Richardthughes
Posts: 11178
Joined: Jan. 2006
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Creationist Duane Gish was famous for his "Gish Gallup" whereby he out-talked his debate opponents, moving swiftly from point to point, changing subjects and not allowing any insightful discussion.
It appears we have a new variant, over at UD, The Mullings Meander where the author hopes to bore you into TL;DR submission before declaring victory. Case in point:
Our own Reciprocating Bill asks KF
If the physical states exhibited by brains, but absent in rocks, don’t account for human dreams (contemplation, etc.) then you’ve no basis for claiming rocks are devoid of dreams – at least not on the basis of the physical states present in brains and absent in rocks. Given that, on what basis do you claim that rocks don’t dream?
We go around and around before KF offers up his Tardus Opus (warning fast connection required):
| Quote | R-B:
Thank you for clearly stating your core contention. This allows us to be able to see the root issues.
I will comment on the pivotal paragraph above on points:
>> A prioris are integral to adductive [--> Abductive] reasoning,>>
1 –> No more so than with reasoning in general, namely the first, self-evident principles of right reason.
2 –> That is, once we accept that something A has a distinct identity, we see a world-partition { A | NOT-A } and so also the principle of identity, non contradiction and excluded middle.
3 –> Also, and this seems to be a root problem you face, that if A is (or is possible, or is impossible) we may freely inquire as to why in at minimum the hope of finding a good and sufficient reason.
4 –> Where, if A is contingent, it credibly traces to a cause; with the critical type of causal factor being the on/off enabling factor such that if absent then A will not actually exist. (Such as, each of heat, fuel, oxidiser and functioning heat-generating chain reaction for a fire.)
5 –> Where also, there are necessary beings and candidate beings that turn out to be impossible. As an example, a square circle has inherent contradictions in core attributes and is impossible. By contrast the truth expressed in 2 + 3 = 5 cannot not exist, on pain of contradiction and confusion. It never began, is so in any possible world and cannot cease.
6 –> All that is necessary for abductive inference to best explanation [and in science it is inference to best CURRENT explanation] to work is that we are willing to acknowledge alternative possibilities as candidates, and are willing to assess them on factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory elegance: simple, neither simplistic nor ad hoc. Where also, the requirement of empirical reliability suffices to lock out unbridled speculations.
7 –> So, it seems your real complaint is that on matters of origins, despite evidence on the significance of FSCO/I as an empirically reliable and analytically plausible sign of design, you are unwilling to entertain such a cause as a design.
>> as they are the basis for judgments regarding which explanation is “best” among the those that remain in logical contention given the facts at hand as one makes that inference to the “best” explanation.>>
8 –> This twists the matter, and is the gateway by which you have injected your own (evidently evolutionary materialism influenced) a prioris, by projecting the accusation of a priorism elsewhere.
9 –> In fact, all that is required for abduction to work . . . and it is the form of induction that underlies scientific methods especially where competing hypotheses are at stake . . . is to be willing to seriously consider alternative possibilities on empirical and logical evidence.
>> Often we can agree on which explanation that is based on shared background knowledge and assumptions,>>
10 –> This is little more than a repetition, which does psychological work, rather than adding to cogency.
11 –> All that is required to clarify what is at stake is to revert to possible worlds thinking (here, an expanded form of modelling based on scenarios).
12 –> Is there a possible world in which, say, a design team creates cell based life forms and seeds a planet? Obviously yes. Given Venter et al, yes again. Given hopes to terraform Mars, yes yet again.
13 –> This is a design scenario.
>>but in disputed (and maybe unresolvable) cases like the significance of cosmological constants,>>
14 –> Translation, by simply objecting, I and my ilk propose to lock out and dismiss serious considerations
>> inference to the best explanation is powerless to decide which explanation is actually “best,”>>
15 –> Translation, I and my ilk refuse to consider the implications of observations that led to Hoyle and others putting fine tuning on the table for serious consideration.
16 –> Also, we refuse to take seriously the significance of FSCO/I as a reliable sign of design. (Cf the chirping crickets currently, here, onlookers.)
>> as it has strictly circumscribed logical force.>>
17 –> Actually, all arguments have strictly circumscribed logical force. Deductive ones go no further than the ambit of axioms.
18 –> As Godel showed, starting with Math, we face irreducible complexities and uncertainties in sufficiently rich axiom systems. If consistent then incomplete. If complete — entailing all true claims — then self contradictory. So, maybe we should give up on Math where there are differences of views? Obviously not.
19 –> As Locke highlighted in the intro to his essay on Human Understanding, in empirically grounded inductive contexts, the ones that allow us to learn new things, there are irreducible uncertainties and provisionalities. (I expand his Scriptural allusions.) Clipping:
Men have reason to be well satisfied with what God hath thought fit for them, since he hath given them (as St. Peter says [NB: i.e. 2 Pet 1:2 - 4]) pana pros zoen kaieusebeian, whatsoever is necessary for the conveniences of life and information of virtue; and has put within the reach of their discovery, the comfortable provision for this life, and the way that leads to a better. How short soever their knowledge may come of an universal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet secures their great concernments [Prov 1: 1 - 7], that they have light enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties [cf Rom 1 - 2 & 13, Ac 17, Jn 3:19 - 21, Eph 4:17 - 24, Isaiah 5:18 & 20 - 21, Jer. 2:13, Titus 2:11 - 14 etc, etc]. Men may find matter sufficient to busy their heads, and employ their hands with variety, delight, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly quarrel with their own constitution, and throw away the blessings their hands are filled with, because they are not big enough to grasp everything . . . It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant [Matt 24:42 - 51], who would not attend his business by candle light, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The Candle that is set up in us [Prov 20:27] shines bright enough for all our purposes . . . If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do muchwhat as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly. [Text references added to document the sources of Locke's allusions and citations.]
>>In those instances I prefer “I don’t know” rather than an abductive leap (which is not to claim that I don’t have my priors). >>
19 –> On fair comment, this is selective hyperskepticism, boiling down to we don’t like some possibilities so we refuse to entertain them.
20 –> Do we seriously think that you object to say teaching abiogenesis or body-plan macroevolutionary explanations as though various scenarios are fact when they cannot pass the vera causa test?
21 –> The answer to this weakly grounded preference, is to insist that we teach origins science in light of strengths, limitations and requisites of abductive-form inductive reasoning in science and the resulting provisionality of results.
22 –> But it is the evolutionary materialism advocates who object to that, demanding to monopolise in ways that look a whole lot like indoctrination.
23 –> But, major body plans, cell based life and the physics of the cosmos all reflect an astonishing degree of FSCO/I. Where we do know a class of causal factors that is empirically reliably and analytically plausibly the only known, capable cause of such.
24 –> Namely, design.
25 –> As Wikipedia, speaking against known ideological interest notes:
More formally design has been defined as follows.
(noun) a specification of an object, manifested by an agent, intended to accomplish goals, in a particular environment, using a set of primitive components, satisfying a set of requirements, subject to constraints;
(verb, transitive) to create a design, in an environment (where the designer operates)[2]
KF
76
kairosfocusJune 27, 2014 at 4:27 am
Continuing:
>> No one in the discussion so speculates – certainly not me.>>
26 –> Not quite. The challenge was raised repeatedly, why not entertain the rock as a locus of dreaming . . . even, as a dismissive reply to perceived “silly” belief in the supernatural. That is a simple fact. To which I responded, let a rock SHOW itself conscious, then we can talk seriously.
27 –> And all of this is really strawmannish off a red herring from the main point I have taken pains to argue, only to see a lot of duck, dodge and side-slip.
28 –> Namely, when we refine rocks and form them into computational substrates — analogue, digital, neural network — they STILL are patently interacting through blind, GIGO-limited cause-effect bonds not through actual insightful, meaning and concept based reasoning. As Leibnitz, Lewis and Reppert have pointed out across 350 years.
29 –> That side slipping has become so consistent that it is telling me that a serious point has been made.
>> But there is a more abstract reason to tarry. In denying any and all relationship between consciousness and embodiment, you’ve built a framework in which rocks may well be conscious.>>
30 –> More precisely, entities formed of dust are observed to be conscious, in a context where neural network architectures are patently still in the cause-effect blind GIGO limited computational regime.
31 –> So, the characteristic materialist lab coat clad fixation on rocks, raw or refined [and on software that is also GIGO-limited and constitutes blind manipulation of digital symbols and/or analogue signals by appropriately arranged rocks], begins to look suspiciously like trying to get North by going West.
>> Human beings, in your framework, are conscious and self-aware not because of the organization of their brains, bodies and nervous systems>>
32 –> Not so fast, you skipped over the analysis of refining and arranging rocks into computational substrates and associated software. This turns what I actually argued into a strawman caricature.
33 –> I positively showed WHY cogs grinding on cogs or gating electrical or electro-chemical signals are acting by blind cause-effect chains, not insightful cognition. Based on having done the homework.
>> (which on your view are neither necessary nor sufficient for consciousness),>>
34 –> This is first, burden of proof shifting. Done, in the teeth of my having taken time to show the limitations of blind computation and why it does not equal contemplation based on rational insight.
35 –> That is, WITHOUT having shown the capability of computational substrates to cause consciousness, you wish to implicitly hold the default. This begs the question in the teeth of inherent limitations shown — shown, not assumed.
36 –> In addition, on the strength of a weak selectively hyperskeptical dismissal already dealt with just now, you wish to pass over the case of the fine tuned physics of the observed cosmos in silence.
37 –> But this is precisely a case that puts the issue of design antecedent to and causative of the material cosmos we inhabit. Which further puts on the table the issue of mind ontologically prior to and causative of, matter.
38 –> So, the argument you have made is little more than an ideological lock-out.
>> but because they possess an additional, non-physical ingredient, one that may even make possible completely disembodied consciousness.>>
39 –> First, the issue of mind ontologically before matter arises from the origin of the cosmos, which exhibits a known, highly reliable sign of design: complex, functionally highly specific fine tuned organisation and associated information.
40 –> Second, I took pains to show why we hold that raw rocks have no dreams, and why refined organised rocks forming computational substrates — INCLUDING neural network arrays — still have no capability to dream arising from the arrangement of material components.
41 –> That we are self-aware and conscious, contemplative, reasoning, designing etc is self evident. That this shows capabilities beyond a cosmos full of blind chance plus mechanical necessity has been repeatedly shown [e.g. try here again], to deny this simply show FSCO/I coming from such blind material factors.
42 –> We re minded, having self-aware, conscious, rational designing capabilities. What is the ontological root of that? In a world that shows itself fine tuned in ways that point to mind being ontologically prior to matter?
>> On what basis do you claim that rocks don’t also have that ingredient?>>
43 –> Asks as thought he answer has not been repeatedly given.
>> Their complete passiveness can’t be the reason: perhaps they lack the physical structures required for interface between that ingredient and the world, yet are dreaming nonetheless.>>
44 –> A case of groundless peculation put up as a counter-argument, with a caricature.
45 –> On the contrary, until rocs pass something like the Glasgow coma test and show that here is something there to be addressed on empirical evidence, the matter is just wild speculation.
46 –> On the contrary, we also have a considerable body pf experience with rocks, which shows that hey have no sign of conscious, self-moved active agency. Just the opposite of ourselves.
47 –> So, we may freely put forth as a best current abductive explanation: rocks are passive objects, not self-moved contemplative ones.
48 –> If you have an alternative that addresses factual adequacy, coherence, and explanatory balance, let us hear it.
>> You’ve no principled reason for denying that.>>
49 –> this is little more than, “I choose to reject an abductive, inference to best explanation scientific argument when it does not suit me.” And, then pretend that such a pattern of inductive reasoning does not exist — never mind that it is the basis of scientific arguments to best current explanation. Selective hyperskepticism.
>> When you erect an argument that empties it’s starting “principle” of principled reasons for its acceptance, you have a problem.>>
50 –> Nope, you have the problems with abductive empirically grounded scientific reasoning. Not me.
>> Appeals to adjunctive empirical supports for your empty principle don’t help. That’s a reason to tarry on the point, even if Bud and Weis remain baffled by the discussion. >>
51 –> Repeating your dismissals of the grounding principles of scientific reasoning do not make your selectively hyperskeptical dismissals any stronger.
KF
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kairosfocusJune 27, 2014 at 4:50 am
Concluding for now:
>> Regarding the Glasgow, Gpuccio clearly disagrees with you,>>
52 –> GP can speak for himself, and what I find in him is disagreement with the notion of consciousness disapearing in sleep, as opposed to the issue of coma/conscious in the context of medical reference.
53 –> Where, unlike with rocks, there are abundant circumstances where humans and many animals for that matter, exhibit every evidence of active, self-aware self-moved consciousness.
>> as he has assented (to RDF) to the following statement:
RDF:
Apparently you are hypothesizing here that while we are anesthetized, or in a dreamless sleep, or have been “knocked unconscious”, and so on, we actually are still experiencing conscious awareness, but when we regain consciousness, we for some reason forget all that happened while we were unconscious (but still, in your view, having conscious experiences). Is that what you mean?
GP:
Yes.
Persons who are anesthetized cannot respond to the Glasgow or anything like it, which is why we can perform deep surgical interventions without eliciting responses>>
54 –> As it is, this illustrates my point as just made.
55 –> During an operation such as on scoliosis, it is routine for physicians to raise the person to sufficient responsiveness to get him or her to move to a new position. At least, that is what the expert surgeons I dealt with brought to my attention.
56 –> And again, you have distorted GP’s discussion on various kinds of conscious behaviour in a creature known to exhibit full waking consciousness, with the status of a rock which you nor anyone else have not been able to show a single sign of such a state. Where also, we have the ability to administer a Glasgow-like test to our own selves, that is we have self-awareness and memory of past states, so we can be aware that even while asleep we dream, and we have a minimal awareness of comfort while sleeping; indeed there is also evidence that there is an active monitoring of environment as we can be startled out of sleep by a sudden noise or the like, obviously this is protective.
57 –> All this in pursuit of dismissal of abductive inference to best explanation.
>>. Nor do they exhibit self-directed or self-moving behavior of any kind.>>
58 –> Scoliosis patients, under surgery, can credibly be raised sufficiently to respond to verbal commands. During the surgery, tests are done on responses, to see if damage has occurred, so for instance in the case I had to deal with, we know before they sewed up the wound [I think that was at about 6 hours in . . . ], that the surgery was significantly successful. Further to this, there was a discussion later that night in which the responses to questions were in Spanish, which my son is studying in school. Later, when we asked him, he did not recall the conversation, i.e. he was not in full waking consciousness, but was at a certain degree able to hear and respond by emitting FSCO/I, in an acquired second language.
>> The Glasgow indicates that they are unconscious,>>
59 –> Cf just above, the degree of consciousness is variable. Also there are cases of people under surgery in pain, and I believe some may give indications of dreaming.
>> yet Gpuccio maintains that those persons are consciously aware at those very moments (one wonders: of what?).>>
60 –> GP can speak for himself, but it should be clear that he is speaking of the underlying states of a creature known to exhibit full waking consciousness . . . and, to remember dream states etc. Rocks don’t.
>> If he is right, then we have further instances in which the Glasgow, given your framework, gives false negatives –>>
61 –> That is not a false negative in the context of what it measures, degree of closeness to full waking consciousness. Let me clip Wiki:
The Glasgow Coma Scale or GCS is a neurological scale that aims to give a reliable, objective way of recording the conscious state of a person for initial as well as subsequent assessment. A patient is assessed against the criteria of the scale, and the resulting points give a patient score between 3 (indicating deep unconsciousness) and either 14 (original scale) or 15 (the more widely used modified or revised scale) . . . .
The scale is composed of three tests: eye, verbal and motor responses. The three values separately as well as their sum are considered. The lowest possible GCS (the sum) is 3 (deep coma or death), while the highest is 15 (fully awake person).
Eye response (E)
There are four grades starting with the most severe:
No eye opening
Eye opening in response to pain stimulus. (a peripheral pain stimulus, such as squeezing the lunula area of the patient’s fingernail is more effective than a central stimulus such as a trapezius squeeze, due to a grimacing effect).[1]
Eye opening to speech. (Not to be confused with the awakening of a sleeping person; such patients receive a score of 4, not 3.)
Eyes opening spontaneously
Verbal response (V)
There are five grades starting with the most severe:
No verbal response
Incomprehensible sounds. (Moaning but no words.)
Inappropriate words. (Random or exclamatory articulated speech, but no conversational exchange. Speaks words but no sentences.)
Confused. (The patient responds to questions coherently but there is some disorientation and confusion.)
Oriented. (Patient responds coherently and appropriately to questions such as the patient’s name and age, where they are and why, the year, month, etc.)
Motor response (M)
There are six grades:
No motor response
Decerebrate posturing accentuated by pain (extensor response: adduction of arm, internal rotation of shoulder, pronation of forearm and extension at elbow, flexion of wrist and fingers, leg extension, plantarflexion of foot)
Decorticate posturing accentuated by pain (flexor response: internal rotation of shoulder, flexion of forearm and wrist with clenched fist, leg extension, plantarflexion of foot)
Withdrawal from pain (Absence of abnormal posturing; unable to lift hand past chin with supra-orbital pain but does pull away when nailbed is pinched)
Localizes to pain (Purposeful movements towards painful stimuli; e.g., brings hand up beyond chin when supra-orbital pressure applied.)
Obeys commands (The patient does simple things as asked.)
62 –> It is only at the bottom of the scale that death enters, which I take it is reckoned by one and all to be an index that the body is now a passive object subject fully to blind physical and chemical and biological forces of decay.
>> unless you wish to differ with GP about anesthetized persons.>>
63 –> I do not materially differ from GP, especially when we look at the range of degrees of response and conscious behaviour involved.
>> (IOW, it is useless and absurdly misplaced in this discussion. Give it up.) >>
64 –> It would be useless if we had cases where rocks showed significant conscious behaviour, or that humans never showed anything but passivity and no signs of self-aware, intelligent rational conduct.
65 –> But, contrary to your hoped for conclusion, we do and rocks don’t.
KF |
65 "points" over 3 posts, question completely dodged, victory declared.
SHAMEFUL, MUST DO BETTER.
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"Richardthughes, you magnificent bastard, I stand in awe of you..." : Arden Chatfield
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