Calling Cofty and others regarding evolution

by dubstepped 340 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  hothabanero

  BTW. here is an example of your shoddy and partial reading of the source. DIRECTLY before the section you quoted is this:

  Panpsychism doesn’t necessarily imply that every inanimate object is conscious. “Panpsychists usually don’t take tables and other artifacts to be conscious as a whole,” writes Hedda Hassel Mørch, a philosophy researcher at New York University’s Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness, in an email

  but nooo you cannot have that. so you seek out the view you like to bash in the article and proceed to bash it, even though it wasn't the point of the article which I brought up.

  
  
• 

  hothabanero

  It appears that you can only tolerate 'panpsychism lite'.

  lol, it appears you can only tolerate strawpanpsychism!

  Stick to the science and not what I can/cannot tolerate.
• 

  cofty

  There are different views about panpsychism. Some seriously suggest that rocks and chairs are conscious. That is not a strawman or an exaggeration. If you think that this version of panpsychism is bullshit then you are at opposition with leading voices in the movement.

  Others posit that only complex aggregates of materials have conscious experience.

  All of it is unscientific, untestable and unfalsifiable.
• 

  hothabanero

  There are different views about panpsychism. Some seriously suggest that rocks and chairs are conscious.

  thats cool bro. care about discussion the view I brought up a few pages ago?

  That is not a strawman or an exaggeration.

  nah. but it is seeking out the weakest version of the argument you can find and run with your favorite tagline. Me? I prefer to keep and open mind and always seek out the strongest form of an argument.

  If you think that this version of panpsychism is bullshit

  you know, there is a spectrum between "bullshit" and "the purest form of gospel". Me? I keep an open mind and don't dismiss ideas I haven't studied carefully, for instance I haven't read articles about this Chalmer guy. Anyway I didn't bring up his ideas you did...

  All of it is unscientific, untestable and unfalsifiable.

  Cool! we are back to the science. According to the scientists, the integrated information theory is leads to testable predictions. you are saying they are wrong? care to elaborate?
  
  
• 

  truthseeker

  Cofty,

  What are your opinions on this article?
  
  More than 1,000 scientists sign ‘dissent from Darwinism’ statement

  “A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism” is a simple, 32-word statement that reads: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

  https://www.thecollegefix.com/more-than-1000-scientists-sign-dissent-from-darwinism-statement/
• 

  cofty

  Finding 1,000 doctors and engineers who are willing to resort to the 'god-of-the-gaps' is unremarkable. I'm surprised the Discovery Institute hasn't been able to find 10,000.
• 

  slimboyfat

  Will be interesting to see how your comments here date as panpsychism gains momentum.

  And it is an exaggeration to say pansychists believe rocks are conscious. Unless you consider insects “conscious” for example. What panpsychists argue is that awareness is fundamental to all matter so that it varies in degree across a spectrum from human consciousness down to other animals, and whatever experience invertebrates have, down to plants, rocks and other objects, which may have very low levels of awareness.

  There may be little or no empirical evidence for panpsychism. But then, there is also little or no empirical evidence that can be offered for the common materialist conception of the world either. These are philosophical conceptions for making sense of the world and how it works. Materialism is just the common sense, or taken for granted assumption commonly made about reality in our particular historical circumstances, and therefore highly susceptible to revision.
• 

  cofty

  You cry foul when I say that panpsychism claims that rocks are conscious but you then assert that rocks have 'awareness'.

  From past experience you refuse to define 'awareness'.

  This is how you play tennis without a net.

  there is also little or no empirical evidence that can be offered for the common materialist conception of the world either.

  Apart from absolutely everything that has been discovered since the Enlightenment.

  Methodological naturalism works. Consistently. With astonishing results.
  
  
• 

  slimboyfat

  Consciousness tends to be a word we use for humans and a few other animals that display some similar patterns of thought.

  Awareness on the other hand is much broader and is applied to creatures that appear to behave on instinct and don’t seem to reflect. Like I said above, ants and spiders, for example are commonly thought to be “aware” in some reduced sense, but not conscious as such.

  So pansychists tend to attribute a low level sense of awareness to all matter, far beneath the level we would describe as conscious.

  How does methodological naturalism offer evidence against the idea that awareness is fundamental to matter?
• 

  cofty

  I didn't ask for a definition of consciousness, I said that on previous occasions you have declined to define 'awareness'. Still waiting.

  Rocks are 'aware'? And you can say that with a straight face?

  How does methodological naturalism offer evidence against the idea that awareness is fundamental to matter?

  It can't because it is 'not even wrong'. The burden of proof is all yours. 'That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.' - Christopher Hitchens

  Methodological naturalism works.