You are conflating the means of life’s existence with the meaning of its existence.
Fleeting does not mean without value. I think your own bias towards permanence is showing.
That would appear to be mere assertion.
More mere unsubstantiated assertion.
We seem to be enduring a proliferation (a plague?) of flowery and substance-free rhetorical claims: “true objectivity”, “true meaning”, substance dualism, free will, life-after-death, etc, etc.
The only assertion that has had any scientific evidence offered for is that of epigenetics. However the bare existence of epigenetics does not appear to be controversial within the scientific community. What appears to be controversial is whether epigenetic changes can persist long enough to affect evolution (or whether it simply ‘washes out’ within a couple of generations). It is not clear that the papers @LRT offers addresses this controversy.
These sorts of issues seem to be fairly pervasive with ‘Third Way’ claims. @LRT might therefore more productively spend time researching the unaddressed criticisms of its critics than the claims of its proponents.
Only if the soul also has an afterlife, which doesn’t necessarily follow from its existence.
Sorry, but that’s no more coherent. Free will requires decisions that are neither determined, random, nor a combination of the two, and immateriality of the process does nothing to make that coherent.
None of your other points follow either; I’m just tired of saying it.
Nor do any of them seem to constitute an answer to my questions. Do you agree that these are not reasons to believe in dualism? And I still need an explanation of your point. Is it just that if dualism is correct, that would change our view of things, and that you would find that change pleasant?
Those are indeed real references, at least the ones that I’ve checked, though the citations are not complete. How many of them have you actually looked at, and do they actually show that epigenetic modifications last long enough to be relevant to evolution in any taxa? But thanks for answering my request.
[I note that the first is paywalled, but the others can be found. But do any of them show that epigenetic variation not due to genetic variation can be inherited on a long enough time scale to be significant in evolution?]
Back to what we were asked to consider, if you had formed no hypotheses in advance, would anyone fund your aimless animal tagging?
An example closer to my experience is genetic screens. By the early 90s, it was made clear to us serving on the Mammalian Genetics Study Section (for reviewing NIH grant applications) that no screens would be funded, period. IOW, proposals needed to be driven by hypotheses.
Apologies, I should have written matter and gravity.
Would you rather be matter or a gravityfield in the universe? One is the source, shaping the other, while the other simply responds. One actively influences, while the other is moved.
The analogy is certainly not perfect, but I think it conveys the point that one is more static while the other is more active in its effect.
If the universe were specifically tailored for life, it would inherently serve the purpose of supporting life. The same could be said for consciousness if it were present in all living things. In a mechanistic worldview, meaning would have no inherent purpose to support itself beyond survival. In contrast, a dualistic approach might suggest a life-sustaining, consciousness-pervading foundation upon which meaning can be found.
I’ll return once more to my original post. My primary contentions, based on scientits in their respective fields. are that we do not know how life arose from matter, we do not know how the brain produces thought, and that the “Third Way” tries to introduce intent and purpose into evolutionary theory. On the latter point, my personal observation with the “Third Way” is that some — though not many — are masking themselves behind a veil of unintentional purpose, while wanting, but hesitating, to embrace the notion that intelligence or mind may actually be guiding evolution. As for the ‘for’ and ‘against’ discussions, it seems to me that evidence is beginning to trickle in on the ‘for’ side, where none was available just recently. This is not to say that one side is true and the other false, but rather that the playing field is becoming less uneven.
As for much of what I’ve written elsewhere, I recognize that I could have presented it more clearly. I was exploring what might follow if life and consciousness each contained an immaterial element, hence the proliferation (or plague) of speculative, somewhat substance-free rhetoric. Nevertheless, I decided to continue engaging in the discussion, in the fleeting hope of prompting a thought: what might happen in science and society if a paradigm shift were to occur — one that revealed life and consciousness are not entirely material? Such a realization would be profound, reshaping our understanding of the human condition.
Regarding my only strictly scientific assertion, aside from the points mentioned above, I fully agree that the controversy doesn’t lie in whether epigenetics is real, but in whether epigenetic changes can persist long enough to influence evolution, or whether they simply “wash out” within a few generations. From my reading, I contend that it’s still unclear whether they typically persist long enough to affect evolution — except perhaps in plants, where rapid environmental adaptation may increase the likelihood of epigenetic effects influencing evolutionary change.
Discussing the implications of life and consciousness is a far messier, yet potentially more transformative, endeavor than debating the effects of epigenetics on evolution. The latter, if true, would advance science (a very noble cause); the former, if true, could revolutionize it.
In the scientific world, it’s difficult to find a venue for discussing the possibility that life and consciousness might be partly immaterial. In a science forum, such discussions should allow for more latitude, not necessarily all the time, but at least sometimes. After all, how can one claim to hold objectivity while disregarding possible “second” and “third” ways of understanding reality?
If thoughts were entirely determined by chemical reactions, there would be no room for free will.
I’m not sure whether my point follows clearly or not—perhaps I’m not expressing it well, or perhaps the subject itself feels so unfamiliar that it’s difficult to wrap one’s head around. I suspect it’s a bit of both.
Only evidence could justify belief in dualism. At present, there is some — but it remains superficial at best. At this stage, I wouldn’t recommend believing in it. My purpose in raising the topic wasn’t to assert that dualism exists, but rather to explore the question, “What if it did?” And this comes from the starting point, again, that we do not know how life arose or how brains make thoughts. That basis opens up the possibility of dualism. It does not constitute proof of it. And the discussion is messy, because it is in uncharted territory for most of us.
I’ve been doing my utmost to illustrate how things might change if we truly lived in a dualistic world. I can do no more than continue trying, if asked to elaborate further. Nevertheless, it seems evident to me that such a reality would profoundly transform science and society, and imbue life with greater meaning — as we would then inhabit a universe possibly designed (that taboo word) with life and consciousness in mind.
The sources I’ve cited, along with others I’ve reviewed, suggest that it is premature to conclude that epigenetics significantly influences evolution. However, it seems more likely in plants, where the need for rapid environmental adaptation may increase the chances of epigenetic changes playing a role in evolutionary processes.
This demonstrates a superficial understanding of the philosophical debate over “free will.” There is strong disagreement over the question of whether free will is compatible with physical determinism, with many taking the position that it is. Also, even if dualism is true, it does not necessarily favour one side of the debate. For instance, it is difficult to see how free will could co-exist with an omniscient, omnipotent god.
Again, I don’t see why that would be the case. We already know that consciousness exists in many beings other than ourselves. That doesn’t prevent us from exploiting animals for our own needs and desires.
We already do that.
Only if dualism is true. If dualism isn’t true, then believing in it will only cause one to hold false beliefs about the world.
Again: So what? A pile of dirt is something I just find in the world without anyone having to create it. My house only exists because someone built it. Guess which one I value more.
That is in addition to the fact that you still have not explained why “inherent meaning” would only exist under dualism, and not under physicalism. Do you even understand what is being asked here?
True. And if thoughts were entirely determined by an immaterial soul, there would likewise be no room for free will. Again, it’s an incoherent concept.
You delight in non sequiturs, of which that is another. Why would the need for rapid adaptation increase the chance of epigenetic changes playing a role in evolution? Why would plants have a greater need for such adaptation than other organisms? Please think more before posting.
Isn’t the claim that science is the only way to find reliable knowledge about the world self defeating? Indeed, it is not a scientific claim, yet it claims to bring knowledge to the world.
