Posts by Coded Logic

58

Mind Body Dualism

by Coded Logic in

i've never found dualism - the idea that the mind and the brain are two different substances with the mind being "immaterial" or "non-material" - a valid manner in which to address consciousness or any mysteries relating to it.

to show the reasons why i think it's bad metaphysics i'll use analogous reasoning to make a case for my newly made up "mystic essence".. for hundreds of years scientists have studied plants and animals all across the world.

but they still can't explain where ecosystems come from.

Coded Logic

If our brains are just "receivers" picking up consciousness from somewhere else - is there anyway we could ever verify or falsify such a hypothesis?

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/288811/science-stoppers

58

Mind Body Dualism

by Coded Logic in

i've never found dualism - the idea that the mind and the brain are two different substances with the mind being "immaterial" or "non-material" - a valid manner in which to address consciousness or any mysteries relating to it.

to show the reasons why i think it's bad metaphysics i'll use analogous reasoning to make a case for my newly made up "mystic essence".. for hundreds of years scientists have studied plants and animals all across the world.

but they still can't explain where ecosystems come from.

Coded Logic

no matter how you slice it, we will never know how consciousness exists. Oh we may say it originates here or there. But how? We will never know.

No offense TL, but I think you're claiming to know things you can't possibly know. The diverse speciation on our planet was also once hailed as an insoluble mystery. But despite such cynicism Darwin did the hard work and spent half a lifetime doing field research looking for an answer. And do you know what happened?

. . . He developed the scientific theory of evolution that is now the backbone of modern biology. I think his words, as someone who knew first hand, carry a lot of wait on the topic:

Saying that we can't know the answer to something is perhaps the most closed minded position a person can ever have. I would sincerely encourage you to be a little more open minded on the topic.

5

A novel preaching method

by Listener in

i came across this novel way of preaching on facebook.

probably one of the easier ways to get your hours in.. https://www.facebook.com/jwbrothers.org/videos/538251706351890/.

Coded Logic

Okay, so I gotta give credit where credit is due (even if it's painful and I have to grind my teeth while doing it - lol). At least they are trying to engage their community and not just stand there doing nothing. And I feel this is a reasonably positive manner in which to do it.

Great piano player too!

58

Mind Body Dualism

by Coded Logic in

i've never found dualism - the idea that the mind and the brain are two different substances with the mind being "immaterial" or "non-material" - a valid manner in which to address consciousness or any mysteries relating to it.

to show the reasons why i think it's bad metaphysics i'll use analogous reasoning to make a case for my newly made up "mystic essence".. for hundreds of years scientists have studied plants and animals all across the world.

but they still can't explain where ecosystems come from.

Coded Logic

Coded, maps and territories are physical. A thought is not physical.
-SBF

Clearly we have reached opposite conclusions on this. I think thoughts are physical while you think they are not physical. Let's see if we can find out exactly where our differences lie and why.

I suppose a good start would be to ask you do you think the electrochemical reactions in our brains influence our thoughts? And do you think that, when we change the chemistry in the brain, it changes how we think (e.g. drinking coffee, alcohol, hallucinogens, etc).

Also, would you categorize the simulations run on my X-box as immaterial?

58

Mind Body Dualism

by Coded Logic in

i've never found dualism - the idea that the mind and the brain are two different substances with the mind being "immaterial" or "non-material" - a valid manner in which to address consciousness or any mysteries relating to it.

to show the reasons why i think it's bad metaphysics i'll use analogous reasoning to make a case for my newly made up "mystic essence".. for hundreds of years scientists have studied plants and animals all across the world.

but they still can't explain where ecosystems come from.

Coded Logic

Coded I think one of the problems with viewing ideas and other non-material things as epiphenomenal (or emergent properties) is that it gives priority to matter in a way that is unjustified and still amounts to reductionism.
-SBF

I'm afraid I don't quite follow what you're objection is here. When I'm talking about emergent properties I mean physical aspects emerging from physical systems. I don't see that as giving priority to matter in an unjustified way.

When I play video games on my X-box it runs extremely complex simulations. But I don't think that my X-box is somehow transcending physical reality. Rather, it's using its physical components to produce an emergent physical system. I feel the same is true of our thoughts and our feelings. They are very much grounded in the physical laws of reality and its material process'.

As the saying goes, the map is not the territory. Rather, it's a representation of the territory. But nobody would say maps are "immaterial". Likewise our thoughts are not the thing we are thinking about (unicorns, space ships, winning lottery tickets). But it doesn't mean thoughts are immaterial.

37

Notable changes of the JWs org, in the last five years or so

by glenster in

i've been updating the links at my web site and i'm working on the gtjbrooklyn pages now.

what would you say are the several biggest changesin the jws organization/rules in the last five years or so?

Coded Logic

I'm not sure what the "biggest change" is but I certainly think the GB stepping out of the shadows is definitely the most jarring. Seeing them on their own private little evangelic network is absolutely mind numbingly painful to watch. Even after I left I just assumed the GB were good and decent people who had got caught up in a religion of people following people - following other people - following other people - so that by the time they got to be GB members they would feel trapped and try to rationalize that they MUST be divinely inspired even if they didn't really feel that way.

Boy was I wrong.

Call me naive, but I was - and still am - genuinely shocked at how arrogant, condescending, and insincere the members of the GB come off as being. For people who have spent their whole lives giving public talks and proselytizing you'd think they be a little more charming and whole lot more polished.

Every congregation has 'that one elder' who has no business being an elder - that one elder that doesn't seem to care about people and is constantly putting their foot in their mouth all the time. I guess I just didn't expect that to be a prerequisite for the being a member of the GB.

58

Mind Body Dualism

by Coded Logic in

i've never found dualism - the idea that the mind and the brain are two different substances with the mind being "immaterial" or "non-material" - a valid manner in which to address consciousness or any mysteries relating to it.

to show the reasons why i think it's bad metaphysics i'll use analogous reasoning to make a case for my newly made up "mystic essence".. for hundreds of years scientists have studied plants and animals all across the world.

but they still can't explain where ecosystems come from.

Coded Logic

SBF,

I'm really not sure why you're bringing up reductionism. Especially when my OP specifically addressed emergent properties. It's the complete opposite of reductionism. In order to understand any complex system we have to be aware that there may be properties of the whole which do not exist as properties of the parts.

Materialism isn't just what things are made up of either. Its also how things behave in a system. How things interact. How things change over time.

Identity is transient. Who I was ten years ago is not who I am now. And who I am now is not who I will be in ten years from now. Things never stay the same. This is one of the fundamentals of physical reality. It's really odd how you consistently try and pigeonhole materialism into static or isolated explanations. It's the complete opposite.

Brain states can be compared to other brain states. Just as ideas can be compared to other ideas. And just because you can use "personhood" to describe one particular aspect of a human and "physicality" to describe another doesn't mean those two descriptors aren't compatible or related.

58

Mind Body Dualism

by Coded Logic in

i've never found dualism - the idea that the mind and the brain are two different substances with the mind being "immaterial" or "non-material" - a valid manner in which to address consciousness or any mysteries relating to it.

to show the reasons why i think it's bad metaphysics i'll use analogous reasoning to make a case for my newly made up "mystic essence".. for hundreds of years scientists have studied plants and animals all across the world.

but they still can't explain where ecosystems come from.

Coded Logic

Crofty is correct. My position is not "materialism is all there is". Rather, my position is the sum total of physical reality is what we're currently justified in believing. Anything beyond that has yet to be established and can't be used as an explanation for anything else.

58

Mind Body Dualism

by Coded Logic in

i've never found dualism - the idea that the mind and the brain are two different substances with the mind being "immaterial" or "non-material" - a valid manner in which to address consciousness or any mysteries relating to it.

to show the reasons why i think it's bad metaphysics i'll use analogous reasoning to make a case for my newly made up "mystic essence".. for hundreds of years scientists have studied plants and animals all across the world.

but they still can't explain where ecosystems come from.

Coded Logic

The idea that "nothing exists except matter" does not itself consist of matter.

Are you putting forth the position that ideas are not made of matter? If so, can you give me an example of an idea existing without a physical medium (brains, books, hard drives, etc.)?

58

Mind Body Dualism

by Coded Logic in

i've never found dualism - the idea that the mind and the brain are two different substances with the mind being "immaterial" or "non-material" - a valid manner in which to address consciousness or any mysteries relating to it.

to show the reasons why i think it's bad metaphysics i'll use analogous reasoning to make a case for my newly made up "mystic essence".. for hundreds of years scientists have studied plants and animals all across the world.

but they still can't explain where ecosystems come from.

Coded Logic

I've never found Dualism - the idea that the mind and the brain are two different substances with the mind being "immaterial" or "non-material" - a valid manner in which to address consciousness or any mysteries relating to it. To show the reasons why I think it's bad metaphysics I'll use analogous reasoning to make a case for my newly made up "mystic essence".

For hundreds of years scientists have studied plants and animals all across the world. But they still can't explain where ecosystems come from. They don't even know what ecosystems are. And there are several immaterial properties that ecosystems have that cannot be explained by the biology of plants and animals. For example; cooperation, coordination, interdependence and decomposition. A material world view cannot account for the existence of any of these things nor can it explain ecosystems so the best explanation is Mystic Essence.

I suppose anyone reading this will intuitively understand my argument is absurd. But let's take a moment and explore why it's absurd.

While the first sentence is certainly true the second one is not. We actually do know where ecosystems come from. They come from the interactions of plants and animals within an environment. The same is true of consciousness - we do know where it comes from. It comes from the electrochemical reactions of a physical brain.

The third sentence is also not true. We actually do know what ecosystems are. They are an emergent hierarchy of complex biological systems becoming more than the sum of any of their organisms. The same is true of consciousness. The whole brain has properties which none of it's individual neurons of pathways do.

The fourth and fifth sentence make the category error of claiming cooperation, coordination, interdependence and decomposition are immaterial - which they're not. They're conceptual. There's a huge difference. The same category error is often made when talking about thoughts, feelings, and reason.

And the last sentence is just an empty claim. It in no way explains how Mystic Essence can account for ecosystems nor does it show that Mystic Essence actually exists. The same is true of of those who try to use an "immaterial soul" to explain consciousness. It's not an explanation nor is it something that's been shown to exist. It's just a vacuous placeholder instead of a real answer.