If you reject the existence of the soul then you are an Animist? (page 6)

cofty

We also breath through the skin.

Utter nonsense.

correlation does not equal causation

I provided evidence for the obvious fact that consciousness is a function of the brain. As usual you simply ignore inconvenient facts.

Some animals in nature breathe through the skin! Anyhow I didn’t ignore inconvenient facts because I acknowledged in an earlier post that what happens to the brain has an effect on what the person whose brain it is experiences. It doesn’t prove however that whatever it is that experiences such things is in the brain itself. It seems however that you are ignoring my points.

Twitch

Your points are as fallacious as the OP and title itself

if one rejects the idea of a soul, they are not an animist (who believes everything has a soul or is conscious).

one needs a brain to process stuff; one cannot experience things without. where does the experience lie if not within the brain?

Apognophos

Let me highlight a piece from the OP, because I think you guys are missing his point:

However what I find fascinating is that the conscious mind, as seen merely as a brain and a machine that works according to defined laws of physics, much like any physical object does, albeit with differing levels of complexity, is deemed by materialists to have consciousness at all! Plants, rocks and brains are all the same in the sense that they are physical material, other than the complexity/organisation they contain. So to accept that brains create consciousness is in fact a form of animism. A merely organic like structure is said to have consciousness by materialists in effect, but this is virtually the same view that animism teaches.

It seemed to me that Seraphim23's point was that if consciousness is just a series of physical reactions in the brain, then all objects have some consciousness because all objects are physically reacting to forces around them. Where is the fallacy in that? All I see so far are defenses along the lines, "That word just doesn't mean that", "That's not what science says", but I haven't seen a single cogent counterpoint made, just knee-jerk reactions attempting to defend common assumptions.

The burden is on you guys to define "consciousness" in a way that allows the brain to be a special object without positing the existence of a spirit or other immaterial "transcendent" component to the brain (i.e., animism).

Viviane

Seraphim is trying to claim "not A = A" and thus far has failed to demonstrate that. The other tactic used is similar to the "what is spirit made of" question in that the claim is being made that since someone can't prove that there is not an invisible undetectable spirit or soul connected to your physical brain, it's a possibility and therefore if you deny that, it's on you to prove it.

It's a classic case of "you've got that exactly backwards", kind of like when Ihear people say "the Bible says spare the rod and spoil the child, that's why I don't spank". Seraphim has taken a concept, that of onus of evidence, and gotten it exactly backwards. The way is works is that you take observation and draw conclusions from them, such as "if the brain is damaged, in some cases it can affect consciousness, therefore all evidence points to consciousness being a physical aspect of the brain".

If we did it the other way, meaning if we entertained every possibility and put the onus to disprove on the skeptic, then Seraphim would in fact spend all of his time trying to disprove every alternate, evidence-free thing anyone said. For instance, I now claim that consciousness resides in minature invisible dragons that live in electron sized teapots orbiting Saturn and hiding in it's rings and that the consciousness is tethered do our brains by neutrinos colliding with our synapses via nano-sized wormholes. In Seraphim's model, the onus is on him/her to disprove that.

Viviane

It seemed to me that Seraphim23's point was that if consciousness is just a series of physical reactions in the brain, then all objects have some consciousness because all objects are physically reacting to forces around them. Where is the fallacy in that?

It's a version of the composition fallacy, taking a property of one thing and applying it to everything. For instance, atoms are invsible to the naked eye. I am made of atoms, therefore I am invisible.

It could also be considered a fallacy of the lonely fact (also known as the hasty generalization fallacy), the fact being that all objects don't brains, so the generalization doesn't apply because the fact is, we have brains, those other things don't.

The burden is on you guys to define "consciousness" in a way that allows the brain to be a special object without positing the existence of a spirit or other immaterial "transcendent" component to the brain (i.e., animism).

That is 100% incorrect. The fact is simply that rocks don't have anything that functions or resembles a brain and give no evidence of acting in a way that looks like or resembles consciousness at all. There is, in fact, no definition of consciousness is simply "existence" which is, when reduced down, what Seraphim's reasoning leads to, an attempt to create equivalence between consciousness and something simply existing.

Apognophos

What I'm getting at is that you are using words like "consciousness" with the assumption that they have a clear meaning. What is consciousness? Listing fallacies is not helpful. I could claim that you are making a circular logic fallacy when you say, "Non-brains do not have consciousness because consciousness is something only brains have."

Viviane

What I'm getting at is that you are using words like "consciousness" with the assumption that they have a clear meaning. What is consciousness?

Unless Seraphim means something other than the dictionary definition, we have to go with that.

con·scious·ness ˈkänCHəsnəs / noun noun: consciousness

the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings. " she failed to regain consciousness and died two days later "
- the awareness or perception of something by a person. plural noun: consciousnesses " her acute consciousness of Mike's presence "
- the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world. " consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain "

Listing fallacies is not helpful.

It's what you asked for. The question is now why did you ask for something not helpful.

I could claim that you are making a circular logic fallacy when you say, "Non-brains do not have consciousness because consciousness is something only brains have."

You could claim that, but since I never wrote anything like that, it would be an untrue claim.

So far, you seem to just have an issue that people are using the dictionary definition of consciousness and that you got exactly what you asked for. If Seraphim means something else, he/she is free to tell us and explain why and try to make the case for changing the definition.

jgnat

We distinguish quite clearly between the living and the inanimate. There are a few markers, like the ability to replicate. Rocks can't do that.

Sorry again, but this is not a clear distinction at all. There is no unanimous agreement on what life is, despite what we were taught in biology class. As I mentioned back here, there are a number of forms of quasi-life that blur the boundaries between ourselves and rocks. - Agnophos

I’m not actually making the argument that rocks are intelligent, just to clarify. - Seraphim

I took the time to describe a quality of classification special to the way we see our world, and also limited by language. I'll repeat for emphasis, even though I am sure only librarians and classifiers care about these things. We are very good at classifying at the macro level (a boot is an item of clothing, a bucket is not) but our ability to confidently classify breaks down when we get to finer and finer distinctions. We have viruses, for instance, that have some markers for life (they replicate) but are missing others (cannot live independently from a host).

We do have a good working definition for life, and we look for evidences of that. The ability to replicate is one of those markers. Yes, there are things that live in the fringes of this working definition, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Rocks don't replicate themselves. They are not conscious, they do not think. They are not animate. By working scientific definitions, they have no life. Working athiest scientists are not animists.

I've heard Seraphim use complexity as a marker but that is not a working definition for life. There are lots of highly complex but inanimate things around us.

Seraphim23

Viviane, people define words not dictionaries. Dictionaries simply list the definitions in common use which changes over time in many cases. Hence scientific dictionaries define many terms differently. Due to the fact that there is no scientific consensus on what creates consciousness as yet, caution must be applied in setting up its scientific definition. There is still debate on what gravity is in terms of whether it is a force or an affect! Thus more than one definition is often used, but both cannot be correct, hence more debate, science, discussion ect is often if not always needed. Comprehension is better than being hamstrung by definitions if science and understanding is to move forward.

Apognophos just for the record, you seemed to have summarised many of my points accurately and adroitly. Thank you for that!

If you reject the existence of the soul then you are an Animist?

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