sir drinks-a-lot

How do you mean? Do you mean that we wouldn't be able to construct universals, or that universals would not hold?

Mark_Chid

Consciousness and personality are emergement properties of matter. The software, if you like. Death is more than a mere change of physical state because the emergent property that we call a 'mind' or a 'soul' is not longer there.

We don't have to understand it to acknowledge its existence. If you spend an hour writing a document on your PC and then switch it off without saving it you have lost more than a simple flow of electrons. The document was a PATTERN and patterns are important, they contain meaning.

Just because I am a naturalist does not mean that I believe that the only things that exist are matter and raw energy. The patterns that these things make are also real. A vase is more than a lump of clay, and a mind is more than meat. That does NOT however mean its not a natural phenomenon.

Jobar

Kent, we have discussed presuppositionalism many times before in these boards- <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=56&t=000169&p=" target="_blank">What's the deal with presuppositionalism?</a>

I point out that the 'ultimate authority' that decides what you presuppose to be true is *you*. The simple fact that there exist people who disagree with your presuppositions, like us, indicates that they are not absolute. Your position boils down to a bumper sticker- "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." Trouble is, we atheists/agnostics don't believe it, and you will have to either provide us evidence or stronger arguments before we will.

Kent Symanzik

Hi Jobar,

For that bumper sticker to be biblical it should say "God said it, that settles it".

But, if you think that has been my argument then I must not be making myself clear enough. My argument has been that everyone has presuppositions that are unquestioned by those who hold them and cannot not be proved/disproved directly. So, what I have been doing is simply attempting to show indirectly how the presuppositions of atheistic worldviews are incoherent, contradictory, or irrational.

Some other members on this forum have understood this much and have engaged in a dialogue to defend their worldviews. I hope that they have found it fruitful even if we do not agree.

I have read some of that thread you referred me too. No offense to anyone, but it seemed to show more lack of understanding of the transcendental argument than anything else.

So, I hope you will not consider this thread a waste of time. I know I learn to express my views better and think through problems that are raised and hopefully others do too.

Kent

Kent Symanzik

Hi acronos,

I look forward to your post and thank you for engaging in this dialogue with me.

It seems that we may agree on more things than we disagree but what we disagree on is the crucial point. We both agree that we have experiences of suffering, life and death. We both agree that we are rational beings that depend on the laws of logic. We also agree that you cannot explain all of your experiences by your atheist worldview. Our disagreement is whether that matters or not. I think you would just conclude that your worldview is incomplete whereas I would conclude that your worldview is not just incomplete but contradictory.

Now, whether I can persuade you that it is contradictory is a big question. But, I hope you don't mind if I continue to try. I will try to think of better ways of showing the contradiction that I see which will make our dialogue more fruitful.

Thanks for the good discussion.

Kent

Kent Symanzik

Hi Mark_Chid,

I don't understand how calling something an emergent property makes it any different from any other matter. Can you explain this more?

The document on the PC falls apart quickly because it was a person writing the document which gave it its value. The person is what we are trying to explain so having a person in the analogy doesn't help us. The pattern is important because it was created by a person.

To make the analogy work we could have a random key generator typing the document. But, then I don't think we will feel that we lost much when the document wasn't saved.

Similar problem with the vase. It was created by an intelligent being. The brain being more than a meat in an atheistic worldview is the problem we are trying to solve.

You mention that you believe that more exists than just matter and raw energy. Are the patterns abstract ideas? Do they exist only in a person's mind? If they exist only in a person's mind then they are dependent on a mind. Then if a person sees a pattern the pattern must cease to exist when that person dies or forgets the pattern.

I'm just thinking things thru, you don't have to answer all these questions.

The main point is that I do not understand how calling consciousness and personality emergent properties solves anything. You seem to understand that you must bridge the gap between matter reacting and what we call life. But, I do not believe this gap can be explained by an atheistic worldview.

Kent

Kent Symanzik

Hello sir drinks-a-lot,

You can't construct a universal. I meant that universals cannot exist in an atheistic worldview. I believe universals like the laws of logic do exist. That is why I say that when atheists treat the laws of logic as universals then they are contradicting their own worldview.

If atheists hold that the laws of logic are not universal then I may as well make up my own laws of logic that make my arguments true by definition. Then atheists, of course, will do the same, and then we will realize that reasoning cannot exist without universal and invariant laws of logic.

Kent

Kent Symanzik

Hello ReasonableDoubt,

This is a good question. The only way to select an ultimate presupposition is to evaluate it to see if it accounts for our experience. This means asking if it can justify the use of the laws of logic, ethics, and science (uniformity of nature).

For instance, we know we use logic in order to reason. Also, we assume that the laws of logic are universal and invariant. In other words, we expect the same logic laws to apply everywhere and at all times. So then we must look at the presuppositions that people hold and see if they justify the universal laws of logic. That is what I have been doing with atheistic worldviews. I have not found one that can account for the existence of any universals. That is why either the worldview is contradictory or the person who holds the worldview contradicts his worldview whenever he is rational.

Hope that helps explain where I'm coming from.

Kent

HRG

The "laws of logic" are the consequence of the semantics of the language we have used to describe the universe. E.g. the famous law of contradiction expresses the semantics of the terms "and" and "not", together with our choice to use a language with exactly two logical values ("true" and "false").

A three-valued logic (true/false/indeterminate), as has been proposed to deal with quantum phenomena, leads to different laws of logic.

Thus, the laws of logic "apply everywhere and at all times" because our language is used to describe all events in the universe. There is nothing which would require a transcedental source "to account for logic", just like a transcedental source for the rules of chess is not required.

Regards,
HRG.

"All the theorems of logic state the same - to wit, nothing" (L. Wittgenstein)

K

Kent Symanzik:

What do you mean by saying that the laws of logic are universal? If the laws of logic are not sufficient to prove that the laws of logic are correct, are they still universal by your definition?