From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Sat Oct 09 2004 - 19:51:48 BST
Ian,
The point is that there is an argument, and it is philosophical. I am a
non-materialist for reasons other than the improbability of Darwinism, so
when I see materialists proposing Darwinism as an explanation of evolution,
I think, why bother, if not to maintain a belief in materialism. There are
other theories if one allows non-materialist theories. But why is Darwinism
treated as scientific? The theory is untestable, as far as I can see. One
doesn't need it to do biology, including investigating evolution. Thus I
can't see any reason to promote it as scientific except to attempt to
falsely wrap it in an authoritative aura ("it's science"), and that in
order to promote materialism.
You mention the "teleological fallacy". Dennett says (in Brainstorms) that
because Darwinism gives a non-question-begging explanation of purpose, that
is reason to accept materialism. But note (and more blatantly in his title
"Consciousness Explained") that he is presupposing that purpose and
consciousness (or as he would put it, why we think in terms of purpose and
consciousness) are the things that need explaining, and that explanations
consist of describing things in terms of what our senses provide. In other
words, he is assuming materialism before he has "accepted" it.
My reason, in brief, for thinking that science can never show the emergence
of consciousness from non-conscious material is that consciousness
routinely resolves the paradox of the many and the one, and science can't
deal with that. If one assumes that the spatio-temporal world is the basis
in which consciousness comes to be, then an ordinary act of perception,
which transcends space and time, is impossible. (For a more elaborate
discussion -- not of this argument, but of someone else who denies the
possibility of a materialist explanation of consciousness, see David
Chalmers ("The Conscious Mind"), someone who really, really wanted to keep
a materialist outlook but decided it was impossible.)
- Scott
> [Original Message]
> From: Ian Glendinning <ian@psybertron.org>
> To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
> Date: 10/9/2004 6:06:19 AM
> Subject: Re: MD On Faith - Improbability ?
>
> Yes Scot,
> that's what I meant ...
>
> Dawkins (Mount Improbable) and others have spent millions of words arguing
> the probablity aspects in great detail concerning the wonders of
biological
> / physical / functional development, but the outcomes are not incredible.
> The "beat the odds" way of looking at it starts from the teleological
> fallacy that there is some purposeful entity trying "to beat" those odds.
> The probablities are simply that - actual outcomes amongst many
> possibilities. We're dealing with complex systems. The "random" chance
> aspects apply only to a certain small proportion of those events (eg
> mutations and environment) in these huge webs of events, many more of
which
> are directed by biological and sociological drives of the players
involved.
>
> I'm confident Darwinism (in its widest sense) can and will explain the
rise
> of consciousness too, at least I see no reason yet to say it will be
> impossible.
>
> My big problem with Dawkins is his (exclusive) tunnel vision for
scientific
> objectivity.
> http://www.psybertron.org/Dawkins%20Hyper-Rationalism.html
> Despite being the person who coined memes, he misses the emergent
complexity
> of the involvement of consciousness in the web of evolution, which is not
> surprising, since so far science has struggled to find a place for
> consciousness anywhere. Dawkins is explicitly paid to promote science as
the
> Simonyi Professor for the public advancement of science, or whatever.
>
> But we're getting there - eventually science will learn that objectivity
> isn't everything. (In fact huge tracts of science already have at both
ends
> of the scale - fundamental physics and the science of consciousness
itself -
> together, Holochory maybe ?). It's just social and political collective
> consciousness of science - the memes - political correctness - you know,
> funding, budgets, winning (binary) arguments, etc - that seems to hang
onto
> simple, discredited objective scientific rationale for its syllogistic
> justifications.
>
> BTW, I'm currently reading Dr James Austin's "Zen and the Brain".
> I've only just started, but it's an amazing (800 page) mix of detailed
brain
> physiology, consciousness research and Zen experience.
>
> Ian
>
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Oct 09 2004 - 19:54:30 BST