ksagnostic

This statement is absolute nonsense! Language clearly has a physical basis in the brain, and that has been understood for more than a century. As a speech-language pathologist, I have plenty of first hand experience with serious acquired and developmental language disabilities which are directly traced to central nervous system damage or developmental failures/differences in neurological development. Neurological damage and failures/differences in neurological development have also been directly traced to disorders of thought.

Your claims about great apes are also quite debatable. Great apes have the same structures in their brains which have been linked to language functioning in humans. Members of all four great ape species have been cross fostered (well, Kanzi, Louilis, and Panbanisha were partially cross fostered in that they stayed with conspecific mothers) and exposed to accessible symbolic languages during their critical developmental periods. Almost all of them have acquired at least a limited ability to functionally use symbolic languages (especially when one considers that the apes have smaller brains, shorter critical developmental periods, and use non-speech symbol systems that favor telegraphic utterances for functional communication). You have also been given several examples of insightful learning by great apes, particularly chimpanzees, which so far as I can tell you have ignored.

[ August 31, 2002: Message edited by: ksagnostic ]

[ August 31, 2002: Message edited by: ksagnostic ]</p>

Philosoft

Heh. You don't have a clue about the implications of this, do you? What senses do we possess that are attuned to the supernatural? I ask you this because our ability to infer cause-and-effect is dependent on our ability to observe things in action.

I just moved the needlenose pliers on my desk one inch to the left. I can make a meaningful statement about the cause of that movement because I know some things about matter, force and friction. Suppose, however, I claim my pliers moved one inch left of their own volition. "Aha! Evidence of the supernatural," I say. "But," says my roommate, "what supernatural 'thing' moved your pliers?"

What is the most likely supernatural explanation?

- God moved the pliers
- An angel moved the pliers
- Satan moved the pliers
- one of Satan's minions moved the pliers
- I moved the pliers, but my roommate used his telepathy to wipe the memory from my mind
- the IPU moved the pliers with her most beautiful invisible horn

Etc, etc, etc.

This is what you get when you attempt to explore the layers beneath supernaturalism. This is why you cannot reasonably claim that naturalism misses part of the picture. There is simply no 'more' of the picture we can possibly see.

HRG

And let's not forget either:

- The pliers haven't moved, but Loki is bending the photons reflected by them and makes it look as if they have moved.

Regards,
HRG.

Philosoft

Yeah, but since this one is obviously true, I left it out so as not to make Van's job too easy.

Vanderzyden

But of course, it is all a matter of SEEING for the naturalist. This is precisely my point.

In your example, I would tell you straight-away that an intelligent agent moved those pliers. That intelligent agent would be you. The shape of the pliers (metal in the form of a tool) is the product of an intelligent agent/designer/fabricator. So, your analogy fails to address ths issue(s) at hand.

Switching subjects for a moment: Do you believe in the existence of your own mind, or your friend's mind, though you can see neither? Hook up your friend to a brain-monitoring device, and you will still be unable to tell what what he is thinking, unless he tells you.

Tell me, how does science answer this question:

WHY IS THERE SOMETHING RATHER THAN NOTHING?

Empirical science will never, never, never be able to even remotely answer this question. It is impossible to "see" the answer from our limited vantage point. Even with a supposed Grand Unified Theory, there would be nothing in the theory to explain the existence of its principles.

So, would you answer that ultimate question?

Vanderzyden

[ September 01, 2002: Message edited by: Vanderzyden ]</p>

Doubting Didymus

Haha, Look at this:

and then:

Anyone get the joke?

Philosoft

I suppose you thing FEELING is an appropriate conduit for knowledge?

Like hell. I'm telling you I didn't move the pliers. I FEEL it was done by Elvis. Disprove.

<strong> Indeed. Suppose I destroy parts of his brain. What will happen to his thoughts then?

<strong> How does anything answer this question? Christianity? God created it. Why? He wanted to. How very satisfying.

<strong> Of course not. You've a priori limited the question's answer to things allegedly outside the scope of science. The question you really want an answer to is, "For what purpose is there something and not nothing?" This, of course, question begs your creator. And you still lack a satisfying explanation.

<strong> Only for legitimate definitions of 'why'.

Philosoft

"My conception of God may be the wrong one, but it's still true that there is a God."

Vanderzyden

DD is apparently the forum jester. This is the only worthwhile question he asks.




[ September 01, 2002: Message edited by: Vanderzyden ]</p>

Vanderzyden

Excellent!

Whether it is your intention or not, Philo, this in an incredibly profound admission for anyone to make.

I will ignore your previous silly post, and instead provide you with the account of a former atheist:

"Even if my own philosophy were true, how could the initiative lie on my side? My own analogy, as I now first perceived, suggested the opposite: if Shakespeare and Hamlet could ever meet, it must be Shakespeare's doing. Hamlet could initiate nothing. Perhaps, even now, my Absolute Spirit still differed in some way from the God of religion. The real issue was not, or not yet, there. The real terror was that if you seriously believed in even such a "God" or "Spirit" as I admitted, a wholly new situation developed. As the dry bones shook and came together in that dreadful valley of Ezekiel's, so now a philosophical theorem, cerebrally entertained, began to stir and heave and throw off its gravecloths, and stood upright and became a living presence. I was to be allowed to play at philosophy no longer. It might, as I say, still be true that my "Spirit" differed in some way from "the God of popular religion." My Adversary waived the point. It sank into utter unimportance. He would not argue about it. He only said, "I am the Lord"; "I am that I am"; "I am."

-- C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy (in the chapter, "Checkmate")

Vanderzyden

[ September 01, 2002: Message edited by: Vanderzyden ]</p>