How God can create through evolution:

[Audie]

I have, please explain how the physical body accounts for consciousness in any way and you'd have solved a centuries old problem (i.e., the mind-body problem).

What is consciousness?

Behaviourism which has largely dominated psychology the last century, would have us believe when push comes to shove that animals (cows, pigs, chickens and mice) and humans merely respond to stimuli. Consciousness is an emergent property, epiphenomenal in relation, and ought to be ignored to instead focusing upon observable behaviours and physical properties.

After all, "we all know" if you can't see it, someone's consciousness, then it doesn't really exist right?

Dont you suppose neurophysiologists are a little bertter than that?

What you talking about?

What, or where? I think I have went over your head again.

[hughfarey]

Do you see clearly now, how the distinctive difference between physical and mental states or properties, the existence of self-presenting properties and subjective states of experience, is a strong argument against any kind of physical reductionism i.e., reducing mind to mere physical matter?

No, I don't. It is an opinion, and since it reflects common experience, it is a commonly held opinion, and it may be correct, but there is insufficient evidence to call it a strong argument.
I find some of your comment a little confusing. After quoting Hinrichs and mentioning how physical actions can result in a specific mental experience, you say: "Some like yourself consider this evidence that mental states are reducible to physical states, yet this only demonstrates that the mind is causally connected to the brain and not that they are identical." This is a bit of a contradiction. Nobody considers the mind and the brain identical in definition, but I do think the mind is an emergent property of the brain, and therefore "causally connected" to it. As such, the mind is not independent of the brain, any more than movement is independent of muscles, but that is not to say that they are identical. Abstract qualities are indeed different from their physical causes, but that does not mean that you can have one without the other.

I don't understand how the difference between two perceptions, such as red and green, or the tastes of beer and milk, demonstrate the independence of mind, and I don't think the quote from Graham is evidence that they are. The term "self-presenting property" doesn't mean anything. The tomato presents its redness? The mind finds redness independent of the tomato? The lightwaves from the tomato stimulate nerves in the brain which actuate a sensation of redness? All these I see reducible to physical terms. And how, precisely, might one define redness in such a way that a sufficiently complex machine could not experience it?

Then this: "Our mental states “incorrigible,” that is, in a way we cannot mistake. If one sees Graham’s ripe, red tomato, it seems impossible for them to be mistaken that they are consciously experiencing a red sensation. Right?" Well, no; wrong, as common experience shows. Constructing false realities from sensations are commonplace, from optical illusions, magic tricks, simply misidentifications, failure of memories and so on. Our mental states are constructs of our neurons, dependent on our experiences, not at all incorrigible and frequently mistaken.

It's true isn't it, that the actual object of experience is categorically something that can't be explained in physical terms?"

Well, that's what we're trying to find out. I don't think it is as necessarily or self-evidently true as you do.

[Kurieuo]

Then this: "Our mental states “incorrigible,” that is, in a way we cannot mistake. If one sees Graham’s ripe, red tomato, it seems impossible for them to be mistaken that they are consciously experiencing a red sensation. Right?" Well, no; wrong, as common experience shows. Constructing false realities from sensations are commonplace, from optical illusions, magic tricks, simply misidentifications, failure of memories and so on. Our mental states are constructs of our neurons, dependent on our experiences, not at all incorrigible and frequently mistaken.

I think you are confused about what I said Hugh.

Question: what do "sensations" feel like if they're not being felt by the person?

A person might be wrong of the reality described by their experiences, but this missing the point completely of the actual sensations receive to a conscious being, such is what is meant by "self presenting properties." The qualia being directly experienced by a person, not external realities behind such.

[hughfarey]

I think you are confused about what I said Hugh.

Almost certainly! It's very difficult to define quantities here. However,....

Question: what do "sensations" feel like if they're not being felt by the person?

.... doesn't make things much clearer. Sensations are what people feel. If they're not being felt by a person, they're not being felt at all. We're wandering off into the old 'sound of one hand clapping' semantic confusion here.

A person might be wrong of the reality described by their experiences, but this missing the point completely of the actual sensations receive to a conscious being, such is what is meant by "self presenting properties." The qualia being directly experienced by a person, not external realities behind such.

I still don't know what is really meant by 'self presenting properties'. It sounds something like 'experiences peculiar to an individual', but I may be wrong. However, I still have no self-evident reason to suppose that these experiences are somehow so separate from neurological function as to constitute part of an extra-evolutionary creation.

[crochet1949]

I'm trying to make sense of some of your conversation as of these past few posts. The question has been 'how can God create through evolution' and then the human consciousness -- what makes us uniquely human. And then the 'mind / brain'. But are they not the Same thing? "The mind being an emergent property of the brain" ?? How earthly can a mind emerge from a brain. A brain is a brain / extremely complex to be sure. A person thinks with their brain / their mind. If a person doesn't have a mind, they can't think. Or is that too simplistic.


People have the ability to learn numerous languages and the written word. We can invent. We go to schools, colleges, universities, etc. Ya just Don't see any of the animal kingdom doing that.

[abelcainsbrother]

I'm trying to make sense of some of your conversation as of these past few posts. The question has been 'how can God create through evolution' and then the human consciousness -- what makes us uniquely human. And then the 'mind / brain'. But are they not the Same thing? "The mind being an emergent property of the brain" ?? How earthly can a mind emerge from a brain. A brain is a brain / extremely complex to be sure. A person thinks with their brain / their mind. If a person doesn't have a mind, they can't think. Or is that too simplistic.


People have the ability to learn numerous languages and the written word. We can invent. We go to schools, colleges, universities, etc. Ya just Don't see any of the animal kingdom doing that.

Cheap Birds. For you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QepdndO-01o

[crochet1949]

acb -- all I got when I clicked in was a very green screen and a song being sung by a guy which wasn't very understandable.

[hughfarey]

I'm trying to make sense of some of your conversation as of these past few posts. The question has been 'how can God create through evolution' and then the human consciousness -- what makes us uniquely human. And then the 'mind / brain'. But are they not the Same thing? "The mind being an emergent property of the brain" ?? How earthly can a mind emerge from a brain. A brain is a brain / extremely complex to be sure. A person thinks with their brain / their mind. If a person doesn't have a mind, they can't think. Or is that too simplistic. People have the ability to learn numerous languages and the written word. We can invent. We go to schools, colleges, universities, etc. Ya just Don't see any of the animal kingdom doing that.

Yes, Crotchet, it is a bit complicated. The question is whether the human mind, its thoughts, emotions, memories, decisions and so on, is directly attributable to the workings of the brain - a lump of cells all fizzing with electric impulses, or whether it must have been separately created. No, the mind and the brain are certainly not the same thing. The brain is the basis of mental activity, some of which seems to be common to other animals. It is true that many human activities are not paralleled by animals, but then many others are, and it is quite difficult to pinpoint the exact difference between them.

[Kurieuo]

Hugh, I think perhaps I took a wrong approach, like walked into the room that is this discussion and just rudely changed the channel. And, perhaps I wasn't very clear at that, although the gist appears definitely understood.

To work with more where you're at, just wondering as a Christian where you place our spiritual side? Clearly, you can't be a pure physicalist given your Christian beliefs. So what you see the immaterial side to us, or perhaps us, as comprising?

[crochet1949]

Isn't that like the heart of a person // the physical heart that beats And the heart -soul- of a person.

[hughfarey]

Hugh, I think perhaps I took a wrong approach, like walked into the room that is this discussion and just rudely changed the channel. And, perhaps I wasn't very clear at that, although the gist appears definitely understood.

To work with more where you're at, just wondering as a Christian where you place our spiritual side? Clearly, you can't be a pure physicalist given your Christian beliefs. So what you see the immaterial side to us, or perhaps us, as comprising?

Now you're onto something, but the truth is, my grasp of the metaphysical is a great deal less secure than my grasp of the physical. I am happy to believe in an utterly rational universe on the basis of observation, but admit, with many scientists, and, I think, yourself, that the reason there is a universe at all is not satisfactorily explained scientifically, nor why ours seems so rationally constructed. There is a philosophical question concerning what may (or may not) lie outside science, which is not amenable to scientific reason, although it may have an overlying rationality of its own.

[RickD]

Hugh, I think perhaps I took a wrong approach, like walked into the room that is this discussion and just rudely changed the channel. And, perhaps I wasn't very clear at that, although the gist appears definitely understood.

To work with more where you're at, just wondering as a Christian where you place our spiritual side? Clearly, you can't be a pure physicalist given your Christian beliefs. So what you see the immaterial side to us, or perhaps us, as comprising?

Now you're onto something, but the truth is, my grasp of the metaphysical is a great deal less secure than my grasp of the physical. I am happy to believe in an utterly rational universe on the basis of observation, but admit, with many scientists, and, I think, yourself, that the reason there is a universe at all is not satisfactorily explained scientifically, nor why ours seems so rationally constructed. There is a philosophical question concerning what may (or may not) lie outside science, which is not amenable to scientific reason, although it may have an overlying rationality of its own.

Good. Now tell that to Audie please.

[neo-x]

To the original question in the title, God doesn't need to create if he places the laws of nature as they are, the rest will simply follow.

But I don't think it can be squared completely with the Genesis story. Somethings would clash. The text simply doesn't allow any kind of alternative except what is written.

I think God chose Adam and eve specifically out of the rest, as to why or how I have no clue. But again, the biblical account is quite adamant that the first human was Adam. Then how do you define human is what really sets the argument.

[Audie]

To the original question in the title, God doesn't need to create if he places the laws of nature as they are, the rest will simply follow.

But I don't think it can be squared completely with the Genesis story. Somethings would clash. The text simply doesn't allow any kind of alternative except what is written.

I think God chose Adam and eve specifically out of the rest, as to why or how I have no clue. But again, the biblical account is quite adamant that the first human was Adam. Then how do you define human is what really sets the argument.

In some book. there is a definition of sorts. It speaks of "opening an ornate Japanese box, to find a mummified hand holding the hilt of a samurai sword, broken off close. So tiny and shriveled, it looked like a monkey's paw. But no, if it is holding a sword, it is human."

[neo-x]

To the original question in the title, God doesn't need to create if he places the laws of nature as they are, the rest will simply follow.

But I don't think it can be squared completely with the Genesis story. Somethings would clash. The text simply doesn't allow any kind of alternative except what is written.

I think God chose Adam and eve specifically out of the rest, as to why or how I have no clue. But again, the biblical account is quite adamant that the first human was Adam. Then how do you define human is what really sets the argument.

In some book. there is a definition of sorts. It speaks of "opening an ornate Japanese box, to find a mummified hand holding the hilt of a samurai sword, broken off close. So tiny and shriveled, it looked like a monkey's paw. But no, if it is holding a sword, it is human."

Thus my position on the story.