Eh? I’m saying neither of us can give the ratio that is being demanded.
What I want is to know if my thoughts are my own! If they are completely caused by motions of atoms, they aren’t. This is not wish-fulfilment, nor am I claiming my desires create a foundation for reason.
Actually, I do as a Christian have a basis for trusting God’s reasoning, if God is knowable, as Christians believe he is (in Scripture, in nature, in a relationship with him), that is how you develop trust and confidence in a person, in God, who I believe is personal. For starters, it seems he’s super smart! “A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.” (Fred Hoyle)
And I repeatedly have agreed that our reason is fallible! But how that completely invalidates it if you argue for a source in God is beyond me.
Well, exactly, that’s what I’m saying people do.
But this doesn’t address what I said, sure, people apologize, and feel regret that someone was hurt, even if they claim they weren’t the actual source of the deed, and then they also take refuge in an explanation that points to an irrational cause of what they did. This is what you need to address. People do this to me here! And claim that the statements I make are because I am committed to theism, or intelligent design, and so on. They claim my statements are not really my own, they are caused or come from other sources, such as stuff I’ve been taught, or read without processing, etc. So my thoughts can be disregarded, for that reason.
But everyone who believes in mind doesn’t believe our minds are disembodied. I hope this addresses your point, which is somewhat unclear to me.
I do still believe the Bible is authoritative, in matters of fact, for example, I hear that archaeologists go first to the Bible now, when they try and find a site. That wasn’t the case, not long ago. But as far as adding up genealogy dates, someone pointed out to me, and it’s evident in the genealogy of Matthew, for example, very plainly, that Jewish genealogies often contained gaps. So just toting up the years is not a way to arrive at a date of creation.
So I evaluate evidence for my beliefs, and I’m willing to adjust accordingly when further evidence is made known to me. I would hope Bishop Ussher would do the same…
You chose to make or imply the statement that a reasoning apparatus whose primary function is to aid in survival ought be expected to provide its user with decidedly incorrect information about the world it finds itself in. That you cannot present any argument in support of this assertion is not a flaw with anyone’s demands, it’s a flaw with you being ill-equipped to even spew this clichéed rhetoric.
Well, the sort you paraphrase out of bad apologetic texts aren’t, if you allow me this much jest. But in response to what you actually mean, yes, they are.
It’s not that they are “caused by” motions of atoms so much as they are motions of atoms (in a broad enough sense, where motion can be not only a change in location but in state more broadly). Why should this mean that they are not your own? Are you something other than your mental activity? One could maybe argue over whether or not you are your body, but surely your mind is you, is it not?
This has nothing to do with the justification or justifiability of reason, by the way.
People would not waste their time with you at all, if they actually did not think you were in any way accountable for the things you say. Yes, you repeat rhetoric, often without having spent notable effort understanding or criticizing it. But it is still you doing that. Nobody is blaming the authors of the things you quote for you bringing them here.
It does not. Feel free to ask clarifying questions. I do not know how embodied-ness has anything at all to do with physical-ness. So as much as my point is a mystery to you, how you think this is even an attempt at addressing it, is a mystery to me.
Clearly, you don’t. You just weigh up levels of trust. The Bible (a.k.a. someone’s say-so) is authoritative, but also someone else may say something, and maybe that’ll sway you. It’s not about the facts itself, when it comes to facts about nature. It’s about trust, character, vibes, authority… not evidence, certainly not of the scientific sort.
It is also amusing to me that the reason you cite for not believing Ussher’s estimate of the age of the earth is that (someone pointed out) that genealogies may not be reported in the Bible quite the way we would note them down these days in our own calendars. In principle, is what I’m hearing, if only James Ussher had known what we do now about Jewish genealogies, he would have arrived at a correct estimate of the age of the earth. His error was almost a clerical one, but sitting in an arm chair, sliding abacus pegs back and forth based on scriptural claims is a way to find at least this fact about the earth. Spending any time whatsoever measuring the rates of various geologic processes, putting in any actual work into studying nature, all that is a waste of effort. Especially when it implies numbers far outside the range the authoritative book would yield. Do you see yet why some users here feel like you have no care for evidence, and no respect for the scientific process?
Well, Matthew didn’t write Matthew, Mark didn’t write Mark, Luke didn’t write Luke, and John didn’t write John. Why, Trump didn’t even write The Art of the Deal. So it’s not entirely weird to suppose that Caesar didn’t write De Bello Gallico.
Another point: just now I’m doing the Sunday crossword in the Washington Post, and one clue was “Gallic war commander”, 6 letters starting with C. Coincidence or divine action?
And in the context of science, Lee isn’t looking for any keys at all (that would be examining evidence), while parroting the opinions of others about where his keys might be and ignoring his friendly neighbor who has already found at least some of them.
Since you can’t give me a ratio I have no reason to accept your argument.
No, the argument you began with is about the reliability of reason. Reasoning. The capacity to think logically and rationally and make valid inferences. Not whether the senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch etc.) are reliable. Though my counter-argument applies equally to the reliability of the senses.
Simply put, if we evolved we would expect sensory input to reflect reality, otherwise there is no reason for senses to evolve in the first place. In so far as they function at all it must be to inform the organism about the reality that surrounds it. There is zero reason to think a systematic mismatch between sensory input and the reality of our surroundings should be thought more likely to promote survival than a more correct match.
It would be really weird if a bus was driving straight into you and your senses instead told you that a big juicy burger, or an aroused and willing mate, was in front of you instead, and this somehow still ended up promoting survival. Or that, to get you out of the way, your senses transformed the light reflected off the incoming bus into that of a nice little butterfly flapping about. Or perhaps even worse, just fed you incomprehensible visual noise and this still somehow magically was more likely to promote survival than the actual impression of an oncoming bus.
I’m sorry but none of these “evolution cares about survival not truth” arguments really work when it comes down to it since we have no reason to think falsehoods would better tend to correlate with survival than truth.
See, we’re back to reasoning again. Why do you so consistently lose track of the discussion? Your thinking on all these topics seems muddled.
If this is turning into an argument about solipsism then I’m sorry to have to inform you that theism doesn’t solve it.
I’ve successfully argued why, and you have no counter-argument. By your own admission both Darwin and Haldane were not infallible since you presumably disagree with their conclusion about the fact of evolution. So all i need to argue here is that it seems both of us think Darwin and Haldane were wrong about some things, we just disagree on what exactly that was.
You’re confused. I am explaining how we come to the conclusion that another person is an unreliable witness to the state of affairs. We do this by comparison of their claims to our own experiences. It doesn’t matter that the person was tired if they still reasoned correctly. The explanation for why a person makes errors in reasoning is irrelevant to how we first establish their unreliability. That they are unreliable because they are tired is irrelevant. My position isn’t that human reasoning abilities are flawless or can’t be altered in a way where it becomes prone to make mistakes. The fact that human beings can make errors in reasoning is an argument for my position, not against it. If our being designed is supposed to provide a reason for thinking we can reason reliably, it is all the more mysterious why we even can make errors.
Yes, we do. That is in fact how we establish that he is delirious. If we look around us and found the place full of snakes we wouldn’t call him delirious. Your counter-argument simply implicitly assumes that it is obvious we are not surrounded by snakes. The unstated premise is you have looked and found it obvious that snakes aren’t everywhere. LMAO.
Are you an apologist? Have you been trained to give these abysmal responses?
I don’t.
Maybe no-one ever explicitly claimed this, but why not? What is the reason for why thinking takes time, and multiplying tasks degrades cognitive performance just as if you have limited hardware to devote to processing information and the signals travel at finite speeds, if in fact the hardware isn’t material and the information doesn’t have to cross any physical distance? Why are we so obviously limited in exactly the way we should expect of a biology-based computer?
Basically every time I meet a person I end up concluding is out of his mind, it conclude this because the person makes statements that conflict strongly with my own direct experiences. As explained above, this is just implicit in your snakes hypothetical. That you are not having the experience of being surrounded by snakes. It is only because this is assumed as the state of affairs for your experience of the world that the man who claim snakes are everywhere appears delirious. Had you walked into the room and found it full of snakes, then went to the corner where a man sat claiming the room was full of snakes you’d simply agree with him.
But you acknowledge later on that more mutations result in more degradation of function, which I agree is fairly self-evident.
But I think Axe’s argument is different, the wt enzyme is farther from functional collapse, not as close to it as the partially disabled enzyme he starts with. So then to remove the buffering effect, the wt enzyme is partially disabled.
But I think this again is fairly self-evident, and also Axe gives details about this decision in his paper: “If we intend to assess constraints by assessing the proportion of randomized variants that pass selection, we must ensure that any significant deterioration upon randomization will prevent passing. So, to assess the minimal constraints for proper enzyme function, the approach should be first to obtain an extensively degraded reference sequence that just passes a low selection threshold (Figure 2b, left) and then to subject locally randomized variants of that sequence to selection at the same threshold (Figure 2b, right). Because the reference sequence has virtually no capacity to buffer the effects of further disruption, the quality of side-chain interactions within the randomized region must be maintained in order for a variant to pass.”
So degradation until the variant just passes a threshold was done, with real enzymes in the lab, so this was done experimentally, it was part of his procedure.
I think this is stated more clearly in his paper, that this was done to reduce the buffering effect, as mentioned previously.
Axe explains further, in his paper, after removing the buffering effect: “By performing several such experiments at various locations in the structure, it should therefore be possible to estimate the fraction of side-chain specifications providing interactions that are just sufficiently favourable to support low-level enzyme function.”
That was not my point, though, instead I was stating that naturalists believe our thoughts are due completely and solely to the movement of atoms, of unreasoning and irrational atoms in our brain. So the objection should be made to them.
No, I think we need a reasoning cause for our reason, I’m not postulating a soul at this point.
No, again, I’m not speculating about the metaphysical makeup of human beings.
Well, this was a comment made in passing in a video I watched recently, I should keep notes on videos I watch. But I did get this from AI in a search I did on “archaeologists go first to the Bible now”: “Archaeologists are increasingly focusing on biblical sites and texts to gain a deeper understanding of the ancient world and its religious practices. This trend is evident in the numerous archaeological discoveries that have been made in 2025, which have provided new insights into the biblical narrative and its historical context.”
Now apparently, I need to venture into the metaphysical makeup of humans! Here is a video where neurosurgeon Michal Egnor talks about evidence for the soul, how the brain doesn’t seem to be the sole source of all our thoughts. He could produce some thoughts by brain stimulation, but not others. And I have a body, I am a soul, near-death experiences being evidence for this.
Atoms may be unreasoning, but they aren’t irrational. And you give no reason why unreasoning atoms can’t give rise to reasoned thoughts, unless you propose that anything made of atoms must have the same properties as the atoms. “Naturalists” (and you really shouldn’t use that word; look up the actual definition) don’t propose that every thought is irrationally caused. That’s your strawman. What most scientists would propose is that every thought is a result of brain activity, and of course the brain is composed of atoms. Why are they wrong?
Here you confuse the cause of the existence of a mind (God or evolution being the prime candidates) with the composition of the mind that results in thought (atoms or, one gathers from your claims, something else). You claim here to be talking about the former, but the mention of atoms is a reference to the latter. Let’s just use “soul” as a placeholder for whatever it is you think is responsible for generating rational thought that isn’t atoms in the brain.
Then what was all that about atoms?
You brought it up, whether you understand that or not, by denying that our thoughts are caused by “motions of atoms”. And a bit of advice: if you want any respect here, don’t cite Michael Egnor in support of anything. I will also note that you didn’t actually reply to any of my questions, nor is anything Egnor did such a reply. You really have trouble telling what’s relevant and what isn’t. Perhaps if you slowed down a bit and thought about what the questions were and what they meant?
How did I say or imply this, though? I’m saying neither of us on either side of the issue can provide numbers that prove our point. That’s it.
Well, if my thoughts are the motions of atoms, that would be essentially the same as saying the motion of atoms cause my thoughts. If you say the former, people will think you also mean the latter. When people start saying “my brain atoms” instead of “my thoughts”, then I think your point will be more convincing.
I think in your view you should have said “brain”, not “mind”! And see my response to John Harshman, with a video from a neuroscientist about evidence for the soul.
Sure, it does, if my thoughts are just motions of atoms, just physics at work, ultimately, then I see no reason to believe they are also independent acts of reasoning, like people think they are doing when they reason and think.
I’m saying people dismiss what I say, for that reason, at times. I’m glad when people don’t do that, of course.
Actually, I do look at scientific facts, what scientists have deduced about the age of the earth being one of them, in regard to this question.
But that is not my view.
And here we have an example of what I mentioned previously, you are rejecting my statements, because you think you have detected their cause, an authoritative book, which you claim is not a rational approach, you detect a nonrational cause, so you dismiss what I say. See, people do this, you do this yourself.
Oops, another instance of what Gisteron was saying people here don’t do. You are saying my arguments are based on a preconceived conclusion, they are due to a nonrational cause, and so you reject them. Just my point throughout, people do recognize and apply this principle to thoughts.
Ditto. And my point has gone unaddressed, people don’t always abandon a search because there are many possibilities.
I have no confidence in AI slop responses. I’ll take this as an unsubstantiated claim that likely has no basis.
edited to add:
It’s also funny how if I put the same search into Google, its AI responds accordingly:
No, professional archaeologists do not start their work with the Bible as a primary, unquestioned guide.
In modern archaeological practice, the Bible is treated as one of many historical texts that can provide context or clues, not an infallible blueprint for excavation. The methodology has evolved significantly since the early 20th century, when some religiously motivated archaeologists would literally use the Bible as a field guide.
Again, backwards. He’s noticing that your arguments are bad, and seeking an explanation for that observation. The explanation explains your behavior quite well. It explains, for example, why you believe almost nothing Darwin said except for the little bits that you already believed, and it explains why you believe almost everything Bechly said except for the little bits that you already didn’t believe.
Ditto, this shoe fits on your foot, too, was my point.
I agree with you about the probable validity of sensory perceptions.
And I’m sorry, but “It works well enough for me” is not a good, fundamental basis for trusting the validity of our reasoning.
No, I’m not arguing for something like solipsism.
I have made counter-arguments, actually. And no human is infallible! So we may reject all human reasoning, as inconclusive, we shouldn’t look at what others think, to help us decide anything?
But I’m not talking about evaluating what other people say, I’m pointing to the fact that people do point to irrational causes, for unjustifiable behavior. It’s another application of the principle that we should reject behavior, statements that arguable come from a cause that is outside a person’s considered initiative, a cause that is not reasoning.
I’ve responded to this, I can think of a number of reasons, for one, omniscience may well be required for infallible reasoning, for another, it’s salutary for us to be needy, and ask for help when we need it, to not be omnipotent.
Certainly, unless we know he has been drinking, and is prone to delirium. Or if we looked, and there are no snakes, then we mark up his claims to delirium, to a nonreasoning cause, and stop looking. Why do you keep arguing that we don’t do this?!
Well, the only reason I can think of for you giving this reply is if you consider your reasoning perfect and uncompromisable!
Because of thoughts of brain-dead people who have near-death experiences? For one.
But I was talking about someone who is definitely in delirium. You may have needed to examine the room to deduce this, but for whatever reason, we may conclude delirium, now do you still look for snakes whenever the claim is made that they are there?
Because that’s a reductionist view of thought. It takes out agency, which is what most people think they do when they think. Materialists (is that better than naturalists?) say this is an illusion.
Then there are NDEs, where people are aware of their surroundings, they have thoughts, even when they are brain-dead.
Then there is the point that John Lennox reports that no scientist he has interviewed about this, has said they would trust their laptop in the lab, if they knew it was the result of a mindless, unguided process. But they trust their brains! Which they claim is the result of just such a process. Other points could be made, I’ve made them, but I’ll stop here.
My claim actually is that the problem occurs in two places, in the development of the brain, and in its current operation. I’ll try and do better to keep the two distinguished.
But how is Egnor’s experience in brain stimulation irrelevant? He says he hasn’t been able to cause various sorts of thoughts, by stimulation.