Bill Snedden

I'm not sure exactly what you mean.

By "depend on the brain", I was assuming that Taffy meant "depends on the brain for its existence," which is what I meant by "phsyicalist assumption." As theistic dualism posits that the mind survives the demise of the brain, it would seem obvious that this "flavor" of dualism does not fit with this assumption.

I'm sure that there are theistic dualists who agree that the mind is dependent on the brain for interation with the outside world, but I can't think of any that would agree that the mind depends on the brain for its existence. I would think that they would most certainly reject this type of "physicalism."

Regards,

Bill Snedden

7thangel

WOW! And excellent question!

Fortunately, the bible has an answer!

As the human has the brain to equate his consciousness, God has the "Word" to equate His own consciousness. As the mystery goes: The Word "IS" and "WITH" God. As you can see, there is a circularity of the Word as the physical and the spiritual representation as the mind of God. As human has a body, do does God has the "Church" as His body, His dwelling place. As the brain has power over the body and it's environment, so does the Word has the power over all things that exists.

As the human exist as IS, So does God, exists as IS. Fortunately, I understand the Word exists as "IS."

Clutch

Wait, I think I understand. Is this your argument?

1) Is are five when lemon fell purple left thinks acrophobe sticks.

2) For sharp king jigsaw white roll quick double; quality bunny done press highly.

Therefore,

3) God exists and it all makes sense.

7thangel

Unfortunately, no sir. You do not even understand what you are talking about.

Why do you think your understanding be the standard of wisdom?

I knew there are a lot more to explain about what I said. But if you are smart enough, you could understand enough and would ask a better question. What is important to me is that the mystery of the mind and the brain is not illogical in comparison to the Word as the mind and brain of God. Sir, don't presume too much.

Dr. Retard

Well, for what it's worth, I think Peter van Inwagen rejects the idea that the mind outlives the brain. He has God reconstruct people's brains (or whisk them away at death, replaced by a suitable twin-brain for the corpse's sake).

In any case, though theistic dualists might hold that our minds will exist without our brains, many other dualists don't. There's nothing "physicalist" about the idea that our minds will die with our brains, because their very existence depends on the brains. What would be physicalist, is to say that all the physical facts automatically deliver the mental facts -- that mental facts logically supervene on physical facts. Which would be a type of dependence, sure, but a super tight one.

Taffy Lewis

Bill Snedden,

By "dependence", I simply mean that we would not in fact have the conscious states we have if our brains were not in a particular state. It's pretty clear that our conscious life is caused by brain states. But this is consistent with mind/brain dualism.

If you don't like the use of the term "dependence" you could instead think in terms of "correlation". It's also an undeniable fact that our mental lives are correlated with brain states. And every uncontroversial example of a mental life of which we are aware is also correlated with a brain state. And the inductive argument would proceed as before.

Conchobar

Let us assume that the universe was created by an entity that we call God. I am an agnostic, but lets have us all, theists and atheists agree on this rhetorical premise.

Is God conscious?

Everything that we know for its reality directly that is conscious is an animal. It has a nervous system of neurons, axons, synapses to dendrites, and complex pathways from various locations of the brain to the other. Consciousness in all cases is dependent on a brain stem scattered nucleus of neurons called the Ascending Reticular Activating System (ARAS), which activates higher diencephalic centers, septal and pre-optic nuclei, which then activate acetylcholine receptor dendrites in the cerebral cortex.

Do we know of anything without those structures that is conscious? No. Plants and minerals do not have these and show no evidence of consciousness.

Consciousness appears to be a physiological function in animals for survival and adaptation. It along with some instinct or cognitive skill, is necessary to 1. find food, 2. avoid predators, and 3. find a mate if sexual reproduction is necessary. God is spirit and immortal by definition. Therefore, it is a given that he does not require food. He can't fear a predator as a immortal spirit, and being immortal one needs no reproduction or the heavens would be crowded with omnipotent, immortal gods. In short, God needs no consciousness nor cognition.

God is defined by some as spiritual (i.e. not matter, energy, nor wave forms.) That is why God cannot be studied, observed, measured, or tested in any way.

Now we are assuming God to be the Creator. That means we must chose what definition of God fits the description.

A. God is a conscious cognitive being who created the universe for no obvious reason, since it was presumably a conscious decision. Our culture further defines god has having personality or three personalities. He has human traits of affect, cognition, and virtues/vices as outlined in the Bible. He is the Anthropomorphic God of Islam, Judaism, Christianity.

B. God is conscious but of a type totally unhuman. He may be a summary of physical laws, and make matter and energy universes by unknown mechanisms.

C. God may be a non-conscious, completely non-cognitive force of an essence that is not matter, energy, or wave form but we cannot see or measure. It's function may be to push matter from other dimensions through black holes or bubbles in the fabric of vacuum whatever. But he/it does this because it is his/its property to do so, not necessarily a conscious decision but activated by the current state of the cosmos at the time.

So which is it? I reject the Abrahamic God, anthropomorphic, because if the Bible is the definition, that god does not deserve to be worshipped. He is evil and cruel. He has temper rages, vindictiveness, injustice, lack of mercy (creating Hell.) He is a reflection of the Israelite/Hebrew tribal medicine men who created the various gods that Moses merged into one. That one god, JHWY, is a cosmic human with all of humanity's vices and few virtues. He is so unlikely that believing in him is not an option for me.

How about the Conscious non-human god? He is of course more plausible than the anthropomorphic god. We cannot see him, hear him, or measure him in any way. So he remains hypothetical. He has noting to rule him out, either. The only problem is whether consciousness and cognition are even needed.

The final one is the inanimate, non-conscious, non-cognitive force that's function is to deform the fabric of the cosmos which perhaps just inadvertently results in the formation of a universe or a Big Bang. Whether that is interdimensional or something else we have no way to tell.

I think the non-conscious, non-cognitive God/creator makes the most rational sense because unlike God no. 2, I see no need for that entity to possess consciousness. Most things do not have what they do not need. God doesn't need to be a conscious thinker.

Thinking consciousness is an adaptation for survival in animals that evolved for feeding, escaping predation, and mating. Only animals need this property.

Conchobar

Taffy Lewis

Conchobar,

You seem to think that it's only reasonable to believe a being has consciousness if it somehow "needs" it. But this isn't obvious. For any given property is it true that some entity only has it if it needs it? Obviously not. Electrons have mass but there is no sense in which they "need" it.

You may argue that consciousness is different. But why believe that? The only argument I can think of would be another inductive argument like the one I suggested in my original post.

I don't know if you intend for A-C to be exhaustive of the possibilities or not. However, it seems that most versions of christianity aren't included among your options. Traditional christianity teaches that God created the universe and mankind in order to have a personal relationship with us. That's just one of the typical reasons traditional theists offer as God's reason for creating the universe. So they wouldn't agree that God created the universe for no reason.

Tercel

Taffy,
Firstly I would concur with Bill that the way your second premise is worded implies physicalist assumptions. Perhaps rather than "dependant upon" you could say "associated with", which seems rather more neutral.

However I consider your argument suspect at a more fundamental level: It's biased.
Consider: All empirical observation is limited to physical systems.

I could construct the following inductive argument, B:
(B1) We are aware of billions of instances of empirical observations.
(B2) There are no uncontroversial instances of empirical observations of non-physical systems.
(B3) Therefore no non-physical systems exist.

The conclusion is not justified because the validity of an argument from induction depends on the validity of the hidden premise that:
(B2b) If there exist non-physical systems then we have a sufficiently high probability of observing them.
Which B3 would then validly follow from. (in a probabilistic manner)
Now of course B2b is completely false, since the bias of empirical observation means that we can't observe non-physical systems if they existed, and hence B3 does not validly follow.


The equivalently premise in your argument is not so clear cut and it is extremely questionable. By leaving it out completely, you're simply avoiding the issue at hand and making it look like you've got a sound argument when you don't necessary have one at all.

What you need to show is that:
(2b) if there existed non-physical instances of consciousness, we would have a reasonable probability of observing them uncontroversially.

I for one doubt that premise. Certainly, it does not seem true to me given my liberal Christian beliefs.

Conchobar

Conscious God?

Let us assume that the universe was created by an entity that we call God. I am an agnostic, but lets have us all, theists and atheists agree on this rhetorical premise.

Is God conscious?

Everything that we know for its reality directly that is conscious is an animal. It has a nervous system of neurons, axons, synapses to dendrites, and complex pathways from various locations of the brain to the other. Consciousness in all cases is dependent on a brain stem scattered nucleus of neurons called the Ascending Reticular Activating System (ARAS), which activates higher diencephalic centres, septal and pre-optic nuclei, which then activate acetylcholine receptor dendrites in the cerebral cortex.

Do we know of anything without those structures that is conscious? No. Plants and minerals do not have these and show no evidence of consciousness.

Consciousness appears to be a physiological function in animals for survival and adaptation. It along with some instinct or cognitive skill is necessary to 1. find food, 2. avoid predators, and 3. find a mate if sexual reproduction is necessary. God is spirit and immortal by definition. Therefore, it is a given that he does not require food. He can't fear a predator as an immortal spirit, and being immortal one needs no reproduction or the heavens would be crowded with omnipotent, immortal gods. In short, God needs neither consciousness nor cognition.

God is defined by some as spiritual (i.e. not matter, energy, nor wave forms.) That is why God cannot be studied, observed, measured, or tested in any way.

Now we are assuming God to be the Creator. That means we must chose what definition of God fits the description.

A. God is a conscious cognitive being who created the universe for no obvious reason, since it was presumably a conscious decision. Our culture further defines god has having personality or three personalities. He has human traits of affect, cognition, and virtues/vices as outlined in the Bible. He is the Anthropomorphic God of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.

B. God is conscious but of a type totally inhuman. He may be a summary of physical laws, and make matter and energy universes by unknown mechanisms.

C. God may be a non-conscious, completely non-cognitive force of an essence that is not matter, energy, or wave form but we cannot see or measure. Its function may be to push matter from other dimensions through black holes or bubbles in the fabric of vacuum whatever. But he/it does this because it is his/its property to do so, not necessarily a conscious decision but activated by the current state of the cosmos at the time.

So which is it? I reject the Abrahamic God, anthropomorphic, because if the Bible is the definition, that god does not deserve to be worshipped. He is evil and cruel. He has temper rages, vindictiveness, injustice, lack of mercy (creating Hell.) He is a reflection of the Israelite/Hebrew tribal medicine men who created the various gods that Moses merged into one. That one god, JHWY, is a cosmic human with all of humanity's vices and few virtues. He is so unlikely that believing in him is not an option for me.

How about the Conscious non-human god? He is of course more plausible than the anthropomorphic god. We cannot see him, hear him, or measure him in any way. So he remains hypothetical. He has noting to rule him out, either. The only problem is whether consciousness and cognition are even needed.

The final one is the inanimate, non-conscious, non-cognitive force that's function is to deform the fabric of the cosmos which perhaps just inadvertently results in the formation of a universe or a Big Bang. Whether that is interdimensional or something else we have no way to tell.

I think the non-conscious, non-cognitive God/creator makes the most rational sense because unlike God no. 2, I see no need for that entity to possess consciousness. Most things do not have what they do not need. God doesn't need to be a conscious thinker.

Thinking consciousness is an adaptation for survival in animals that evolved for feeding, escaping predation, and mating. Only animals need this property.

Conchobar