Touchstone
Posts: 28
Joined: Sep. 2007
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O'Leary, at the behest of Dembski, transcribes Beauregard talking to Dennis Prager:
| Quote | | MARIO BEAUREGARD: Well, the basic theory in our book is that there are many lines of evidence that say that you cannot reduce mind, consciousness, and self to electrical and chemical processes in the brain. For instance, in the case of the placebo effect there is no good solid theory - material theory - in neuroscience that is able to explain this phenomenon because most neuroscientists believe in the central dogma of neuroscience which is that the brain produces the mind through electrical and chemical activity and that the mind does not really exist. It is more like an illusion, if you will, so an illusion cannot exert a significant effect over the electrical and chemical substances in the brain. So in other words they have a lot of trouble to be able to explain something like the placebo effect … |
Um, serotonin? You don't even need the pill -- the brain can kick it's own therapies into gear just by adopting a positive, less-stressed disposition. The pill is just useful as a means of fooling yourself into thinking in more healthy ways. Perfectly material, and well understood. Your thoughts *do* affect your physiology, and demonstrably so, through natural processes.
And, why would one suppose the mind *doesn't* exist because it's material? That's precisely backwards, isn't it? Doublethink.
The thing that is most frustrating here is the level of isolation it takes to work this kind of argument. If Beauregard and O'Leary were on a show and presented this argument to someone who had a clue, they'd be absolutely ripped to shreds. Shown to be utter fools. The intellectual COWARDICE of these people...
-TS
(*spits*)
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