philechat

Darkness is a sensation, isn't it? Plus just because you are not aware of any sensory input does not mean you don't get any sensory feedback from your body.

How do you know? And animals react to external stimuli as well. When animals also communicate with each other in a social setting, we assume they communicate not via self-awareness, so there is no reason to assume the same phenomenon to be via self-awareness when the same activities are observed in humans. Read up some psychological journals, won't you?
Not true. Science is about "describing" how one activity affects another. Whether there is a "more fundamental cause" independent of scientific inquiry is a completely different question altogether. Science is based on the assumption that when two observed events happened one after another and a causation is determined, than the event that happened first is the cause.
My problem is about God's "knowing" even the future if he be outside of time. Then we can only progress according to what he knows about as our future. There are more threads up there in the EoG and Philosophical forums about freewill. Read them up.
As I said before, freewill interferes with the idea that God is outside of time and has foreknowledge.
Motion is displacement in time, isn't it? Basic physics. Action is defined as the amount of displacement in time.
Because time is a property of the universe, no? So every action occuring in the universe will be subjected to the laws of the universe?
And those atoms, electrons, neutrons, etc, can be in themselves be moving unpredictably, while the entire system is orderly, could it not? Like throwing dices randomly can produce orderly results, and all statistical analyses that are the most random will become the bell-curve.
Well, why is the universe a thing? Because it is not a person? I say the universe is not just a thing, time being a property of the universe and universe not being inside time.
No. But rather that by your physical properties, you cannot act otherwise than the way you are acting now. It has nothing to do with created nature, but your physical properties already determined you acting this way, including fighting with a girl. So I say the universe to be subjected to its physical properties, which propels it to develop a certain way rather than another.
Then make your oh-so-fine point much clearer, so my stupid brain can understand it.
Not true. What will you do when a robber pointed a gun at your head? Hand him the money and run, or say no? Assuming no one else is at the scene.
No, it is scientific usage. "Most likely" means "to a certain degree of confidence". A scientist do not make absolute pronouncements even when most evidences are to his favor.
I have said before, there is the thing called "scientific method", which will make pronouncements to "a certain degree of confidence". If you cannot stand these uncertainties, then science is not for you.

yguy

You're really reaching here. You might just as well say black is part of the light spectrum, that silence is a sound.

How can I get sensory feedback without being aware of it? It appears to me that if I'm not aware of sensory feedback, then I'm not getting it - just as I don't get any direct feedback from the functioning of my lymphatic system if I'm awake.

The same way you know you're awake.

Indeed, it could not be deduced from that alone, but in light of the fact that humans exhibit an awareness other species don't, it makes sense.

Provide the basis for this assertion.

Science is the quest for knowledge wherever it is found, not just within the stultified paradigm dictated by the scientific priestcraft.

But brainwave activity is only the first cause that you're aware of.

If we are talking about the motion of physical objects, yes. Why would God have to be "inside time" to accomplish this?

So because the action occurs in time, God must be in time? Why?

Sure, if you look for a numerical or geometric pattern, you can find it. And just as you can find order in chaos if you're looking for it, perhaps you can find chaos in order if you're looking for THAT.

No, because it can, in theory, be viewed as an object.

Where is the flaw in my logic?

This, as Mr. Metcalf would say, is argument by assertion.

The problem is you're too smart by half. Knowing, says Frank Herbert, is a barrier which prevents learning.

Please God, should that happen, I will not cower and beg for mercy, whatever I do. That's the point, not whether you hand him the money.

How is saying you don't know for sure different from saying you don't know?

Science is knowledge and the search for it. You can't begin the search until you admit you don't know.

philechat

Are you necessarily consciously aware of what every nerve cell of your body was doing? Most of the time we do not notice how tight or loose our muscles are until they are performing streneous activities.
Come on. I am asking "how do you know the fetuses were self-aware when the only behaviors we observed were those similar to other animals?"
So what? humans walked on two legs only several months after they were born. Why must I assume your analogy to be more powerful than the analogy to walking?
I am only saying that your assertion is not true, because to assume an unknown cause for known effects without any experimental confirmations or specification of testable conditions only show your assertion to be a speculation.
And it is based on falsifiable claims, according to Popper. You are setting up an unfalsifiable condition which is not an argument accepted by the scientific field.
See above. Science is based on testable conditions, that the hypothesis can be accepted or rejected by experiments. You are only making a bunch of unfalsifiable claims.
Because physical objects requires "physical force" to move it, therefore at least a part of God is involved "inside time".
See above.
True, that is what I am speaking of.
But that is the field of human interpretation, is it not? Does its possibility of being an object precludes it being something else? Not necessarily.
True. I am offering an alternative viewpoint to your "argument by assertion" that all nature must be created. Again...I don't think my own speculation beats yours, but I am suggesting that there are more than one ways to look at the same phenomenon.
Well--clearify your points, thanks a lot.
What if the robber asked your to beg for mercy otherwise he would blow your brains out? Would you "pretend to" comply even if it went against your conscience? I am offering a condition where people might have complied to perform what we commonly refered to as "evil acts" out of fear of their own lives.
For science it is useful as a working assumption to base future interpretations upon. Note I think they are theories that are supported by evidence, not absolute truth that cannot be changed in the future.
As above. When a hypothesis is supported by evidence, it is considered "acceptable" in the scientific field to be considered true until a new hypothesis is found to be even better supported by the evidence available.

yguy

How does this demonstrate that self-awareness is dependent on sensory input?

If you mean that a functioning body is necessary as a housing for that conscious, OK, but it does not follow from that that consciousness is intermingled with the nervous system or the brain.

If my arm gets cut off, am I less human? Neither am I less self aware for not knowing any words as an infant.

Infants are self-aware. Since they are not without the ability to respond to sensory input in the womb, it is likely they are also self-aware in the womb at some point during gestation.

Review my "Third way" thread for the dangers of assuming anything whatsoever.

Why is it not speculative to assume the absence of an unknown cause?

Too bad.

This makes the testing apparatus the ojective standard by which all things are judged - which is preposterous on its face, considering the designers of said apparatus don't know 1 millionth of one percent of anything.

If a part of Him is, the rest of Him isn't.

Yes, necessarily. Just as surely as the tree cannot be the sun which makes it grow.

OK, fair enough.

If it were against my conscience, no. If not, maybe.

Too bad people don't understand that cowardice encourages bullies to be even more bestial than they would be otherwise.

You didn't answer the question.

philechat

I mean it does not contradict my hypothesis--for these "unawared" sensory inputs are still registered at some part of the brain.
Just wondering? What about a patient suffering from brain damage, such as those in a vegetative state? Where are their consciousness and self-awareness?
False analogy. Self-awareness implies "the phenomena of knowing the self as independent and seperate from the existence of others." Where are your evidences of babies having such awareness?
As I said before, most animals are also able to respond to sensory inputs, and the more parsimonious explanation will be that what the babies are experiencing are more similar to what the animals are experiencing.
Well, then why are you assuming unborn fetuses to have self-awareness, when there is no evidence showing them to have any behaviors signifying self-awareness?
It is how assumptions works. We assume the dragons in our backyard to not exist until they are shown to exist. Only when you have a testifable, falsifiable hypothesis that is confirmed by evidence is your assumption of existence not a speculation.
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Don't understand you. Am I assuming objectivity anywhere? See all my former threads.
So? It means a part of God at least exists in time, doesn't it. So God is not completely outside of time, given the assumption that he exists and does interfere in the physical universe.
False analogy again. When can the Universe itself, which contains time, to be compared to an object existing in time alone?
Well, have fun.
I agree. Only that there are times that we should think our lives to be more important than a moment of "doing the right thing", that is, for example a lowly creature such as the robber aformentioned. It is not worth losing our lives to them even if a given choice might humiliate us.
Well. I said science does not make absolute pronouncements, and I do not assume knowledge to be absolute. It must be based on interpretation of the data available and the truths obtained from them are intersubjective, that is to speak.

yguy

And this contradicts my assertion how?

Don't know.

Where is your evidence that babies can't differentiate their existence from others'?

Yet another instance where the "more parsimonious" explanation somehow fails to simplify anything, since it leads to the patently absurd notion that greater intellect leads to greater self awareness, when reality demonstrates that intelligent people can be fantasitcally stupid. Case in point: advocates of pedohilia are almost always intelligent. They have to be very clever indeed to construct rationalizations for such hideous behavior - but they have forgotten who they are.

I told you already. Subject closed.

Speak for yourself. I don't assume. I suspend judgment until I know. If somebody tells me something like that, I will interrogate him until he blows his cover.

IOW, if a bunch of scientists SAY it's not speculation, then it isn't.

It is implicit in your constant reference to empirical data as if their is nothing more substantive. If you don't explicitly claim objectivity, it is because you don't think such a thing exists, wherefore whatever you put credence in becomes a de facto objective criterion.

Time is irrelevant to the analogy. The essential idea is that the Sun enlivens the tree, not the other way around.

I agree that there is no sense laying down your live to defend egotistical pride.

Please. If you don't want to answer the question, just don't.

philechat

Out of personal exhaustion, I am withdrawing from this thread. For any other infidels willing to take up my arguments I kindly offer them my spot. I might come back once I can devote enough time again in II.

I will formally apologize to yguy that I will not be arguing with him anymore, mostly because I wish not to repeat my points and waste 10 hours a day in II for this thread alone. It has been a great debate, but I think it is taking way too much of my time from my academics.

I will certainly appreciate any takers.

yguy

Nothing to aplogize for, ma'am. You've been a good sport. Take care.