Well, I do know the difference, and I pointed to a study in the Wikipedia article on NDEs that mentioned people reviving after loss of brain activity.
And here is another example of someone pointing to nonreasoning causes for statements, which can therefore be dismissed: Habermas and Moreland are speaking of something they know nothing about, the cause of their statements is unreasoning, so we can reject them. Also, I am blindly following what they say, because they are apologists, so the cause of me believing them is unreasoning, too. That’s two examples of this.
But did you read what they say? Did you read the evidence they give? Well, if not, then your statement does actually have a nonreasoning cause, and therefore I reasonably can reject it.
I really didn’t think anyone would step up to this. Surely people don’t think that choices they made in the past were not free, because they remember them. But I agree that the same principle would apply to both, if future events are not free because somebody knows them, then the past should not be free, because we know it.
But I think it is the knowing part that people claim removes freedom. As in what you say, “if a being exists who knows the future right now…”. And I think knowing a future choice means “this choice will happen” is true right now, and that it will be a future fact, but I don’t see how you can go beyond this, and say the choice is a present fact, because you know it will be made in the future. Facts in this case refer to events, and events are tied to when they happen, not when we find out about them.
I have explained in detail what I mean, repeatedly and in different ways, people do insist on a reasoning cause for statements and reasoning that they are intended to accept, as in the man suspected of delirium, as in the mentally ill person insisting that everyone is out to get them, or people here stating that the cause for my statements is that I am stupid, or clinging blindly to my conclusions, or willing to believe what uninformed people say, and so on.
Or that I am actually not invested in the subject we are discussing! And I speak, and you can dismiss what I say, because it is caused by unreasoning causes, I have some insincere motivation. Another example…
Being motivated by apologetics is a reasoning cause. Your argument is not dismissed not due to its source or motivation, but because it is full of unwarranted leaps in logic and is not compelling.
One possibility: Determinism is not true even if physicalism is true. That is to say, Given a particular state of the universe and the natural laws, there is more than one path that the future could take. This is the position known as libertarianism (not to be confused with the political movement of the same name).
There are other options. This is a big subject.
From your comment, it seems you did not understand what I was saying. Here is the problem: If God created the universe and is all knowing, then he would know every single thing you are going to do before you do it. Moreover, he would have created the universe so that you would do those things, when he could have created it in any other way necessary to make you do something else instead.
So, if you believe God exists, and is omnsicient and omnipotent, then how is it possible you have free will?
Again, that seems to have nothing to do with what I wrote. You seem to have no idea what we are talking about.
Your argument requires and assumes that they are identical. But, then again, you seem unable to even understand your own arguments.
We don’t have to ignore those things. But ultimately, we will use a lap top if it works, and will use a dentist if he keeps our teeth healthy. We don’t need to know how either came about,
Our choices in the present cannot affect the past, because history is factual. If the future is factual enough for God to know it, then it, too, is fixed and cannot be affected by our choices in the present.
Yes, I understand. You think people are dumb. Good for you.
No, facts in this case refers to true statements about reality. If it is true right now, that Jim will eat a sandwich tomorrow morning, then it’s not something Jim has any say over. A true statement – if it is true in such strong a sense – cannot simply become false merely on Jim’s whim. This is independent of whether or not there exists a God or what it knows about Jim’s future. It’s a question of what exactly is temporal modality. If there can be a being that knows the future (i.e. has awareness of the truth of a statement concerning tomorrow morning), then it is necessarily the case that there is – not will be, but is, as in right now – a truth about the events tomorrow morning. And in that case, just like with the existence of truths regarding the past, there exist no distinct alternatives, and therefore no genuine choices between them.
As I mentioned, this is but one interpretation of the temporal mode, and but one variant of omniscience. As far as I know neither is widely held among scholars in philosophy or theology, but these very naive pictures are very common among the rest of us mere mortals.
Not really, no. You say people believe this or that, that “reason comes from reason”, apparently. Not any people you surveyed, mind, you just declare what they believe, as if they elected you to speak on their behalf, and then pretend like this assertion of belief amounts to an explanation of its contents, or even an argument for its plausibility. There is no substance here, nothing to actually respond to.
People here have a kind of blindness, where they conclude that what they think should be true, is actually true. I have spent pages and pages explaining my reasons for my conclusions, and trying to convince others. Where have I just restated my claim with zero argument? Where have I ignored what people said, without responding? I try and respond to every point people make here, with reasoning and examples, if it’s not just an insult. I even point out where people here do what I claim is evidence against the materialist view, they reject statements and reasoning when they see (or think they see) an unreasoning cause for them.
But that would only be a real concern if there were both in the world! But also, as a Christian I believe humans are not p-zombies, because God became one of us! And I can get good evidence for this claim, if I can get to know him. I think that’s a good approach.
That was the Turing Test, right? Which AI bots have supposedly passed, some consider ChatGPT a real friend. Alas. But again, I would answer as I did above, to your previous question.
So now it is appropriate for you to explain how what I said did not support what I concluded.
But I said, “to some degree”. This implies I don’t believe events are totally caused by prior events.
The brain is part of what we use when we think, or memorize, and so on. It’s used, but it’s also not indispensable, is my view. And I suppose it’s bigger because we do more with it. That’s not a hill I’ll going to die on, if we’re just going to pick the biggest brain, why then the blue whale ought to be the smartest creature on the planet…
So, in other words, you are not going to try and attempt answering the challenge. You are comfortable with making the claim that there are no p-zombies, and now that you have decided that this is true, there is no need to entertain the idea that it could be false or to devise a scheme that would help find out if it is.
Alright, carry on.
Not right.
So, not at all, then. Fine. Looking forward to reading you claim later that you explain your reasoning and do not ignore points of criticism.
Isn’t it convenient how we do not have a consistent definition of causation, so you can just make things up like partial causation and pretend like anyone, including yourself, has any clue what you are talking about? It’s almost like the whole concept is so squishy and vacuous as to almost entirely collapse into uselessness the instant any sort of scrutiny is applied to it.
Some thoughts on this, I know I used to have a problem with just following my desires, and it does seem people start out selfish, the first word is mama, the second word is dada, and the third word is “mine!” And serving our strongest desire is not freedom. And then C.S. Lewis remarks in Mere Christianity that virtue often directs us to choose against our desires, and this is problematic! Self can’t give up self, so we have a problem. So I do believe we need help outside ourselves, supernatural help, “I’m OK, you’re OK” on the self-help shelf is not going to do it. And God says he can give a new heart, it’s all through scripture, and I’ve seen him do it. So my conclusion would be that the sinner would indeed choose what their desires dictate, and the saint could go against the current, and make a choice for various reasons, like what Paul says, “So then, he who marries the virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does better” (1 Cor. 7:38) So there’s a choice! And the better choice is not the only choice.
No Lee, I do not reject their book [fail to accept their expertise on the subject] because of “unreason” – because that is a meaningless, vacuousbuzzword. I reject it because (i) its authors are ill-informed, and (ii) they have a strong apologetic axe to grind.
This does not however mean that their book is “unreasoning” – the reasoning behind it is blatantly clear – the authors are more interested in winning minds than is explicating reality. They regard NDE as an apologetic tool, not as a field worthy of study in its own rights.
Reason versus unreason is a false dichotomy. Reasoning comes with many levels and varieties of flaws:
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. – Harlan Ellison.
Logically valid reasoning that smuggles in ludicrously implausible assumptions – like Plantinga’s EAAN.
Hasty ‘rule of thumb’ reasoning heuristics – mental shortcuts that work most of the time, but can yield flawed results some of the time.
Etc, etc.
There are two answers to that:
How could I?
AFAIK, you never identified which book by Habermas and Moreland you were talking about. They’ve written at least two books about life after death together: Immortality: The Other Side of Death (1992) and Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality (2004).
Why would I?
I mentioned above ‘rule of thumb’ heuristics. There have been millions of books published since 1992. I cannot read all of them. Therefore, unless there is a strong reason for me to do so (and a passing mention by a sealioning creationist troll doesn’t count), as a ‘rule of thumb’, I exclude books by those not visibly well-informed on the topic they’re writing about. This reasoning is explicitly imperfect, but does help keep my reading-list down to manageable proportions.
What is certainly a claim of agency? And what is this jump you keep talking about?
If you don’t know how thoughts are produced, how can you say that a brain can’t have purpose, make plans, and carry them out?
Supposing that’s true, how does it solve the problem of agency? How did you make that jump?
But your sole justification for the inability of collections of atoms to think is that atoms can’t think. If you disagree, where are your reasons?
Ah, but the atoms and the brains are part of the supposed puppets. We aren’t attached to them by strings; we are them. The processes in our brains are what thinks, what experiences the thinking, all of that. That’s the “I”.
I examine whatever reasoning is exposed on the page. I’m doing it right now. My opinion of the cause of your reasoning is not relevant to that examination.
That’s a hypothesis. But it’s not why I reject your claims.
They do dismiss your reasoning, but that’s not why. As has been explained ever so many times.
What’s your basis for that claim? Have you actually read anything other than that one sentence?
It points out that talking about a soul doesn’t solve your problem at all. It just moves the problem to a different venue.
You claimed that out of body experiences involve vision, didn’t you? Where does that vision come from?
Exactly. That’s doing the work of eyes, isn’t it?
So your claim is that reasoning is different from reasoning. A brain could do reasoning, but only a soul can do reasoning. Got it.
Again, you are confusing those two entirely separate questions, how our minds came to be and how they operate. Your tornado thing is talking about the first, and yet you keep using it as some kind of argument about the second. Please stop. Can you at least try? I’ve asked this several times before.
Nor was that in any way a response to what I said.
The brain is not a puppeteer. The brain is the puppet, and the puppeteer doesn’t exist. It’s you. You have a strange model of how this works.
All over the place, including a few lines above in this very post.
Ah, so “pantheism” is another word you don’t know the definition of.
Correct. It’s a statement of what I think. You could present evidence that I”m wrong.
Depends on what “real agents” means. And so we get into a discussion of free will, whether you realize that or not. You seem to be arguing for libertarian free will, which is an incoherent concept. On the other hand, if you went with compatibilist free will, many materialists would have no problem with that. Your assumption here is that brains can’t reason but souls can, though how that would work is unexamined.
That doesn’t sound like reasoning to me.
Gibberish, I’m afraid. The premise is unclear, and the conclusion seems not to follow from it. “Because” is another of those words that when you use them signals that a non sequitur is in progress. What is your evidence that a self-existent reason causes (if that’s what “comes from” means) your reason? Where does the self-existent reason get its ideas?
No problem. I agree that I exist, I have agency, and I can do all that stuff. But I think that all this happens in my brain, including my consciousness of it happening. How is that necessarily false?
Not true. I merely say that the universe involves causality, back as far as you care to go. Do you not agree? And again there’s confusion between how my brain got to be that way and how it works.
The definition is irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brainstem. Got to wonder if that’s what the study was actually referring to.
Because your conclusions tend not to follow logically from your premises. As in this case. The fact that you can explain something doesn’t mean you can trust it.
Because if a computer isn’t trustworthy, it isn’t working.
It would be helpful if you would say what you mean rather than something else.
It does if the sorts of things that enable lab work are also the sorts of thing that help increase reproductive success.
That’s not what my questions were about.
Well, poor reasoning, at least. And again you reverse the direction. I don’t dismiss your thoughts because you have forgotten what you were responding to. I infer that you have forgotten what you were responding to because you weren’t responding to that. And whether they’re mindless muttering is a separate question, but again must be inferred from what you say, rather than form the basis for rejection of what you say.
Ah, so it’s reasonable to believe people who are trustworthy and well-informed? You were saying recently that that is just “hear-say”. And how do you know my exact motives? People here do say that, and it’s very odd for a materialist, to say like they have some sort of supernatural ability. Like an atheist saying “I know there are no gods!” You know this, exactly, how? You have looked everywhere God might be, if he existed, everywhere, and all at once, and haven’t found him? That’s a claim of virtual omniscience, and omnipresence. You really should be worshipped, you supernatural being, you.
Then we have yet another instance where someone illustrates my claim, where you point to some unreasoning cause for my statements, I subscribe to what I want to be true, and therefore reject what I say. People do recognize this principle! Even people who say they don’t do this.
But that’s not a refutation, either. It’s what’s known as an ad hominem.
Do you mean his 747 analogy with the tornado? That wasn’t what I quoted, it was a quote about physics, and then a mention of chemistry and biology. There was no analogy there.
Ad hominem alert! Also another claim of supernatural knowledge of my motives.
Here is my reply: “What is silly is the claim that hydrothermal vents are a good place for life to emerge! ‘Alkaline hydrothermal vents are among the most plausible environments for the emergence of life’. Not so. Here is video where Ed Pelzer talks with James Tour about this subject, Pelzer is a retired deep-sea researcher who knows about this area.” The discussion continued, and I said further: “One basic problem is that complex molecules go to pieces in the kind of temperatures found in hydrothermal vents.”
“The authors Tour cites state that, based on their rhetorical question (as it were), “the cell does not organize by random collisions of its interacting constituents”. In other words, the number Tour cites is not a realistic estimate that is based on the known properties of proteins, or of the interaction networks we see in living cells.” (Art Hunt)
And my response was this: “Certainly, but that’s all we’ve got in OOL, when the first interactome is needed, you have random collisions. You don’t start with an interactome from a living cell.”
I’ll stop there, I expect I could find more, maybe even in just the James Tour thread…
Well, I also gave a quote from Dawkins, when I first made this point, to illustrate Chesterton’s point, Dawkins says there is just “blind, pitiless indifference”, that is all. But strange to say, he starts out his argument by painting a picture of terrible animal suffering, such as creatures being eaten alive, I expect to do, among maybe other things, to arouse (why?) pity. So “blind, pitiless indifference” leaves out the very thing he starts with, in pity for suffering. It leaves out a lot more! Like healthy relationships, he’s married, apparently for no reason that any marriage counselor would accept. And he trusts his wife, he says, yet his summary of the cosmos somehow leaves this out. “The thing has shrunk”…
All right, have you worked at Cambridge, or at a comparable institution? Have you published a paper that has had such scrutiny and held up for 20 years? You may likely claim it has been refuted, in this thread, and I’m going to ask you “where?” Please give me a link that has gone unaddressed, to which there has been no good answer.
Actually, I do listen when people tell me an ion pump isn’t an ion channel. Or that Basilosaurus didn’t have a melon organ. Some people here do know a lot of biology. But they do appear quite undiscerning, as in saying, well, I haven’t respected a speck of the learning of those who disagree with me.
Ad hominem alert! Supernatural motive detector alert! Boop, boop boop…
In this case, someone was claiming I am not invested in the subject, and yet I speak, that would not be a reasoning cause. And being motivated by apologetics seems to be a claim that I’m only trying to find proof for what I believe, so I’m not actually on a quest for truth, I’m on a quest for justification That would not be a reasoning cause either.
Um, I said more, directly addressing your challenge, which somehow got skipped.
Here is Wikipedia on this: “The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1949,[2] is a test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to that of a human. In the test, a human evaluator judges a text transcript of a natural-language conversation between a human and a machine. The evaluator tries to identify the machine, and the machine passes if the evaluator cannot reliably tell them apart.”
And that is what you asked for, and that is what I meant.
But claiming victory is not addressing what I said in reply, which again, somehow got skipped.
Um, a cause is “when you have A, you get B”. Partial causation is “when you have A, it can be part of the reason you get B”.
So how is this causation somehow based in reason? How is this not some illogical basis for proceeding?
Well, I did mention the book, Beyond Death.
But you made a statement, a claim about the contents of the book! Without reading it, or even noticing which book I mentioned that I was quoting from. I certainly don’t require that you read every book, I only require you read books you make claims on, particularly when you address what you think they say.
I find ID’s obsession with “cause” almost as irritating and irrelevant as its obsession with Darwin.
I explicated my ‘rule of thumb’ heuristic in the passage that you yourself quoted.
Sorry, I missed that in your endless blather, and made the mistake of not explicitly doing a search for both titles. My bad.
But that book’s Amazon blurb says it addresses a wide range of questions:
Are there good reasons for believing in life after death?
What is the afterlife like?
How valid are the reports of near death experiences?
Do heaven and hell exist?
And if so, how can hell be reconciled with a loving God?
So it’s mostly about issues other than NDE. One more reason not to read the book.
I would also note that while the blurb yammers on about “evidence” (WTF is “ethical evidence” anyway?), most of these questions lack any solid evidence addressing them. So the book would appear to be based on speculation, not evidence. One more reason not to read the book.
My original statement was about the authors, not the book itself:
It was you you made the original claim about “rejecting” them:
By accepting your framing, I probably mispoke. What I should have said was I “fail to accept their expertise on the subject”, rather than “reject their book”. I will correct my error now.
I would note that you carefully ignored the main point of my post:
Everything you have said about “unreason” is false Lee.
Nobody on any of your current threads accepts your claims. It’s all bullshit.
I requoted what I wrote! Do I have to keep on repeating this?
So it seems you did read what I wrote, why did you insist on me repeating it? But I do have purposes, I make plans, and carry them out! So I am an agent. And I expect I use my brain in doing this. My view is that I use my brain, but I am not my brain, and my brain neurons are not agents. I also can lift weights with my arm, and I claim my arm can do this, though I don’t have more than a vague understanding of muscles, and nerves, and sinews, and bones.
Because the soul is viewed as the actual source of my thoughts! So no jump is required, I start with that. Atoms, however, don’t.
Because for one, I don’t see how to get from unreasoning atoms, to valid human reasoning. For another, people do require a reasoning source before they will believe statements, before they will accept a conclusion that requires reasoning. I could give many examples, I’m starting to focus on people doing this here…
Well, again, you’ve made a jump here, which needs to be justified, which needs to be explained. And people don’t think of themselves in such reductionistic terms, only enlightened materialists do that, and claim others are under a delusion. Only, again, they don’t try this in court!
You did say in plain words, that’s why I say what I say, though.
Well, the claim has been made! But it’s obviously false, as in what you actually said, as in saying someone’s speech is because I’m stupid is focusing on the source, not on the reasoning.
Yes, I have, and please explain how “DNA just is” is somehow about the evolution of DNA. The other meaning you gave is obviously wrong. And “we’“ means us, the entire person, including our behavior, including our thoughts. How is this unclear?
Sure, but I also hold that we use our eyes too. As a rule, we do.
Reasoning, as in theorem-proving. Or playing chess. But even AI is not doing reasoning like we do it.
Well, operation requires assembly! So you can’t have the second without the first, so if you lay the materialist assembly explanation aside, there goes the operation explanation too. So I think my comment is pertinent..
No, my statement was that our thoughts are the puppet, and motion of atoms in the brain is the puppeteer, in your view. Motions of atoms in the brain cause our thoughts, our thoughts do not pop out of thin air, is that not your view?
Well, how so?
Or you could defend it!
No, I don’t believe in that, based on what I’ve heard, randomness at the root, and such.
No, I don’t hold to that, either, I think it’s certainly not free.
But are you asking for a mechanistic explanation? Nobody has that. But I’m also not just making an assumption, I’ve given many reasons for this conclusion, out-of-body experiences, our demand that valid reasoning must be based on a reasoning source, and so on.
There are many reasons! First of all, there is good evidence for a God, a particular one, who is self-existent and creates and has good purposes and came as one of us. Then you can get to know him, and learn his ways, and his thoughts. I think this is clear. Then we insist on the conclusion! By not accepting reasoning which is caused by nonreason. That means we think reason should come from reasoning causes. And by “comes from” I do mean causation. And I cannot give you a mechanistic explanation for my own ideas, let alone God’s, if that’s what you mean.
But again, you’ve made a jump, from the motion of atoms, to agency. And do you really believe you perform actions yourself? People will begin to think you have a sense of self, as distinct from your physical makeup. They will not think you mean the motions of atoms, which determine your thoughts and your actions, are what you think of as yourself.
No, I don’t, I subscribe to Aristotle and his unmoved mover. And it seems “causality, back as far as you care to go” is indeed describing a chain of causation.
Well, if it’s irreversible, then it can’t be reversed, by definition. But it was, from no measurable brain activity, so maybe the definition needs some work. And I expect an EEG was in progress, and does an EEG measure brainstem activity?
Well, it can certainly give you reason to trust it.
As I’ve mentioned before, we inspect bridges, we don’t just count the cars that have gone over it.
So that needs to be demonstrated, I predict difficulty in doing so.
But I did respond!
Then the conversation shifted to more general reasons to disbelieve the materialist explanation, which I continued to give, and which is relevant to the whole discussion of the origin of our thoughts. And you somehow skipped what I said about Egnor’s findings, so I left it at that, and moved on to more general reasons.
But the point remains, you were rejecting my thinking because you supposed I forgot the point under discussion, forgetfulness was the cause of my irrelevant comments. Basically, forgetting is what I did, was what you said. And this is indeed pointing to a nonreasoning cause for my thoughts, and rejecting them on that basis. We all do this! Even people claiming to be immune to this.
But you ignored my questions. Saying “irritating and irrelevant” is not an answer, it’s a conclusion with no evidence. And what does the “rule of thumb” heuristic about books you read have to do with the question?
Certainly, I quoted from the NDE part because that was the area I was interested in presenting as evidence.
I think your answer here is where there is speculation without evidence! You really should read a book before making claims about its contents.
But what exactly are you criticizing about the authors, if not their book, and by implication, what they say in it? You even mention “everything they say”.
I do think rejecting their expertise is a rejection of their book, and what they say. Or even “everything they say.”
But pointing to flaws of reasoning is in no way showing a false dichotomy! You need to show how reason and unreason somehow overlap, or don’t cover the whole spectrum. So I admit, I skipped it.
Sure it is. You are speaking English, not meaningless grunts. You have an argument, at least in your own mind. A reasoning cause does not imply sound reasoning, sincerity, or correct perception. Reasoning can and often is flawed due to all sorts of factors, and this should hardly come as any surprise. So regardless of motivation, you are speaking from a reasoning cause whether you are correct or completely wrong. Which comes back to the point. We do not need some ultimate source to trust reason, because reason in and of itself can be flawed and not trustworthy. If it is asked, how can we trust our reason if it is the result of evolution, well, I do not in any absolute sense. That renders the quest for some ultimate wellspring of reason to be moot.
If you’re interested in communication, then when asked what you mean, you should not just repeat what you wrote previously. Assume I have seen that and it isn’t clear to me. You need to explain and answer my question, keeping in mind that mere repetition is not helpful.
Now try that.
Didn’t. I asked what you meant. What I read did not explain what you meant.
What is this “I” that uses your brain but is not your brain? And if that’s the soul, what is it and what does it do? Of course individual neurons aren’t agents, but that’s the fallacy of composition again; that doesn’t mean that a brain made of neurons can’t be an agent.
Sorry, makes no sense. Your soul is the source of your thoughts because it is, so there, and it has no parts to make the fallacy of composition over, also so there? You’re solving the problem by defining it out of existence, which is just not an argument. Atoms don’t what? Nothing in your prior sentences tells me.
Why don’t you? And why should what you see be a limit on what’s true? That’s not a reason, just an absence of a reason.
You keep saying that, but all your examples are backwards. And anyway, why can’t the brain be a reasoning source? Are you perhaps confusing the origin of the mind with its operation again?
What jump? What needs to be explained?
Yes, people don’t usually think about how their thoughts work, in reductionistic terms or any other. Nor do I think you’re under a delusion. I just think you’re wrong and very bad at thinking about such things. I don’t see how any of that supports your notions, though.
True. But can’t you see that it’s not why I think what you say is wrong? That’s based entirely on what you say, not why you say it.
So you’re calling me a liar?
It’s the entire chapter that’s about that, if by “the evolution of DNA” you mean evolution occurring through changes in DNA. And just repeating that I’m obviously wrong is not a basis for the claim that I’m obviously wrong. In general, when I ask you something, just repeating what you said before is not an adequate response.
It’s unclear because that’s not what it says. The preceding chapter explains what it means. Yes, genes influence drives and behaviors, and that’s what “dance to its music” means. What it doesn’t mean is that DNA controls our thoughts, as you seem to be claiming. Have you even looked at the book?
Why bother, when the soul can do it. And for that matter, why can’t people who lose their eyes see with their souls instead?
True. AI isn’t doing reasoning at all. So when you said “reasoning”, you meant different things by it depending on what was doing it. Can you see how that could be confusing, especially when you never said?
Confused again. You’re saying that God would be incapable of making a material object that reasons, and I mean in the sense that people do it, not in your other sense, whatever that was. Now why should that be true?
No, the “motions of atoms” (poor term for it) in the brain is you; puppet and puppeteer are one. Are you not saying that our souls cause our thoughts? In that case, isn’t your sould the puppeteer and your thoughts the puppet?
How so? Because you claim I was advocating pantheism when I said that we are part of nature. This is at best orthogonal to the definition of pantheism.
Depends on how far back you care to go. Why Aristotle?
Or maybe “no measurable brain activity” isn’t quite a correct description of brain dead. Measurable how? Isn’t an EEG measure cerebral current?
Can it? Why?
Sure, and we trust them up until the time they fail inspection. And I would trust a computer up until I have evidence that it has failed.
Is it implausible? What things do you suppose enable lab work? Mostly observational skills and manual dexterity. You don’t think those promote reproductive success?
Not in a way that was relevant to the questions. But of course you don’t remember what the questions were.
Nope. I didn’t reject your thinking. I just said it was irrelevant to the questions I asked you.
I assure you it was nothing of the sort. Am I lying?
