world as described in terms of physical objects, which both you and I have in common.

— normdoering

You're wrong. It is reducible, thought not you to me, but to the function of your brain.

You are standing out in a forest. The breeze is passing through the trees, and direct sunlight is shining on a clearing ahead of you. Some rocks lie in the middle of a path which leads to that clearing.

...that internal perspective which each of us has is more basic, it is that upon which a third-person perspective is built. And even when you or I study another individual, perhaps by performing some magnetic resonance imaging, and attempt to find out what physical processes correspond to various mental processes, we can do so only by communicating with that person, and then understanding their mental references by analogy with our own.

— normdoering

So? I'm saying that's good enough to do the science necessary to understand how the brain produces consciousness.

Also, if that's not good enough to satisfy you the future may bring us better tools. Have you seen the James Cameron movie "Strange Days"? In that movie they can experience other people's first person experiences. They use a silver hairnet-like rig called a SQUID on top of their heads that feed the contents of a mini CD recorded with the first person experiences of someone else directly into the brain --- In one early scene we see "Lenny" trying to sell a guy some of his illegal CDs. After his client spends a few quality moments feeling himself up through his business suit, Lenny cuts off his feed and says: "You were just an 18-year-old girl taking a shower." Not "You just experienced the sensations of" but "you were." Can you say for sure that such a thing can not be accomplished?

— normdoering

(my earlier post): As I understand the zombie argument, it posits the existence of a machine or machines, with no more subjective "self" than any other machine. A conscious being, if presented with a set of stimuli X, responds with the set of outputs Y. This hypothetical machine has been programmed so that, for the same set of X, it will give outputs Y as well. (Obviously this is a heck of a programming job, but this is all theoretical anyway.) You seem to be saying that only conscious beings can respond with outputs Y--- that it is not even theoretically possible to build a machine that will give the appropriate outputs.

Frankly, I often find myself somewhat underimpressed by Dennett. He often uses many flowery words when fewer and clearer ones would do the job, while making it easier to assess the assumptions that are going into his arguments.

— B. Spitzer

Of course I know that I am conscious

— normdoering

Oh, really? How do you know you're not just a zombie who thinks it is conscious without actually being conscious? If the zombie hypothesis is true, then it has to be possible for you to be a zombie without knowing it. That's the only way you could have zombies talking about consciousness without being conscious.

Because if you weren't conscious of yourself as a distinct entity that has the ability to see you wouldn't have said "I see red" you'd say "It sees red," or "something sees red" or "the eye sees red." You also probably wouldn't recognize yourself in a mirror.

In your case, however, since you seem to be unaware of what the word "I" means you might indeed turn out to be an unconscious zombie. But we can figure that out too by asking more questions, (Turing tests take time and lots of questions)

I'm quite familiar with Dennett, believe me, ...

— I

Sorry, but I don't believe you. It's quite obvious from your arguments that you don't get Dennett at all. You maybe familiar with his name and familiar with what his apologetics critics say about him, but you are not familiar with Dennett's ideas.

"If, ex hypothesi, zombies are behaviorally indistinguishable from us normal folk, then they are really behaviorally indistinguishable! They say just what we say, they understand what they say (or, not to beg any questions, they understandz what they say), they believez what we believe..."

One of us doesn't know what the hell you are talking about and I think it's you.

When you say "the onus is on him to explain how such a purely mental entity would necessarily arise from purely physical matter" you betray the fact that you just don't believe the mere physical can feel and think and be conscious

and you simply won't pay attention to the complex formulas and algorithms (should they be devised) that would allow for this.

You've already, wrongly in my opinion, decided that only something "supernatural," something beyond the merely physical, is needed to feel, think and be conscious.

If I understand Dennett correctly, he is saying that a zombie's beliefs (beliefz) are the same as a conscious being's beliefs. I agree that the behavior of the zombie should be the same as that of a conscious being--- that's the whole point of the exercise. But Dennett is either a) saying that the zombie has a subjective POV, which violates the definition of "zombie"; or b) saying that subjective POV's don't exist, which we know is incorrect, since we each have one; or c) saying "Let's not pay any attention to the subjective POV, let's just concern ourselves with external, objectively measurable phenomena". But this last option also ignores the whole point of the exercise.

(Is there some better place for this discussion?)

No, what I, and many other folks, have argued is that our current conception of the objective physical world has no causal place for subjectivity. The behaviour of every physical object, be it thermostat or human, is, if you aren't a dualist, predictable just by knowing the purely objective physical facts about that object. There is no causal "room" for the mental. As I said above, I'm sure physicalism is true, but no one has an inkling of how conceptually the objectively physical produces the subjectively mental.

— Tulse

(Is there some better place for this discussion?)

— Tulse

Would reading the description give you the same unity of experience? In a single word, "No."

My suspicion (and I will leave it at that for the time being) is that consciousness is an emergent phenomena which could not exist or come into existence without the physical realm, but which is not reducible to it.

At this time, you are missing the point.

now you are admitting it. This is an inference.

But this is not the same thing as experiencing my internal awareness or thoughts, experiencing them from my perspective.

What it means is that I am not simply a physical object, that I am conscious.

My mind is a function of my brain, an activity which could not exist without it, and I could no more think without my brain than I could see without my eyes. But for humans, this activity as a physical process is not reducible to the activity as it is experienced internally.

consider just this: You are standing out in a forest. The breeze is passing through the trees, and direct sunlight is shining on a clearing ahead of you. Some rocks lie in the middle of a path which leads to that clearing. Now I have just provided you with a description of something which you might experience. But how long would the description have to be in order to describe every detail?

Would reading the description give you the same unity of experience? In a single word, "No."

Moreover, when given a description of an experience, one is able to understand that description only through analogy with your own past experiences.

At the same time, if you are not especially concerned with the quality, the detail, or the unity of awareness, why not have a camera and mike mounted on the poor girl, and a television with speakers in front of Lenny's client...

Or if you can't quite afford that, just show him a crayola drawing?

Honestly, though, in proposing such hypothetical technologies, I am surprised you haven't just suggested a brain in a vat.

Or claiming, alternatively, that one cannot really know whether or not there is an external world in the first place --- since anything which one might perceive may at least hypothetically be an illusion?

If I understand Dennett correctly, he is saying that a zombie's beliefs (beliefz) are the same as a conscious being's beliefs.

I agree that the behavior of the zombie should be the same as that of a conscious being--- that's the whole point of the exercise.

But Dennett is either a) saying that the zombie has a subjective POV, which violates the definition of "zombie";

...or b) saying that subjective POV's don't exist, which we know is incorrect, since we each have one;

or c) saying "Let's not pay any attention to the subjective POV, let's just concern ourselves with external, objectively measurable phenomena". But this last option also ignores the whole point of the exercise.

You seem to have greatly misunderstood the zombie example. The whole point of the example is that it is possible to imagine a world in which zombies act like us but don't have mental states.

I do like a good zombie movie!

I'd like to see a bit more moaning tho.

more gore too.

...maybe some dismemberment?

c'mon; more action!

I usually find that politeness in intellectual discourse goes a long way.

What on earth do you mean by "complex formulas and algorithms"? How would such things produce consciousness? More to the point, how could we tell?

You realize you can't get anywhere if you don't know what you're talking about?

I wrote: You realize you can't get anywhere if you don't know what you're talking about?

lol. i knew there was a sense of humor in there somewhere Norman!

cheers

normdoering: But the point Dennett is making is that what you are trying to imagine is impossible. The zombie argument is a paradox that can only be resolved by realizing you are a zombie who only thinks it is conscious when it is not really conscious.

[Dennett's] saying that there's no clear line to be drawn between "behavior" and "beliefs" and that those who make "zombies" a feature of their philosophical arguments are inappropriately assuming that such a line exists, that you can have perfect mimicry of "behavior" while excising what can only be thought of as "internal behavior" (consciousness).

— CJ O'Brien

My suspicion (and I will leave it at that for the time being) is that consciousness is an emergent phenomena which could not exist or come into existence without the physical realm, but which is not reducible to it.

— Timothy Chase

I don't need to experience your thoughts, I only have to examine the structure of your brain and run a simulation of it. If the simulation predicts your behavior perfectly, then that is all the understanding any scientific model can achieve.

— normdoering

If I understand Dennett correctly, he is saying that a zombie's beliefs (beliefz) are the same as a conscious being's beliefs.

— B. Spitzer

The precise term is not "the same" but rather "functionally indistinguishable."

I usually find that politeness in intellectual discourse goes a long way.

— normdoering

This is a sign that you can't handle the truth.

Would reading the description give you the same unity of experience? In a single word, "No."

— buddha

Reading the description does not give me the same unity of experience only because my abilities of introspection and thought generation are somewhat limited. Hypothetical sentient LISP machines on the other hand would be able to communicate their experiences to each other and to experience these communicated experiences directly.

.... is it really all that different from taking someone who is a convinced that there is no immortal soul, then arbitrarily suggesting extremely hypothetical circumstances under which he might at least begin to think otherwise (such as seeing some ghostlike figure rise up from a friend who has just died, holding an extended conversation with the ghostlike figure in which he becomes convinced that this is the friend that he has known) --- and claiming as a result that he really doesn't know whether there is an immortal soul?

— Timothy Chase

Or claiming, alternatively, that one cannot really know whether or not there is an external world in the first place --- since anything which one might perceive may at least hypothetically be an illusion?

— Timothy Chase

Now I have just provided you with a description of something which you might experience. But how long would the description have to be in order to describe every detail? How long would it have to be to capture those details as they stand in relation to one-another as a unity? Would reading such a description provide you with the same thing as the experience itself? Would reading the description give you the same unity of experience? In a single word, "No." And this is simply with respect to the faculty of sight, without including the other faculties and the unity of awareness which they achieve together. Moreover, when given a description of an experience, one is able to understand that description only through analogy with your own past experiences.

— I

Do you mean that consciousness is an emergent property of physical phenomena, and, if so, then how is consciousness not reducible to the physical realm?

— buddha

You can see this even in the physical world. Imagine two analog watches, one powered by a mainspring, and the other by a motor and battery, in inaccessible cases. Their external appearance is completely identical, and for the duration that you have to observe them, they keep time to the same precision. Dennett would say that those two watches are "functionally identical" --- they appear from the outside to be the same, and more importantly, they carry out identical functions. But they are not "the same" watches, as their internal states are radically different. If one were Dennett, one would simply dismiss that real fact of the world with some cute talk about "springs" and "springz", but clearly he'd be wrong. It's the same with consciousness.

I'm actually more interested in the earlier and more specific topic of genetics and behavior, but i wanted to kick in my thoughts on Denton's work too.

there's only one problem with the zombie model.

it's hypothetical.

we don't have real zombies (unfortunately) to address the question of whether observable behavior can be entirely explained by purely naturalistic processes or not.

all we have are ourselves (which will always be inconclusive because of the inherent bias already present), and the rest of the flora and fauna on earth (at the present time).

I personally have seen no reason to presume that "consciousness" is anything other than an emergent property of a particular arrangement and number of neurons and biochemistry.

I base that on all we have to base it on, namely the study of anomalous humans and studies of relationship of morphology on behavior in other living organisms.

One can't assume that these organsims resemble Denton's hypothetical zombies any more than "undead" humans would, but they do serve as real world examples to test ideas of just what "consciousness" means.

anybody who doubts the veracity of such an approach has become quite anthropocentric, literally :)

...and i just noticed that Timothy addresses pretty much the same points I raised.

not to sound redundant, or anything :)

The problem is that, if we are all good materialists, then we believe that the universe can be fully explained by physical processes --- the physical world is "closed under causation". In other words, everything that your body does, including all of its verbal outputs, such as "I see red", arise from purely physical processes, can be fully explained by such processes, and do not require any "consciousness" to account for them. Thus, as Dave Chalmers famously argued, it would be possible to have a world that is physically identical to ours, yet populated by zombies, creatures that are exact duplicates of us except without consciousness, and it would be literally indistinguishable from our own world.

If this is true, then no amount of physical science as currently conceived will ever be able to explain consciousness --- if it isn't true, then there is more to the world than "mere" physical facts.

You seem to have greatly misunderstood the zombie example. The whole point of the example is that it is possible to imagine a world in which zombies act like us but don't have mental states. That is the whole point of the argument, the point that folks like Kripke and Nagel and Chalmers have made (and that Dennett steadfastly misses).

His book Zombies and Consciousness (Oxford: Clarendon Press, forthcoming) will to some extent atone for his error in having defended the possibility of zombies in articles in 1974. (For more about zombies, see his entry in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.) He is currently working on a book on physicalism and the a priori.

we don't have real zombies (unfortunately) to address the question of whether observable behavior can be entirely explained by purely naturalistic processes or not.

I have read Chalmers, listened to his lectures, and attended his parties

Imagine two analog watches, one powered by a mainspring, and the other by a motor and battery, in inaccessible cases. Their external appearance is completely identical, and for the duration that you have to observe them, they keep time to the same precision. Dennett would say that those two watches are "functionally identical" --- they appear from the outside to be the same, and more importantly, they carry out identical functions. But they are not "the same" watches, as their internal states are radically different. If one were Dennett, one would simply dismiss that real fact of the world with some cute talk about "springs" and "springz", but clearly he'd be wrong. It's the same with consciousness.

— Tulse

Zombies don't address the question of whether behavior can be entirely explained by purely naturalistic processes

ha! I personally would MUCH rather hear stories from some of Chalmer's parties than rehash the concsiousness argument again. gossip, man! let's hear some good stories, eh?

the third biennial "End of Consciousness" party

. i include the term "consciousness" under the umbrella of behavior, because the observable aspects of it relate to behavior (entirely dependent on your definition to start with, of course)

as to whether zombies exist or not, when I speak of zombie, i mean it in the living dead, George Romero style, not a hypothetical construct, or like a "zimboe".

but you could make a case for the existence of any hypothetical construct, regadless of the context.

can you tell I'm a naturalist yet?

there are some very interesting pictures... what's with the pair in the towels?

BTW, here are some photos from the sober side of the event, including a couple of Dan Dennett, as well as Chalmers, who is only slightly less rowdy than at his party.

http://consc.net/pics/tucson6.html

Chalmers' zombie argument is that it is conceivable that there is a world physically identical to ours, but in which none of the inhabitants are conscious. This means that in that world too, people attend "Toward a Science of Consciousness" events where people with long hair, short hair, or green and white hair present papers arguing that zombies are or aren't possible, and afterwards they attend parties where they drink large quantities of liquor, in some cases so much that they lose consciousness -- oh, wait, but they aren't conscious in the first place! As Dennett says, this concept of zombies is "preposterous".

Incidentally, both of these examples are Gettier problems.

In my view, the first-person perspective which you and I both have is itself the result of a physical system which is undergoing a process of self-organization, much like life itself --- but of course, while this may be necessary for consciousness as we know it, this clearly isn't sufficient.

— Timothy Chase

On the other hand, objective descriptions of subjective phenomena will always leave out "what it is like" to have that experience.

Dennett is playing his usual game here of being an instrumentalist about mental terms like "belief" --- for Dennett, there is no difference between acting on an actual belief, and acting as if on an actual belief. But unless one wants to be super po-mo, entities either do or do not possess actual, real mental states

I've asked this twice already: You seem to be saying that only conscious beings can respond with a certain set of outputs Y--- that it is not even theoretically possible to build a machine that will give the same, appropriate outputs. Can you justify this claim? I keep emphasizing this because, if it can't be answered in the affirmative, Dennett's argument is wrong.

Consciousness: the totality in psychology of sensations, perceptions, ideas, attitudes, and feelings of which an individual is aware at any given time or within a given time span. Or, an alert cognitive state in which you are aware of yourself and your situation.

"If, ex hypothesi, zombies are behaviorally indistinguishable from us normal folk, then they are really behaviorally indistinguishable! They say just what we say, they understand what they say (or, not to beg any questions, they understandz what they say), they believez what we believe..." Note that Dennett slips from objective, observable, physical phenomena, such as the behaviour of "say"ing, immediately into subjective, mental phenomena, "understand" and "believe", things that aren't objective behaviour at all. In other words, he immediately assumes the very thing at issue, that is, whether it is possible to have physical objects that behave like us but without our mental states. This isn't an argument, it's merely a denial.

To put this another way, if one is committed to physicalism, to the belief that the fundamental entities of the universe are matter and energy, then one could give a complete physical description of what goes on in a subject's brain when they put on Persinger's helmet, complete with what the verbal outputs are, without ever talking about consciousness. If that's the case, then physicalist approaches cannot offer any account of such phenomena.

My take: asking where consciousness is in a brain is like asking where the "go" is in a car. Cars go. There's no denying it. The zombie idea can be compared to a "quasi-car" that drives just like a real car, nobody can tell the difference, but it has no "go." Sound incoherent? Well, the idea of a zombie does to me, too.

— CJ O'Brien

Zombies, remember, are supposed to have no internal states at all. They are magical watches: the case is empty, but the behavior is functionally identical to a normal watch.

Responding to this sentence:

I usually find that politeness in intellectual discourse goes a long way.

normandoehring wrote:

This is a sign that you can't handle the truth. You resist it by thinking it is impolite.

To which I reply that anyone who thinks like this is a sad, ridiculous loser, utterly unworthy of a place in civilized adult debate. A guy who can't understand politeness is talking about "consciousness?" That's almost funny.

All I have to do is bang my thumb with a hammer.

If consciousness is an illusion, it's an awfully persistent one.

And besides, if it's an illusion, who's having the illusion, I'd like to know?

"Illusion of consciousness" raises an oxymoron flag in the back of my mind. If I have one.

2) I've asked this twice already: You seem to be saying that only conscious beings can respond with a certain set of outputs Y...

...that it is not even theoretically possible to build a machine that will give the same, appropriate outputs. Can you justify this claim?

normandoering wrote: This is a sign that you can't handle the truth. You resist it by thinking it is impolite.

The problem is that, if we are all good materialists, then we believe that the universe can be fully explained by physical processes --- the physical world is "closed under causation". In other words, everything that your body does, including all of its verbal outputs, such as "I see red", arise from purely physical processes, can be fully explained by such processes, and do not require any "consciousness" to account for them. Thus, as Dave Chalmers famously argued, it would be possible to have a world that is physically identical to ours, yet populated by zombies, creatures that are exact duplicates of us except without consciousness, and it would be literally indistinguishable from our own world.

— Popper's Ghost

This is utterly confused. It is Chalmers, who is an anti-materialist, who argues that consciousness is independent of physical reality; materialists argue just the opposite.

Imagine two analog watches, one powered by a mainspring, and the other by a motor and battery, in inaccessible cases. Their external appearance is completely identical, and for the duration that you have to observe them, they keep time to the same precision. Dennett would say that those two watches are "functionally identical" --- they appear from the outside to be the same, and more importantly, they carry out identical functions. But they are not "the same" watches, as their internal states are radically different. If one were Dennett, one would simply dismiss that real fact of the world with some cute talk about "springs" and "springz", but clearly he'd be wrong. It's the same with consciousness.

— Popper's Ghost

This shows how radically uninformed you are on this subject. Chalmers and his zombie ex hypothesi have identical physical states. That's the whole point of the thought experiment --- to show that consciousness does not supervene on the physical. As soon as you introduce state differences, the argument goes out the window, since the presence of consciousness in one and its absence in the other could --- on a strictly physicalist view --- be a consequence of these differences.

[Anti-physicalists] insist that consciousness is "what it's like to be something", rather than a bundle of observables. I think they are conceptually confused

— Popper's Ghost

There is no apparent reason why a computer running an appropriate algorithm could not behave exactly like familiar conscious entities (us), giving us exactly the same reason to think that the computer has these attributes of consciousness as we have for thinking that other humans have these attributes. This answers the questions "How would such things produce consciousness? More to the point, how could we tell?" If you insist that we can't tell whether a computer is conscious, then you must say the same of your fellow humans, or be guilty of special pleading.

— Popper's Ghost

The problem is that, if we are all good materialists, then we believe that the universe can be fully explained by physical processes --- the physical world is "closed under causation". In other words, everything that your body does, including all of its verbal outputs, such as "I see red", arise from purely physical processes, can be fully explained by such processes, and do not require any "consciousness" to account for them. Thus, as Dave Chalmers famously argued, it would be possible to have a world that is physically identical to ours, yet populated by zombies, creatures that are exact duplicates of us except without consciousness, and it would be literally indistinguishable from our own world.

— Popper's Ghost

This is utterly confused. It is Chalmers, who is an anti-materialist, who argues that consciousness is independent of physical reality; materialists argue just the opposite.

Imagine two analog watches, one powered by a mainspring, and the other by a motor and battery, in inaccessible cases. Their external appearance is completely identical, and for the duration that you have to observe them, they keep time to the same precision. Dennett would say that those two watches are "functionally identical" --- they appear from the outside to be the same, and more importantly, they carry out identical functions. But they are not "the same" watches, as their internal states are radically different. If one were Dennett, one would simply dismiss that real fact of the world with some cute talk about "springs" and "springz", but clearly he'd be wrong. It's the same with consciousness.

— Popper's Ghost

This shows how radically uninformed you are on this subject. Chalmers and his zombie ex hypothesi have identical physical states. That's the whole point of the thought experiment --- to show that consciousness does not supervene on the physical. As soon as you introduce state differences, the argument goes out the window, since the presence of consciousness in one and its absence in the other could --- on a strictly physicalist view --- be a consequence of these differences.

[Anti-physicalists] insist that consciousness is "what it's like to be something", rather than a bundle of observables. I think they are conceptually confused

— Popper's Ghost

There is no apparent reason why a computer running an appropriate algorithm could not behave exactly like familiar conscious entities (us), giving us exactly the same reason to think that the computer has these attributes of consciousness as we have for thinking that other humans have these attributes. This answers the questions "How would such things produce consciousness? More to the point, how could we tell?" If you insist that we can't tell whether a computer is conscious, then you must say the same of your fellow humans, or be guilty of special pleading.

— Popper's Ghost

Syntax Error: mismatched tag 'I'

normdoehring wrote:

But it depends on what you mean by consciousness. Consider the dictionary definition that's been offered...

Only a soulless zombie would have to look up "consciousness" in a dictionary.

Banging your thumb or some such thing is pointless to issues of consciousness. So is showing how inadequate dictionary definitions are (almost by definition), which is generally true of other definitions as well. Zombies mean nothing to the discussion either, since they beg the question of what difference consciousness makes.

What is important in recognizing consciousness is that we know of a good many unconscious brain processes, some of which enter into consciousness at some point, some of which do not. It makes a difference, not necessarily behaviorally, but certainly to our own experience as "conscious beings". Sensory data can affect behavior without becoming conscious, while much of it does become conscious for a time yet passes again into unconsciousness.

Any model of consciousness must account for the differences between the conscious brain states and the unconscious brain states. Real neuroscience typically does pay attention to this difference, noting when and where phenomena become conscious, and where consciousness seems to be absent.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

Zombies, remember, are supposed to have no internal states at all. They are magical watches: the case is empty, but the behavior is functionally identical to a normal watch. Not so. There is a notion of functional zombies, such as a person whose head is filled with sawdust but acts just like a person with a brain, but these aren't very interesting, and aren't the zombies that philosophers generally talk about. "philosophical zombies", as the are called, have the exact same physical states as their conscious counterparts. If you're a physicalist, who believes that physical states cover everything, that means that the zombie is identical to its conscious counterpart, and thus is conscious, and thus reductio ad adsurdum there are no zombies. If zombies are possible, then physicalism is false, and vice versa. Dualists like Chalmers assert that zombies are possible and that consciousness is something above and beyond the physical. As Dennett has noted, most scientists misunderstand what philosophers like Chalmers mean and even insist that they couldn't mean that, because they find too absurd.

In no instance do I know of a materialist who gives any causal role to consciousness, and it is very hard to see how they could. That is what I meant when I said that materialists believe that the physical world is closed under causation.

In my view, the first-person perspective which you and I both have is itself the result of a physical system which is undergoing a process of self-organization, much like life itself --- but of course, while this may be necessary for consciousness as we know it, this clearly isn't sufficient.

— I

It's not sufficient simply because it's not a complete description, but none of our descriptions of physical phenomena ever are. But I know of no reason why a conscious system cannot be modeled as a self-monitoring and self-reporting control system. The "first-person perspective" is the POV of the system itself. The novel concept is that, for every conscious system, there is one and only one system that can adopt the first person view toward that system, and that's the system itself. Each of us is a conscious system, and thus have a first-person view on exactly one system --- ourself. The uniqueness of this relationship is what produces conceptual confusion and results in dualistic notions like zombies. But such notions are not necessary, nor are Penrose's quantum microtubules or Prigogine's "new regime".

— Popper's Ghost

... other materialists merely handwave when it come to qualia. In no instance do I know of a materialist who gives any causal role to consciousness,...

Imagine two analog watches, one powered by a mainspring, and the other by a motor and battery, in inaccessible cases. Their external appearance is completely identical, and for the duration that you have to observe them, they keep time to the same precision. Dennett would say that those two watches are "functionally identical" ---

If one were Dennett, one would simply dismiss that real fact of the world with some cute talk about "springs" and "springz", but clearly he'd be wrong. It's the same with consciousness.

... addressing the issue of "functional indistinguishability", and not consciousness.

... possible to have two things which are, under given conditions, functionally indistinguishable, and yet are not identical. As I understand Dennett, he doesn't worry about this distinction, but I don't see how it is not a concern.

The workings of the watches are inaccessible,

... it is indeed logically possible that two entities could be functionally indistinguishable and yet not identical. That is the case with humans and zombies --- they appear to function in the same fashion, but one has subjectivity, and the other doesn't.

... whatever observables I could possibly collect, I will never know what subjective experiences a bat has when it uses echolocation.

If you insist that we can't tell whether a computer is conscious, then you must say the same of your fellow humans, or be guilty of special pleading.

I have pretty good reason to believe my fellow humans are conscious because I know, as directly as one can know anything, that I am, and it appears that my fellow humans are made of the same stuff as I am,...

... that doesn't give me any sort of principle on how to infer consciousness...

... if it acts like it's conscious, then it necessarily is.

I don't want to go down the road of arguing functionalism's inadequacies until it's clear that's your position. Is that the case?

Consciousness would almost certainly have to play a causal role in some manner or other, even if only a small one. This is because consciousness is causally linked to perceptions of the world, and therefore cannot be spun off into a non-causal role.

Thermodynamic considerations are not going to permit consciousness to register data without entering into the causal chains that we (rather haphazardly) define as existing in the classical realm.

We really cannot utilize epiphenomenalism to avoid the consequences of physics within consciousness.

I say follow the information, since the information in consciousness has to be knowable via third person as well as being known through first person conscious experience.

Only a soulless zombie would have to look up "consciousness" in a dictionary.

I don't know of any materialist who would accept that consciousness qua subjective experience could have any sort of causal role in the world.

I think Dennett did assign a casual, functional role to consciousness in his book "Consciousness Explained."

— normdoering

Popper's Ghost is right --- you are very confused. You appear to have been confused on purpose too. Did you go to a religous school?

While Dennett might say that, he wouldn't be wrong. The digital watch's circuitry, it's battery for sure, could indeed be thought of as something like "springz" in a functional way --- it does a similar job, stores energy.

Subjectivity is a necessary part of the behavior. As I said earlier, when someone says "I see red" they must either be conscious and self-aware to some degree or a fraud because using the word "I" is supposed to report on the systems sense of self-awareness and the word "red" is a report on a qualia sensation.

You are you and not a bat. However, what if we were to hook up an echolocation device to goggles so that you could see all the information a bat gets from echolocation and then let you fly around in a virtual bat cat with other virtual bats using waldo-like devices on your arms and hands. It would give you a sense of what it's like to be a bat.

Not good enough you say? So what I say, you couldn't even recall any better what it was like to be you ten years ago as precisely as you insist we give you a bat's subjective experience.

They're conscious if they can report on conscious experiences.

If they can say "I see red" and you have no reason to believe the system is a fraud, then you should believe the system has a degree of consciousness.

...and i just noticed that Timothy addresses pretty much the same points I raised. not to sound redundant, or anything :)

— Sir_Toejam

Consciousness would almost certainly have to play a causal role in some manner or other, even if only a small one. This is because consciousness is causally linked to perceptions of the world, and therefore cannot be spun off into a non-causal role. I don't know of any materialist who would accept that consciousness qua subjective experience could have any sort of causal role in the world.

Thermodynamic considerations are not going to permit consciousness to register data without entering into the causal chains that we (rather haphazardly) define as existing in the classical realm. I'm not clear on what you mean by this point --- can you clarify?

We really cannot utilize epiphenomenalism to avoid the consequences of physics within consciousness. I don't see why the epiphenomenalism (if it did such a thing) would have to be beholden to the "consequences of physics" such as thermodynamics. Epiphenomena aren't physical, although they are produced by physical things (if that is indeed the case).

I say follow the information, since the information in consciousness has to be knowable via third person as well as being known through first person conscious experience. Propositional content and intentionality, although difficult to understand, don't seem to be nearly as hard to understand as the subjective aspect of experience, such as qualia.

by Popper's ghost:

Comment #81691
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Comment #81713

When Chalmers is drunk off his ass, he can still outreason anyone in the room, at twice the speed (normally he talks three times as fast as most people).

hmm, are we sure you aren't Chalmers?

;)

Let me lower my standards of propriety, briefly, in order to properly respond to the discussion now in progress about "the nature of consciousness."

If I want metaphysical laughs, I'd stay on the Zen Buddhism talk-boards somewhere: the irony is far richer, and far more conscious.

Syntax Error: mismatched tag 'kwickxml'

And some difficulty locating the 'Preview' button

Comment #81351 Posted by Paul Flocken on February 21, 2006 09:43 PM Larry please tell me what the difference between macro-evolution and micro-evolution is.

How can I believe your report that you are conscious if consciousness has no causal role in the world?

Consciousness is qualitative through and through in any case, so that we should probably be as concerned about the "qualia" of propositions as we are of the "qualia" of colors.

It's all information (which phenomenologically is just a category in our minds, but one that correlates reliably with the world that we experience).

The Wikipedia online encyclopedia has good discussions of the differences between microevolution and macroevolution. Just go to Wikipedia and enter those terms in the search window.

I enjoy seeing this sort of thing myself --- when two people independently arrive at the same argument or the same solution. Given our own unique contexts, it is a form of independent confirmation

As far as I know, Dennett assigns no causal role to the subjective aspect of consciousness. Feel free to provide a quote that demonstrates otherwise.

"... they are conscious!@ Oh yes, of course, if all you mean is that they are awake, and taking in perceptual information, and coordinating their behavior on its basis in relatively felicitous fashion. But if that is all that you mean by asserting that they are conscious, you shouldn't stop at mammals, or vertebrates. Insects are conscious in that sense. Molluscs are too, especially the cephalopods. That is not what I am skeptical about. I am skeptical about what I have called the Beatrix Potter syndrome: the imaginative furnishing of animal minds with any sort of subjective appreciation, of fearful anticipation and grateful relief, of any capacity to dwell on an item of interest, or recall an episodic memory, or foresee an eventuality. Animals can Alearn from experience,@ but this kind of learning doesn't require episodic memory, for instance. When we see a dog digging up a buried bone it is quite natural for us to imagine that the dog is happily recalling the burying, eagerly anticipating the treasure to be recovered just as he remembered it, thinking just what we would if we were digging up something we had earlier buried, but in fact there is not yet any good evidence in favor of this delightful presumption. The dog may not have a clue why he is so eagerly digging in that spot. (For the current state of the evidence of Aepisodic-like@ memory in food-caching birds and other animals, see Clayton and Griffiths, 2002). And animals can benefit from forming a Aforward model@ of action that doesn't require the ability to foresee Aconsciously@; we ourselves are seldom conscious of our forward models until they trip up on an anomaly. Once we have stripped the animal stream of consciousness of these familiar human features, it is, I claim, no longer importantly different from a stream of unconsciousness! That is, it is a temporal flow of control processing, with interrupts (pains, etc) and plenty of biasing factors, but it otherwise shows few if any of the sorts of contentful events that we associate with our own streams of consciousness. I think we need to set aside the urge to err on the side of morality when we imagine animals' minds; this attitude has its role in making policy decisions about how to treat animals, but should not be hardened into an unchallengeable Aintuition@ when we ask what is special about consciousness."

*sigh* Is being civil really so hard?

...both Dennett and I would say that the watches, purely based on external observation, are functionally indistinguishable. But they aren't the same, which is the point I was making. Likewise, in a zombie universe, zombies could be functionally identical to how we our in our universe ...

(including the brain),

...and yet not possess the subjective states we do. Once you back away from identity ...

...to functional indistinguishabiilty, ...

...you've imported assumptions in to the argument...

... (namely that if you can't tell if there is a difference, then there isn't one).

And given your later comments in your post, you've misunderstood the point of my watch analogy just like Popper's Ghost did.

No doubt that was in part because I didn't make myself as clear...

... Let me repeat --- the only point of the watch analogy is to attack, as a general principle (and not just with reference to consciousness), the notion that "functional indistinguishability" is an adequate substitute for identity.

So my desktop computer is also self-aware when Photoshop "reports" a given pixel in an image is red? It actually has a subjective sense of red, just like mine?

What would constitute "fraud"? I present to you perfectly formed human android, something that looks completely human from the outside, and that, whenever the colour red is put in front of its eyes, it says out loud "I see red". You take it apart and see that the only things inside are a simple light detector that switches on a tape player with the phrase "I see red" anytime the detector detects red light. Would that be a "fraud"? Or would it actually have a subjective experience of red?

normdoering, I think we are just arguing past each other. I'll give this one last shot:

When I talked about the substitution of "functional indistinguishability" for "identity", I didn't mean the "who am I" identity, but the logical relation of two things being identical. I thought that was clear, but I'll just make that explicit. My point was simply that two things can be functionally indistinguishable and yet not be identical. That was the point of the watch analogy. As I said explicitly earlier, this analogy was only intended to demonstrate that general principle -- I was not saying that zombies have mainspring brains and people have electronic brains.

As for the examples of Photoshop or a photodetector "seeing" red, I find it very hard to believe that you really ascribe qualia to these things. Some folks (like John McCarthy) argue that thermostats have beliefs -- do you really think the Photoshop does? Do you really believe that it has subjective states?

I enjoy seeing this sort of thing myself --- when two people independently arrive at the same argument or the same solution. Given our own unique contexts, it is a form of independent confirmation.

— I

well, at least it indicates a shared perspective, even including the unique contexts. From a purely subjective standpoint, yes, it's always pleasing to know one's arguments are shared. However, it's like correlation implying causation, without it necessarily being so. hey, we could both just be nuts. :)

— Sir_Toejam

[to normdoering,] *sigh* Is being civil really so hard?

— Tulse

Glen, I'm sure that most people, scientists included, think that consciousness has a causal role in the world. I certainly do.

I don't think that consciousness is an illusion (I think anyone who says that is self-refuting, since an illusion demands a subject).

But just because that is a strong intuition doesn't mean that it has a philosophically sound foundation,

any more than the daily use of the principle of induction by scientists means that that principle has been philosophically justified.

How can I believe your report that you are conscious if consciousness has no causal role in the world? I'm not saying that consciousness has no causal role --- what I am saying is that materialism has no room for such role (as least for the subjective aspect of consciousness, if one wants distinguish between that and propositional content).

In no instance do I know of a materialist who gives any causal role to consciousness, and it is very hard to see how they could. That is what I meant when I said that materialists believe that the physical world is closed under causation.

So I am not disagreeing with your assertion that your thought cause your actions. But that is problematic for materialism.

Consciousness is qualitative through and through in any case, so that we should probably be as concerned about the "qualia" of propositions as we are of the "qualia" of colors. I agree completely --- I think that problems like intentionality might see progress if they were seen as resting on a foundation of qualitative experience.

It's all information (which phenomenologically is just a category in our minds, but one that correlates reliably with the world that we experience). Unfortunately you've lost me here. Information is only information if it can be observed, but my qualia are unobservable by anyone but me. Perhaps I've misunderstood you.

Comment #81878 Posted by Sir_Toejam on February 23, 2006 07:44 PM

The Wikipedia online encyclopedia has good discussions of the differences between microevolution and macroevolution. Just go to Wikipedia and enter those terms in the search window.

do you think Wiki=God, Larry? do you often rely on encyclopedias as the primary source for your education?

If you cannot name a better introductory reference on the subject, then why are you complaining ?

btw Larry, a little background on Wiki for ya...

it's an OPEN encyclopedia.

what's that mean?

it means that all the entries are subject to rewrite by just about anybody.

not just experts.

that aside, did you ever stop for one moment to consider that what wiki says about macro vs micro evolution had NOTHING whatsoever to do with how scientists study evolution? that it might be just a definition of a popular set of terms introduced by, oh i don't know... creationists?

Yeah, Larry, we've counted at least six fake names you post under. Why do you do this? You don't care that that's against PT's rules? What's wrong with you?

If you cannot name a better introductory reference on the subject, then why are you complaining ?

Larry-

just to prove my point about wiki, go recheck the entry for macroevolution.

I, uh, added something to it.

now how reliable do you find wiki, since me the evilutionist can mold it to my will at a whim!

muhahahaha!

Hey Larry, why don't you just call yourself Manfringinsinthin? I even spelled it out for you (no, I won't type it again -- you'll just have to go back and find it yourself).

If you cannot name a better introductory reference on the subject [of macro- vs. micro-evolution], then why are you complaining ?

Wow. Just wow.

Hey, dipstick of many names, did you ever wonder WHY there was no better reference on the subject? Could it be because real scientists knew the distinction was bogus, and there was nothing to write about?

Can't the Discovery Institute point you to any peer-reviewed papers on that subject? Did you ever think to ask them?

c'mon, Larry!

I'm giving you a chance to prove you aren't scared of Talk Origins.

*BIG hint*

your reward, if you figure out what I'm pushing you towards, is to show me up about why it says what it says about macroevolution vs. microevolution on wiki.

won't that make you feel good?

or have i said too much?

hmm, this little wiki educational break reminds me that i should probably put up a page about my thesis topic. Oddly enough, there currently exists no page on the subject there, and I at least found it interesting :)

My point was simply that two things can be functionally indistinguishable and yet not be identical.

As for the examples of Photoshop or a photodetector "seeing" red, I find it very hard to believe that you really ascribe qualia to these things. Some folks (like John McCarthy) argue that thermostats have beliefs --- do you really think the Photoshop does? Do you really believe that it has subjective states?

One could say but little about "mental states" if one imagined the Mind to be a single, unitary thing. But if we envision a mind (or brain) as composed of many partially autonomous "agents"---a "Society" of smaller minds---then we can interpret "mental state" and "partial mental state" in terms of subsets of the states of the parts of the mind. To develop this idea, we will imagine first that this Mental Society works much like any human administrative organization. On the largest scale are gross "Divisions" that specialize in such areas as sensory processing, language, long-range planning, and so forth. Within each Division are multitudes of subspecialists---call them "agents"---that embody smaller elements of an individual's knowledge, skills, and methods. No single one of these little agents knows very much by itself, but each recognizes certain configurations of a few associates and responds by altering its state.

Hey, dipstick of many names, did you ever wonder WHY there was no better reference on the subject? Could it be because real scientists knew the distinction was bogus, and there was nothing to write about? Can't the Discovery Institute point you to any peer-reviewed papers on that subject? Did you ever think to ask them?

I usually find that politeness in intellectual discourse goes a long way. normandoehring wrote: This is a sign that you can't handle the truth. You resist it by thinking it is impolite. To which I reply that anyone who thinks like this is a sad, ridiculous loser, utterly unworthy of a place in civilized adult debate. A guy who can't understand politeness is talking about "consciousness?" That's almost funny.

Raging Bee also wrote:

And your point is...?

normdoering: I do not believe that Photoshop has subjective states as you or I know them. What I think is that Photoshop, your fraudulent android, and thermostats have the precursors to subjective states --- they have some of the essential building blocks from which subjective states are created. (my emphasis)

The programmer provides the program with a list of every possible sentence that a human questioner might ask, and for each of these sentences, there is one response that the computer is programmed to give.

This is one of the really interesting questions, IMO: what are the "building blocks" of a subjective state?

Since some configurations of matter and energy produce subjective states, do all configurations of matter and energy produce subjective states? If not, why not?

Imagine that a programmer with too much spare time constructs a program that's intended to pass a Turing test.

The programmer provides the program with a list of every possible sentence that a human questioner might ask, and for each of these sentences, there is one response that the computer is programmed to give....

It's an absurd amount of work, ...

CJ O'Brien: It's not a matter of spare time. The program you describe is impossible, in principle. And there at the end, you give away the game. Zombies are supposed to have no subjective internal states at all. "Very different" subjective states are not the issue.

CJ, can you explain to me why such a program is not possible "in principle"? Of course it's not a practical thing to spend your time doing, but I haven't yet heard a convincing explanation for why it is not possible for a machine to exist that convincingly simulates a conscious entity. Maybe I've just spent too much time arguing with IDer's, but when somebody tells me that something (like the evolution of an IC system, say) is not even theoretically possible, I want to know how they know for certain that it isn't.

Everyone here who attends church should look into your own denomination's position on science and religion and encourage your clergymen to be vocal about it. When the average person hears that ID and the other flavors of Creationism is not only bad science, but also bad theology, the world will be a better place for all of us.

— Chiefley

when you're making arguments in favor of the epiphenomenological view of consciousness, then your arguments are vulnerable to the question of how consciousness could be meaningfully reported without real (physics-based) causal connections between consciousness and the statement "I am conscious"

A philosophically sound foundation is the last thing I am concerned for in consciousness. I am hardly convinced that any study or any science "has a philosophically sound foundation,"

Am I getting the notion from you that the "materialist" cannot accept the notion of causal consciousness because consciousness is some kind of "non-material" experience? Regardless of whether you do or don't, such an idea is dead wrong epistemologically (well, certainly by the commonly used epistemological frameworks of science and most philosophy in the West) and scientifically.

It precludes proper investigation of conscious phenomena, and it is contrary to what is empirically known today.

I am not a materialist in any sense, because I won't even grant that physics refers to anything fundamentally known, "nature", "matter", "energy", "space", or any combination of these and other terms often used to define physics. In science I would prefer to use phenomenology

The psychologist, and probably more importantly, the neuroscientist, uses the reports about qualia made by their subjects in their practices and in their research. We likewise compare qualitative information, including "qualia", between ourselves in what some call "inter-subjectivity".

By doing these things we gain insight and information about color-blindness, schizophrenia, depression, hallucination, religious experiences, and consciousness as a larger subject encompassing these phenomena.

And when you're making arguments in favour of physicalism, you're vulnerable to the question of how purely mental entities could interact with the physical.

you're vulnerable to the question of why such entities are necessary, since a full description of the observable world can be given without them.

So what? Why does that have anything to do with the original argument? I still don't see how you are trying to apply that point to the zombie argument.

It has almost nothing to do with zombies and certainly nothing to do with Dennet's objection to the zombie scenario.

It is still, as Dennett wrote, absurd to imagine philosophical zombies who are not conscious being so functionally equivalent to a conscious being that they would talk about "consciousness" and "subjectivity."

Dennett's answer would be that the whole idea of functioning as a human being would begin to unravel without consciousness --- precisely because consciousness and subjectivity have a casual role in human behavior.

do not believe that Photoshop has subjective states as you or I know them.

What I think is that Photoshop, your fraudulent android, and thermostats have the precursors to subjective states --- they have some of the essential building blocks from which subjective states are created.

You seem to think consciousness, mind, identity is some single, unitary thing. Here is what Marvin Minsky says:

someone messed up your education. It would have been better for you to come to this conversation thinking you know nothing than thinking you know what you do.

The phrase in your post that caught my eye was "every possible sentence that a human questioner might ask." This is an infinite set, meaning that a necessarily finite database could not store all possible sentences. (Maybe 'functionally infinite' is more accurate, in which case I've overstated my claim.) But it's my understanding that a discrete, combinatorial system, like a natural language, can produce an infinite number of utterances.

— CJ O'Brien

So how many angels CAN dance on the head of a pin?

Science debases itself and makes a monumental mistake if it makes appeal to particular religious groups, and seeks their help, rather than standing on its own two feet. Why is it so "debasing" to ask someone else for help in explaining something or propagating an important truth? It is a scientist's duty to report the knowledge he gains to whoever will listen (or at least to those who fund his work); and if a priest or minister hears what the scientist reports, then it is his duty to pass it on to his flock, in order to help them on the road to enlightenment. The above-quoted paragraph is about as silly as saying that weather-forecasters "debase" themselves by asking ministers to pass on relevant blizzard or hurricane warnings to their flock.

— Raging Bee

Dennett says that if zombies are objectively functionally the same as humans, then they too necessarily have the same subjective states (or "statez"). The point of my watch analogy was to show that two things can have the same observable functionality, and yet still differ.

In the example, the inner workings of the watches are not analogous to "brains" --- imagine that the workings instead are completely inaccessible (just like subjective states are).

The question is, with the works inaccessible, would it make sense to say that the two watches are identical if they are functionally indistinguishable?

I think the answer is clearly "no".

So, even though zombies might be observably functionally indistinguishable from humans (including in their zombie-universe brains), they needn't necessarily have subjective states.

The issue is whether such a universe is logically possible, not whether it is likely.

Dennett? Whose best-known work was rightly derided as "Consciousness Explained Away"?

Dennett doesn't believe in the unity of consciousness (the point of his "Multiple Drafts" view, and his ridiculing of what he calls "The Cartesian Theatre"),

...and it's not at all clear that he really even believes in the subjective. Dennett is hardly a model for someone who believes in the causal import of the subjective.

The android and the thermostat do have transducers (essentially sensors that input the external world), and I'm sure that's important for any materialist account of consciousness (certainly Steven Harnad thinks so). But Photoshop doesn't even have that --- all it is doing is reading numbers in a file.

(And that's one crucial problem for a purely functional account of consciousness --- how to get stuff to mean something purely from functional relations.)

Marvin Minsky? The fellow who famously said, in 1967, "In 10 years, computers won't even keep us as pets?" That Marvin Minsky?

norm (may I call you norm?),

I don't know why you seem to think that juvenile remarks like this are helpful

--- they certainly don't make you more convincing,

CJ, can you explain to me why such a program is not possible "in principle"? Of course it's not a practical thing to spend your time doing, but I haven't yet heard a convincing explanation for why it is not possible for a machine to exist that convincingly simulates a conscious entity. Maybe I've just spent too much time arguing with IDer's, but when somebody tells me that something (like the evolution of an IC system, say) is not even theoretically possible, I want to know how they know for certain that it isn't.

The phrase in your post that caught my eye was "every possible sentence that a human questioner might ask." This is an infinite set, meaning that a necessarily finite database could not store all possible sentences. (Maybe 'functionally infinite' is more accurate, in which case I've overstated my claim.) But it's my understanding that a discrete, combinatorial system, like a natural language, can produce an infinite number of utterances.

Only because you can't handle the truth: Everything you know is wrong and you've been lied too. You'll never get anywhere until you can handle that truth.

Your problem understanding this, Tulse, can be summed up this way: Everything you know is wrong. it's like I'm talking to a zombie or something You may call me the supreme lord of all truth. It's not a juvenile remark, it's an objective observation. Only because you can't handle the truth: Everything you know is wrong and you've been lied too. You'll never get anywhere until you can handle that truth.

— normdoering

... only normdoering (and maybe Daniel Dennett) who are insisting that it's not possible for a machine to exist that could be made to mimic consciousness without being conscious.

...normdoering, I note that you haven't been able to clearly explain why this is theoretically impossible.

... in my experience, people who trash-talk like this always turn out to be full of hot air. Every time you say something along the lines of "I'm right and you're wrong and I can't be bothered to explain clearly why", I think "The only people who need to give answers like that are the ones who are bluffing."

Real academic discussion (and I know real academics, having been one for many years) is not a pissing match.

Leigh Jackson wrote:

If science cannot convince on its own merits, then religion cannot serve it at all...

There are some people who will never be convinced by scientists using scientific arguments, either because it's too complex for them, or because science isn't a part of their lives, or because they've been conditioned to hear "Your faith is wrong!" whenever a scientist tries to use science to disprove part of a religious doctrine.

A priest or minister, however, can give the ID movement a much-needed kick in the nuts, simply by saying that not all Christians reject evolution, and pointing to statements by Christian clergy to back it up. This is much more easily verifiable -- and palatable -- to non-science-educated Christians than long lectures about bacterial flagella and all that; and it bypasses many of the mental defenses that creationists have managed to set up in people's heads.

If churches content themselves with putting out scientific facts I have no problem at all with that; but if the message is, or is interpreted to be, "you can believe this because I, the preacher, am telling you God says it's OK to believe it," then the game is all over.

What if the message is "Using science to understand the material world is not ungodly; but science won't see God because God is beyond the material world."? Do you really have a problem with that?

when you're making arguments in favor of the epiphenomenological view of consciousness, then your arguments are vulnerable to the question of how consciousness could be meaningfully reported without real (physics-based) causal connections between consciousness and the statement "I am conscious" And when you're making arguments in favour of physicalism, you're vulnerable to the question of how purely mental entities could interact with the physical.

More to the point, you're vulnerable to the question of why such entities are necessary, since a full description of the observable world can be given without them.

A philosophically sound foundation is the last thing I am concerned for in consciousness. I am hardly convinced that any study or any science "has a philosophically sound foundation," Well, if you'll grant that, then I won't make a general comment about the importance of philosophy to science

I much prefer keeping philosophy largely to the role of a competent critic of language used in science (one could see Kant's philosophy as doing this, at least in his more legitimate works, like his Critique of Pure Reason). Notably, I have had a number of courses in analytic philosophy, however I have more often steered clear of analytic philosophy and preferred to study Nietzsche and other continentals---one reason being that they don't actually believe in grounding science in philosophy (epistemological guidance via philosophy is possible, however the best scientific philosophies probably take most of their cues from science in the first place---still, Kant and others may formalize epistemology helpfully). Science belongs most of all to empiricism, and that is fine with me.

Philosophy and science can both guide us into following the productive practices of induction so that we may maximize results and to be consistent in the way that we use induction (consistency being a huge ID failing, for what it's worth).

But I will say that understanding the philosophical underpinnings is important in consciousness, especially in the scientific study of it, because to have that understanding keeps people from saying such silly things such as "thermostats have beliefs" (John McCarthy).

Am I getting the notion from you that the "materialist" cannot accept the notion of causal consciousness because consciousness is some kind of "non-material" experience? Regardless of whether you do or don't, such an idea is dead wrong epistemologically (well, certainly by the commonly used epistemological frameworks of science and most philosophy in the West) and scientifically. Regardless of how it is produced or arises, consciousness most definitely is non-material --- my thoughts have no mass or spatial extension, and my qualia have no temperature.

This doesn't necessarily rule out some sort of interaction between subjective entities and the material world, but it sure makes such interaction unique.

It precludes proper investigation of conscious phenomena, and it is contrary to what is empirically known today. I don't find the first part of that sentence all that convincing

- quantum theory precludes the determination of position and velocity of subatomic particles, and some theorists (including Einstein) used that to argue against it, but we take it for granted that, in this case, it was not the universe's duty to conform to our wishes. (Likewise, Keira Knightly's taste for young, non-shlubby men precludes her from dating me, but somehow the universe doesn't correct that, either.)

As for what is empirically known, again, I know of no one who claims to have measured subjective experience.

We can access objective reports of experience, and can measure (often in quite detail) the neurological correlates of subjective experience (and I know, having overseen a few PET studies of emotion). But no one has measured subjective experience itself (not surprising, since it's subjective).

I am not a materialist in any sense, because I won't even grant that physics refers to anything fundamentally known, "nature", "matter", "energy", "space", or any combination of these and other terms often used to define physics. In science I would prefer to use phenomenology I strongly doubt that there are many scientists who would adhere to that take on science.

But your penchant for phenomenology helps me to understand a bit more where and why we agree and disagree.

(more on the lines of Husserl, with some Kantian recognition of prior cognitive abilities thrown in, understood in evolutionary terms, however), while generally thinking even phenomenology to be inadequate, even to science. Nietzsche's idea that even mental phenomena are interpretations is a worthy caution, though I do not fully subscribe to that claim.

The psychologist, and probably more importantly, the neuroscientist, uses the reports about qualia made by their subjects in their practices and in their research. We likewise compare qualitative information, including "qualia", between ourselves in what some call "inter-subjectivity". And what that gets is simply a correlation between objective reports of responses to stimuli.

This doesn't tell us what the subjective experience of those stimuli are like.

We presume that, because most people are wired up in the same way that similar stimuli will induce similar subjective experiences, and that's probably right. But that doesn't give us any real understanding of qualitative experience.

If I encounter a Martian with green goo in its head, even if it says "I see red" when exposed to a red object, I have no way of knowing if its qualitative experience is anything like mine.

It could be experiencing what I experience when I see blue, for example. There is simply no way to tell if that is the case.

By doing these things we gain insight and information about color-blindness, schizophrenia, depression, hallucination, religious experiences, and consciousness as a larger subject encompassing these phenomena. Sure --- I worked for any number of years doing clinical research on depression (including neuroimaging studies), so I'm by no means unfamiliar with what you're talking about. And for day to day interactions, or even for addressing deep issues about those phenomena, we don't need to know how it is that the material world can produce subjective experience, since correlation of objective reports with objective phenomena is enough. (Just as we don't need to solve the problem of induction to go about our lives, making inductions.)

That doesn't mean the problem isn't there, or isn't profoundly difficult, just that it doesn't have impact on these practical issues.

(I really appreciate your thoughtful arguments in this discussion.)

The fact is that you don't understand how even to begin to address consciousness issues, since you're yet entangled in linguistic falsifications of experience that preclude an understanding of consciousness outside of the narrowly-described traditional Western conception of it. The dualism of Christianity pervades your "discussions" of consciousness, as if we should yet believe in the soul,...

Glen Davidson, are you familiar with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?

The fact is that you don't understand how even to begin to address consciousness issues, since you're yet entangled in linguistic falsifications of experience that preclude an understanding of consciousness outside of the narrowly-described traditional Western conception of it. The dualism of Christianity pervades your "discussions" of consciousness, as if we should yet believe in the soul,... It sounds like a case of language (with an embedded philosophical position) influencing a person's perception of reality. Would you consider it a good example of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in action?

This is utterly confused. It is Chalmers, who is an anti-materialist, who argues that consciousness is independent of physical reality; materialists argue just the opposite.

The primary functional role of consciousness is to allow a "blackboard" architecture to operate in the brain, in order to integrate, provide access, and coordinate the functioning of very large numbers of special- ized networks that otherwise operate autonomously (Mountcastle, 1978).

And you may have a more accurate view of Chalmers' current position, but from my readings of him (which were, granted, a while ago), I'm not sure that I'd call him an "anti-materialist"

Many people, including a past self of mine, have thought that they could simultaneously take consciousness seriously and remain a materialist. In chapter I have argued that this is not possible, and for straightforward reasons.

Kathleen Akins demonstrates the impact of three years' studying under Dennett's tutelage. Her essay responds to the famous Thomas Nagle essay, "What is it like to be a bat?" Her rejoinder is a well presented and thoughtful depiction of how bats perceive the world. Superficially, this appears meaningless to the human viewpoint. Akins' realistic picture of the bat's world [which Nagel failed to achieve], however, provides an improved foundation for establishing a valid depiction of the human outlook on the world.

it is indeed logically possible that two entities could be functionally indistinguishable and yet not identical. That is the case with humans and zombies --- they appear to function in the same fashion, but one has subjectivity, and the other doesn't.

Epiphenomena aren't physical, although they are produced by physical things (if that is indeed the case).

And when you're making arguments in favour of physicalism, you're vulnerable to the question of how purely mental entities could interact with the physical.

btw, I have to say that I remain unconvinced by Dennett's comments on zombies.

It seems to me that what Dennett is saying is, "It's absurd to think that an unconscious being which behaves exactly as though it were conscious would ever come into existence on its own."

But that's not the point at all. A "zombie" could be a designed system (Aargh!!--- sorry). Imagine that a programmer with too much spare time constructs a program that's intended to pass a Turing test. The programmer provides the program with a list of every possible sentence that a human questioner might ask, and for each of these sentences, there is one response that the computer is programmed to give. (Go ahead and assume that the programmer includes on his list all sorts of variations in intonation, and/or that he maps out every possible "conversation" that the computer might have with the questioner, too.) It's an absurd amount of work, but in this way it's theoretically possible to build a completely deterministic, unconscious entity with the exact same responses that you'd expect from a conscious being.

Is it absurd to think that a programmer would have so much spare time? Sure. But the result would be an entity that, from the other end of the phone line or the computer screen, would not be distinguishable from a conscious person.

Yet they would have very different subjective states.

Such systems quite obviously would not be physically or even functionally identical to us --- we surely have the capacity to give more than one answer to any given question. In fact, such a system isn't behaviorally the same as us, since we don't always give the same answer to every question. We are incredibly context-sensitive, and so such a system must be also.

— I

Regardless of how it is produced or arises, consciousness most definitely is non-material --- my thoughts have no mass or spatial extension, and my qualia have no temperature.

As for the "very different" subjective states, that's exactly what I meant: having a subjective state is very different than not having one.

I will try one last time: Dennett says that if zombies are objectively functionally the same as humans, then they too necessarily have the same subjective states (or "statez").

Dennett? Whose best-known work was rightly derided as "Consciousness Explained Away"?

Marvin Minsky? The fellow who famously said, in 1967, "In 10 years, computers won't even keep us as pets?" That Marvin Minsky?

The phrase in your post that caught my eye was "every possible sentence that a human questioner might ask." This is an infinite set, meaning that a necessarily finite database could not store all possible sentences. (Maybe 'functionally infinite' is more accurate, in which case I've overstated my claim.) But it's my understanding that a discrete, combinatorial system, like a natural language, can produce an infinite number of utterances.

It may not be likely, but all we need is possibility in order to demonstrate that a purely verbal behavioural test of consciousness (in other words, the Turing Test) won't work.

The phrase in your post that caught my eye was "every possible sentence that a human questioner might ask." This is an infinite set, meaning that a necessarily finite database could not store all possible sentences. (Maybe 'functionally infinite' is more accurate, in which case I've overstated my claim.) But it's my understanding that a discrete, combinatorial system, like a natural language, can produce an infinite number of utterances. This isn't a relevant objection, since all conversations are finite in length, and there are only a finite number of conversations that can be completed in any given finite amount of time.

there's a sense in which Searle's "Chinese Room" is also an example of a look-up table

allowing for sheer 'logical possibility,' any attempt at 'cheating' the Turing Test with a GLUT (Tulse for 'Giant Look Up Table') still has to make use of some form of heuristic.

Dennett has never said any such thing. Notably, he never refers to "statez" ---

They say just what we say, they understand what they say (or, not to beg any questions, they understandz what they say), they believez what we believe, right down to having beliefsz that perfectly mirror all our beliefs about inverted spectra, "qualia," and every other possible topic of human reflection and conversation.

What if the message is "Using science to understand the material world is not ungodly; but science won't see God because God is beyond the material world."? Do you really have a problem with that?

— Raging Bee

Okay, AFAICT, it's only normdoering (and maybe Daniel Dennett) who are insisting that it's not possible for a machine to exist that could be made to mimic consciousness without being conscious.

So how many angels can sit on the head of a pin, then . . . . ?

You already said that, Rev. Dr.

Is it okay by your eminence if we have a discussion that fails to engage your interest?

"Understandz" and "believez" do refer to behaviors we more easily infer because people state them explicitly.

They say just what we say, they understand what they say (or, not to beg any questions, they understandz what they say)

they believez what we believe, right down to having beliefsz that perfectly mirror all our beliefs about inverted spectra, "qualia," and every other possible topic of human reflection and conversation.

Instead of hypothetical zombie worlds perhaps we should shift this discussion to some of the strange data that is really out there that can help illuminate what consciousness is and how it should be defined.

For example -- what's going on with multiple personality disorders? Do the different personalities have different consciousnesses?

What about the split brain experiments?

What about some of Oliver Sacks' cases?

It seems I've had a hard time keeping my imagined zombie world straight and the definition seems to slip and slide depending on why you're talking to.

For example --- what's going on with multiple personality disorders? Do the different personalities have different consciousnesses?

What about the split brain experiments?

... There is an ongoing debate in the cognitive sciences -- Dennett's interpretation notwithstanding -- about whether patients with severed corpus callosa have two separate streams of consciousness as a result, or whether consciousness is localized in only one hemisphere (Gazzaniga 1985; Gazzaniga and LeDoux 1978; Gazzaniga et al. 1979, 1987; Sperry 1965, 1977, 1985; Marks 1981; Natsoulas 1987). Of course, which side of the debate you are on depends a great deal upon what you think consciousness is.

What about some of Oliver Sacks' cases?