Bree

Can you please rephrase this? I've been following this thread for some time now, with interest, but can't seem to clear this part up.

woodchuck

What I want to know is this:
Nogo claims that all is physical.
He claims that the mind IS the brain and is totally physical.
He constantly uses the term "chemical reactions" to explain what a thought is.
If thoughts are merely chemicsl reactions, they are just that: reactions. If this is true then we have no choice in anything, we only react- therefore no crime is wrong, and no one is right.

This is determinism- but nogo claims the physical world is not determinist, I want to know why he says that. He has not briged his physicalist teachings with his claim that the world is not determinist.

Is that clear?

NOGO

I will answer this for now and I will return to the rest of your post later. Please feel free to answer my first post on morality. I am really curious to know your opinion.

The world is not deterministic.
I don't suppose that you have studied quantum mechanics. Have you ever heard of the Heisenberg's uncertainty priciple?

It goes something like this.
We cannot predict where a particle will be with 100 % certainty. We can only speak in terms of probabilities. For example, we can say that an atom will be at some location with a 99 % probability, but there will be a 1 % probability it will be somewhere else (in fact, there will be a small but finite probabilty that it will be found across the Universe).

So although the macroscopic world seems at first glance to be deterministic and laws such as Newtons' laws were used to predict orbits for example, in fact many things are totally unpredictable.

For example take a balloon and blow it up and then let go. You can do it a hundred times and the balloon will do something different a hundred times.

If you stand beside a waterfall you will from time to time get a drop of water on the face. Classical physics would have told you that it is possible to predict which water droplet will fly off in your directtion and hit your face. Quantum mechanics says that this is impossible. Quantum mechanics would say that there is such and such probability that such an event will take place.

The world is not deterministic.

Free will. I will come back on this sucbject.
Do we have free will?
I believe that we do, but I must admit that it may be an illusion. I doubt that you can prove that we have free will. More on this sucbject later.

I have a question for you.
If God is able to predict the future as is often suggested in the bible then where is our free will?

Ezekiel predicted the fall of Tyre at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. How can God predict such an occurance since it depends on the free will of so many people?

As it turns out Tyre did not fall to Neb after all and Ezekiel admits as much. What actually happened is that they made a deal. Tyre would pay tribute and Neb went home. So Yahweh goofed on this one.

But my question stands. We can discuss the details of the prôphecy above but before that what is you answer to the question.

How can God predict what those two leader (Tyre's leader and Neb) would do if they have free will ?

Woodchuck, I really don't mind any delays, we all have lives to live. Nice to hear from you again.

NOGO

Opera Nut

Jeffrey Dahmer killed many young men and boys. He ate their bodies, carved them up, kept body parts in his fridge. But before he was killed in prison, he became a Xtian.

Karla Faye Tucker killed two people in cold blood with a pickax. But she had a jailhouse converstion, and became a Xtian.

Adolf Hitler and his fellow Nazis were all "good Catholics". Their slogan was "Gott Mit Uns", God Is With Us. So they were Xtiains.

Andrea Yates killed her five children to save them from a hell that a half-assed preacher told her she was going to, that Satan condemned her because she was a bad mother. And this preacher calls himself a Xtian?? I think he and the Oblivio-Dad are just as guilty, in fact moreso, than she is, because she was not protected from harming the children. I don't think her brain ever knew right from wrong -- she was so messed up she was deluded into killing them to save them (historical note:The Vietnamese My Lai-General Curtis LeMay defense -- we had to destroy this village in order to save it).

So all these folks are going to Heaven because they believed Jesus is Lord?? I don't want to go to Heaven if I have to hang out with ax murderers and mass murderer/cannibals.




Besides how can I be tortured in hell if I don't have a body??
(For further fun and games, consult Mark Twain, LETTERS FROM THE EARTH). <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Opera Nut

Quoting from a previous post:


Damn, that's all my old jobs that I hated!! Gosh darn, I was in Hell and didn't know it (but I suspected it..... ?8^D
----------
For a great reference, check out Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible in two volumes. Tells what was going on politically etc. at the time. Major crap-cutter, along with Mark Twain's LETTERS FROM THE EARTH..... <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> There's just not a whole lot to add to these two and Bertrand Russell. Pietsche Nietsche is like icing on the philosophical cake.

NOGO

Woodchuck,
It has become evident that we have two diametrical views of truth. Let me explain why I think this is so.

Faith in most believers is something they feel inside as you have explained at length. This feeling has actually nothing to do with the bible except perhaps that the book is used in support. This same feeling is obtained by the muslim except that they use a different book. I am certain that you will protest and claim that what you feel is unique but you have no way of knwoing that. So unless you have been or will become a devout muslim you have nothing to compare to.

So the logic is that if you feel a strong relationship with Jesus then Christianity must be true. The group reinforces this conclusion with emotional support and repetition.

Once accepted this truth is never questioned and colors your view of the world.
The logic goes as follows:
Since God exists and Christianity is true then the mind cannot be just physical, memory cannot be just physical, evolution cannot be right etc.

I will give an example of somthing similar.
I was watching a documentary on television with my brother.
This guy did a some sort of a test in a major university. One of the questions on the test was a side sketch of a wine glass tilted 30 or 40 degrees. The students were asked to draw a line which represented the surface of the liquid. Now we all know that this surface of the liquid must be horizontal and therefore independently of the tilt of the glass the line should have been parallel to the top or the bottom of the sheet of paper (ie horizontal).

A majority of the women got it wrong and a majority of the men got it right. There were many other questions of this nature. The guy who was doing the research concluded that perhaps women were less inclined to science than men.

My brother and I had a discussion on this. He claimed that this was not so. As I questioned him I discovered that he did not just question the conclusion but he also questioned the data. In other words he doubted that most of the girls got the question of the glass wrong. I found that kind of strange. You may doubt the conclusion and try and account for the results in one way or another but actually deny the data itself seems crazy to me.

Well, you see, my brother has three daughters.
I have no doubt that this fact had more to do with my brother's opinion than anything else.

What he did is to start with the conclusion (men and women are equal) and then try to force the world to agree. Let me clarify that. I am not saying that the conclusion reached by this particular researcher is correct. Perhaps there is an explaination for why a majority of women got some of those questions wrong. Perhaps society unconsciously tells women that science is not for them and so they take no interest etc. But whatever the situation you should not ignore the data simply because they do not agree with your world view.

Simply put this is not the way to the truth. You don't project your "feelings" onto the data. The real world need not comply to your wishes.

Believers are guilty of this type of intellectual fault.

My truth works in exactly the opposite way. You start with evidence and then you work yourself up to more general truths. A truth once put on stage is subject to criticism. Its ability to stand to critics is paramount to it holding such a high position.

When I say that memory is physical, it is not based on faith. It is based on evidence.
I have given you evidence and you did not respond. Do you accept the evidence or are you like my brother who rejects the evidence since it is contrary to his beliefs?

This, Woodchuck, is fundamental. You can go through life ignoring the evidence and keeping whatever belief you want or you can let the evidence guide you in your beliefs.

What about free will. I already told you about my brother's accident. His friends wife was in coma for several days. Where was her free will? Her brain, her mind was shut down, turned off. Her brain was so traumatized that it shutdown a prime function. Notice that it did not shut down breathing nor the heartbeat. Why? The simple answer is that if it did that she would die. But there is another answer. The brain is structured in such a way that the more primitive functions like emotions, heartbeat and breathing are controlled by a particular area of the brain. See the following link which describes the functions of the brain and the different areas.

<a href="http://www.neuroskills.com/index.html?main=tbi/brain.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.neuroskills.com/index.html?main=tbi/brain.shtml</a>

Here are selected parts of it.

CEREBRAL CORTEX
Functions:
How we know what we are doing within our environment (Consciousness).
How we initiate activity in response to our environment.

Observed Problems:
Loss of spontaneity in interacting with others.
Loss of flexibility in thinking.
Persistence of a single thought (Perseveration).
Inability to focus on task (Attending).
Mood changes (Emotionally Labile).
Changes in social behavior.
Changes in personality.
Difficulty with problem solving.
Inablility to express language (Broca's Aphasia).


TEMPERAL LOBES:
Functions: Memory aquisition

Observed Problems:
Short-term memory loss.
Interference with long-term memory
Increased or decreased interest in sexual behavior.
Increased aggressive behavior.


BRAIN STEM
Deep in Brain, leads to spinal cord.
Functions:
Breathing
Heart Rate
Swallowing
Controls sweating, blood pressure, digestion, temperature (Autonomic Nervous System).
Sense of balance (Vestibular Function)

Observed Problems:
Decreased vital capacity in breathing, important for speech.
Swallowing food and water (Dysphagia).
Difficulty with organization/perception of the environment.
Problems with balance and movement.
Dizziness and nausea (Vertigo).
Sleeping difficulties (Insomnia, sleep apnea).


Notice that the so called higher functions like awareness are located in the cerebral cortex while primitive functions like breathing, heart rate, swallowing and sweating are located in the brain stem. Most animals have a brain stem, they have a heart, need to swallow and breath. But most animals do not have a cerebral cortex. Those that do like the apes and chimps have a very small one compared to ours.

This should tell you something. Rather than redesigning the brain for each species nature (or God for you) has kept the basic functions and brain structure throughout all species including humans. This should not be very surprizing from the point of view of evolution. The DNA molecule duplicates itself. Therefore we should see structures preserved from species to species. This does not prove evolution but you can see that if it were not so then evolution would have to be discounted. That is to say, that if the brain structure of humans were totally different than other animals then it would be hard to argue that evolution took place.

So depending on the injury to the brain different symptoms can be observed as the table above shows.

If you want me to exaplain exactly how "free will" comes about in the brain I wont be able to tell you. However evidence that "free will" does occur within the brain is conclusive.
We know that people become "vegetables" if the cerebral cortex is severally damaged.
They can walk, breath, etc but they cannot think and be aware of what is going on.
In other words their "free will" is gone. Abtract thinking occurs in the cerebral cortex. This is where the concepts of numbers, mathematics and logic etc are processed.


CONCLUSION
The first point is therefore that truth is based on evidence and not feelings.
This is so fundamental that you have to make a conscious effort to change your method of investigation and how you view the world.

Second, if you have evidence that memory and other brain functions are not physical then please show me. If it must be unphysical because otherwise you will have to rethink your basic beliefs in life then I suggest that you do just that.

Take care

[ May 11, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

NOGO

I have talked about accidents and people being in coma but I did not address one thing that happens every day, sleep.

What is sleep? Why do we need to sleep?

We may need to sleep because our muscles are tired but that is not the prime reason. You can stay in bed motionless and thoughtless and you still need to sleep.

After 16 to 20 hours of being awake you will feel sleepy. You can drink coffee and other stimulants and you can have a dozen people around making sure that you don't fall asleep but eventually you will pass out and sleep.

Why?

It has nothing to do with work manual or intellectual. It has to do with being awake or being conscious. When you sleep you are not conscious.

It seems that the brain cannot sustain the state of consciousness forever. After 16 hours of it the brain needs to shut it down and do some maintenance.

I would say that whatever free will is it has to do with consciousness and is a function of the brain.

We know that during sleep there are far fewer synapses firing. It may be that for whatever reason the brain cannot maintain the level of data processing required for consciousness and we fall asleep.

[ May 11, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

Shake

My problems with religion in general began with a dislike for the churches. The idea of "organized religion" seemed to make about as much sense as "military intelligence." (As a former military member, I feel I can speak about this with some authority) In my early stages of breaking away from religion, I began to feel that religion is one's personal relationship with one's "god" and couldn't (shouldn't) be made to conform with others. It kind of goes with being spiritual vs. religious. Aside: I saw a tag hanging from a rear-view mirror the other day that said: Spiritual, not Religious! Churches can be compared to political parties ... you affiliate yourself with one that closely matches your beliefs, but you don't necessarily accept everything in the official party (church) line. We are all individuals and have our opinions and feelings. To try to group bunches of people together is not always the best solution.

I'd add more, but I've gotta get going.

NOGO

I understand your position and agree.
My problem with religion is religion. The churches are there because people are religious and the churches give them what they want. The churches certainly have abused their power in the past and are just waiting to abuse it again.

However beyond churches there is the problem of dependency versus self-reliance. Many believers are still waiting for the end of the world when God will make everything right. I prefer to tell people that this world will never be completely RIGHT but it can be better if people take repsonsibility and charge of their lives and not hand it to some priest.

[ May 21, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

NOGO

Hi Woodchuck,

How are you. I am still very curious as to your reaction to the morality issue and my post on it.

Take care,
NOGO