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"Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually satisfied atheist"

Do you agree with Dawkins statement?

  • Total voters
    37
On the contrary, we could have no experience of the material world--it would not exist for us--unless we had a certain kind of mind, with certain concepts hard-wired into it. For example, time and space do not exist "out there," they are functions of the human mind.
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I partly agree with this. Many of the details of the way that we perceive the world are contingent on the means that we have of interacting with it, i.e. the brain and nervous system. However, the brain itself has adapted over millenia in response to challenges posed by the world out there - albeit in a particular environment and on a particular scale.

Time exists in terms of thermodynamics 'out there' - (almost) the whole universe is a one-way street in this respect, and whilst our idea of space may only one amongst many possible ones, there would have to be some related concept for physical existance to make any sense.
 
phildwyer said:
On the contrary, we could have no experience of the material world--it would not exist for us--unless we had a certain kind of mind, with certain concepts hard-wired into it. For example, time and space do not exist "out there," they are functions of the human mind.
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I don't know about that. The planck distance is the planck distance, and if you line a few squillion of them up, you get a metre. And that the case when we were all just a bunch of amino acids washing around in some steamy pool. Sometimes I worry about the elevated place you put humans and their minds in your worldview.
 
kyser_soze said:
Both time and space exist outside of the human mind and our concept of reality simply because the universe changes with or without us. The rest of the universe that we observe doesn't exists because we say it does, it exists because it's actually there in material reality.

What do you mean by 'certain type of mind'? One that is simply more complex at sensory processing than other animals that we are aware of our own existance and are capable of using that advantage to make highly complex tools etc? Our brains are just an animal brain with some fancier design work, nothing more, nothing less.

Humans don't have a hardwired concept of space either - if they did we'd all be born with perfect physical coordination instead of having to learn it.
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Time, as we know, is space. But human beings do not *experience* it as such. We experience it as "time." Without the experience of time, we would not be human beings. And yet our human experience of time is quite different from what we know time to be in actuality. The inescapable conclusion is that our minds make experience possible, not the other way around.
 
phildwyer said:
Time, as we know, is space. But human beings do not *experience* it as such. We experience it as "time." Without the experience of time, we would not be human beings. And yet our human experience of time is quite different from what we know time to be in actuality. The inescapable conclusion is that our minds make experience possible, not the other way around.
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No, time is time. It's quite different to space. You can only move in one direction in it, for a start.

I think if you went back and put the words 'experience of space and time' instead of 'space and time' in your original post, then it would make more sense. The actual things called space and time are out there, but our experience of them is emergent from the inputs and processing of the human brain, not the other way round.
 
phildwyer said:
This is a deeply superstitious allegation. You claim that, although, we never experience love that way, somehow, at a level beyond (beneath?) our experience, that's what love "really' is? What nonsense! Can you really be claiming that "brain waves and chemical reactions" are the *cause* of love? Is it not perfectly obviously to everyone that they are the *effects* of love?
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OK, how exactly is something that you can see and measure supersittious?

When you start to fall in love with someone your brain processes numerous sensory input and interprets it in X fashion. But 'love' is a very effective (for humans) method of bonding a social species together at a variety of different levels - the process of becoming a friend is similar to falling in love neurologicaly, just not as intense (usually because you don't spend lots of time intimately touching, tasting and smelling your friends).

Have you ever taken MDMA? As soon as you do you'd know that falling in love with someone is chemistry. 'Love' is a nebulous concept that we ascribe to certain feelings caused by body chemistry reacting to external stimuli.

This is what separates us - you seem to believe that the wondrous feelings and thoughts that humans have can't emerge from the material world, that there has to be something 'beyond'. For me the best thing about being a materialist is that the material world can enable me to experience the feelings that are associated with love (I know cos I'm starting to go thorugh that amazing process) - I find it beyond a miracle that building blocks as simple as chemicals and electricity can make me smile like a fool when I recall her face. It's the same with the rest of it - I don't need or want to asribe mystical 'otherness'.
 
kyser_soze said:
Have you ever taken MDMA? As soon as you do you'd know that falling in love with someone is chemistry. 'Love' is a nebulous concept that we ascribe to certain feelings caused by body chemistry reacting to external stimuli.
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You hopeless Romantic! I'd keep your ontology secret from your significant other, if I were you. Of course I've taken MDMA, and I could never confuse the hyper-sensitivity it induces with love. In fact, now that I think of it, the difference between the two feelings is an excellent illustration of the distinction between emotions produced by chemical reactions and emotions produced by ideas.
 
Well, MDMA isn't quite love, no. However, there is no material evidence for a non-material part of the brain (I would expect to see the second law of thermodynamics being broken all over the place if there were), so quite where these 'ideas' come from if not from the interaction of chemicals and electrical charge I don't know.
 
phildwyer said:
You hopeless Romantic! I'd keep your ontology secret from your significant other, if I were you. Of course I've taken MDMA, and I could never confuse the hyper-sensitivity it induces with love. In fact, now that I think of it, the difference between the two feelings is an excellent illustration of the distinction between emotions produced by chemical reactions and emotions produced by ideas.
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Hey, lets just leave it there - it's not like we're going to even come close to finding consensus!!

And you missed my point about MDMA and falling in love - the latter is far more complex yes but then it involves consoiderably more time and sensory input than dropping a pill so of course there will be a substantial qualitative difference!! My point is that serotonin is prevented from uptake in the mind and the same feelings of euphoria and empathy - to a lesser degree but it's the same process.

HOwever, you are clearly determined to continue believing that there is some mystical force extraneous to our brains that creates ideas - maybe another dimension where the logos live? Me I'm happy living in the daily miracles that constitute the material world.
 
Of course conciousness can exist seperately from the brain.

Then again I suppose its easy for me to say that due to my own experiences of astral projection and OBE`s.

Course some people will read that and scoff thinking that they are far too "advanced" to believe in such flights of fancy. SO once again we get back to my point that such views are based on personal experience and that logic can play no part, its all just swings and roundabouts.

I know the imaginatively deficient won`t like that but hey i`m sorry if life doesn`t conform to the textbooks. :rolleyes:

Besides in my opinion a concepts worth is measured in its consequences rather than in its rhetoric. Do you not think the human experience would be a lot better if people were more in touch with their inner selves? What favours can a Godless, industrialised society continue to do for us?
 
Crispy said:
However, there is no material evidence for a non-material part of the brain
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How could there be "material evidence" for something that is "non-material?" This is the same mistake as is made by those who demand "evidence" for the existence of God--as though God were an empirical hypothesis. Look, God is that which makes experience possible, not a part of experience. There can by no empirical proof for the existence of an atemporal and nonspatial being. The proof of God's existence is rational, not empirical. Anyway, please explain to me what you meant when you said that time is not space. I thought the idea that time is space was accepted by all post-Einsteinian science?
 
Except the material world can alter the part of the brain/conciousness that you believe is not material. This point of contact between the tangible material world and that which is not material would be a fascinating area to study.
 
axon said:
Except the material world can alter the part of the brain/conciousness that you believe is not material. This point of contact between the tangible material world and that which is not material would be a fascinating area to study.
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I think its been done.
 
phildwyer said:
Your age suggests that you don't know very much. Not your fault, obviously. I wouldn't have brought it up had you not called me mad.
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Yes, if only everyone was as wise, intelligent and educated as the Great Sage Philip. :rolleyes: Fucking pompous wanker.
 
Yeah, I'd like to see the mechanisms at work there. Is there a 'gateway' cell that beams information out to the mysterious World of the Soul?
 
Then again I suppose its easy for me to say that due to my own experiences of astral projection and OBE`s.

Course some people will read that and scoff thinking that they are far too "advanced" to believe in such flights of fancy. SO once again we get back to my point that such views are based on personal experience and that logic can play no part, its all just swings and roundabouts.
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You're not the only one to experience an OBE Azrael - I experienced what I can only describe as an OBE about 8 years ago. However, that doesn't change my position - AFIAC phenomena such as OBE and telepathy represent specific abilities that are potentialities in human beings that require specific mental states and/or drugs to attain (or in the case of teeps keep well hidden - can you imagine the witch hunts if genuine telepaths were found?). What these are as yet I don't know, but I do believe there is a material explanation - why bother going away woth fairy lights when believing that it's material phenomena that cause such amazing things?

The difference between us is that you need to believe in 'the other' - I don't. I think it can be explained.
 
Well if you`ve attained OBE its not a big step to progress the ladder and start meeting guides and teachers (as well as a few malevolent entities) in the astral.

Its not a NEED to believe anything, its simply the case that thats how it is.

I`m studying Neuroscience in the hope of finding some answers to a lot of the questions raised here. As a science its still in its infancy and a lot of subject matters the majority of scientists won`t touch with a bargepole. But i`m not most scientists....in fact I can hear the resounding intake of breath at the revelation that I am part of that enigmatic breed :D
 
Azrael23 said:
Its not a NEED to believe anything, its simply the case that thats how it is.
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Well, as a scientist, you should realise that self-reporting is one of the most unreliable methods of collecting data. It may well be that you can experience contact with beings and personalities, but I'm sorry; I want to see some physical proof. If there is on record anywhere a verifiable account of an OBE allowing someone to see something that they otherwise would not have seen, I would like to see it. Until then, I keep my worldview limited strictly to the material world.
 
Azrael23 said:
I`m studying Neuroscience in the hope of finding some answers to a lot of the questions raised here. As a science its still in its infancy and a lot of subject matters the majority of scientists won`t touch with a bargepole. But i`m not most scientists....in fact I can hear the resounding intake of breath at the revelation that I am part of that enigmatic breed :D
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I think we probably both recall me asking you some months ago to specify which branch of 'neuroscience' you are active within. I am still awaiting an answer.
 
Feel free to limit yourself.

If you wish deny a concept thats been around since the dawn of humanity and is found without exception in every major culture....ever. Feel free.
If you want to deny an experience that you yourself could have if you really wanted to...feel free.

Existance through limitation is sooooo 20th century. ;)
 
gurrier said:
I think we probably both recall me asking you some months ago to specify which branch of 'neuroscience' you are active within. I am still awaiting an answer.
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I`m a student numbnuts.
 
gurrier said:
I think we probably both recall me asking you some months ago to specify which branch of 'neuroscience' you are active within. I am still awaiting an answer.
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Could there be a less attractive, or effective, debating tactic than, having been bested in rational discussion, to demand that your opponent produce some academic credential? At least we know now what branch of science Gurrier is active in: wankerology.
 
phildwyer said:
Your age suggests that you don't know very much.
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Have you ever heard the term "non-sequitur"?

Not your fault, obviously. I wouldn't have brought it up had you not called me mad.
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I wouldn't have called you mad if you hadn't of spouted a lot of paranoid nonsense about how repressed you poor old irrationalists are by the big bad science establishment.
 
Azrael23 said:
Of course conciousness can exist seperately from the brain.

Then again I suppose its easy for me to say that due to my own experiences of astral projection and OBE`s.
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I've experienced astral projection and OBEs, but then, I was also experiencing a bathtub trying to eat me and the walls of my bathroom expanding into the vast reaches of spacetime as I zoomed through the magical rollercoaster of human experience. Anybody can hallucinate, what's it supposed to prove?
 
In Bloom said:
Have you ever heard the term "non-sequitur"?


I wouldn't have called you mad if you hadn't of spouted a lot of paranoid nonsense about how repressed you poor old irrationalists are by the big bad science establishment.
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As I've made perfectly clear, I'm anything but an irrationalist. But it is obvious that Darwinists are afraid of criticism--largely on the perfectly understandable grounds that they don't want to give succor to fundamentalists. But fundamentalists are hardly the only critics of Darwin. I refer you again to Stephen Jay Gould's last book, _The Structure of Evolutionary Theory_, in which he finally breaks with Darwin. Your age is interesting, I think, because (if I can say this without seeming patronizing), you're obviously unusually bright and inquisitive. So it strikes me as incongrous that you can be so dismissive of alternative views, and so deeply committed to Darwin. Since you have barely begun your education, this can only be because you have been very successfuly indoctrinated, and it worries me that this is the case.
 
Going back to the original question, "Did Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually satisfied atheist": do Atheists find it hard to be intellectually satisfied in the first place? - they certainly tend to be a bit twitchy!

Seriously though, I think Science in general has helped Atheists get some sleep at night - however, there is a (perhaps evolutionary tendency!) to become religious about Science by Atheists.

It is perhaps part of the human condition to enjoy the Truth written in black and white, which can have the effect on the Science-worshipping Atheist that once enough has been published in concensus on a subject, alternatives become blasphemy, and a calm of righteousness fills the believers ego when faced with heretics.

I think it is important to remember that as humans we are severely limited in our capacity for ultimate comprehension of reality by use of reason alone. Don't get me wrong, as a species we've outdone ourselves in what we have learnt through scientific method, but I think if you use the outcomes of science as the blueprint to understanding reality, you must be aware of the fact that your conception is always falling far short of the truth.

In short I think science is ultimately doomed to failure: it can never awnser all the questions. Forever keeping a sense of awe and wonder is better than blinkering yourself in the smugness of the awnsers of science.

Perhaps Atheists should stay unsatisfied, in order to stave of complacency.
 
phildwyer said:
As I've made perfectly clear, I'm anything but an irrationalist. But it is obvious that Darwinists are afraid of criticism--largely on the perfectly understandable grounds that they don't want to give succor to fundamentalists. But fundamentalists are hardly the only critics of Darwin. I refer you again to Stephen Jay Gould's last book, _The Structure of Evolutionary Theory_, in which he finally breaks with Darwin. Your age is interesting, I think, because (if I can say this without seeming patronizing), you're obviously unusually bright and inquisitive. So it strikes me as incongrous that you can be so dismissive of alternative views, and so deeply committed to Darwin. Since you have barely begun your education, this can only be because you have been very successfuly indoctrinated, and it worries me that this is the case.
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I'm neither "dismissive of alternative views" nor "deeply committed to Darwin", I just think that rejecting the neo-Darwinian synthesis on the basis of what Darwin may or may not have thought is a little tenuous. Also, if I'm dismissive of something, its because I think its bollocks, not because its "alternative" ;)
 
niksativa said:
In short I think science is ultimately doomed to failure: it can never awnser all the questions. Forever keeping a sense of awe and wonder is better than blinkering yourself in the smugness of the awnsers of science.
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*sigh*

Science does not seek to answer absolutely everything, it is merely a tool for understanding how the world around us works on a physical level. And explaining things only takes away "awe and wonder" if you are hopelessly reductionist.
 
In Bloom said:
Science does not seek to answer absolutely everything, it is merely a tool for understanding how the world around us works on a physical level. And explaining things only takes away "awe and wonder" if you are hopelessly reductionist.
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I agree, but im pointing out a tendency: religion and science fulfill the same needs in people. Reverence is a key to both, when it is lost both science and religion turn into dogma.
 
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