Practical Consequences (Humans)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 03, 2009, 20:10 (5290 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt attempts to use logic in order to justify Greta Christian's belief that consciousness is entirely biological: She creates the "null hypothesis "non-biological consciousness exists." When you then analyze the statement and find there is no evidence, the null hypothesis is proven false, making the converse statement true."
Your statement hinges on what you mean by "evidence", but let's first test your logic on another example. In evolution, we create a null hypothesis: "transitional forms exist".
Stuart A. Newman: ...the fossil record is deficient in transitional forms between organisms distinguished from one another by the presence or absence of major innovations.
Matt: ...it is a simpler explanation to say that the lack of fossils in those "gaps" is due to the fact that we simply haven't found them.-According to your logic, however, if we analyse the statement and find there is no evidence, should we not conclude that there are no transitional forms? The argument that the evidence is there but hasn't yet been found could be used to justify any claim.-Leaving aside the "logic", in the evolutionary example you make certain inferences, though of course inferences are not evidence. I could also make certain inferences concerning consciousness. Bearing in mind that nobody knows how it works, where it comes from, or even what it is, I could infer that it stems from a source beyond our comprehension, and that the long history of visions, mystic experiences, OBEs, NDEs, ESP, paranormal knowledge, religion etc., suggests that what is seen as lack of evidence constitutes a false definition of "evidence". We thus enter a highly subjective field, but the decision to discount it as evidence is also a subjective one. Greta Christian's assertion that consciousness is entirely biological may be correct, but in the light of present knowledge it remains no more than a subjective belief.-Matt: If you accept science, then you accept naturalism. [..] Naturalism does not equal chance.
You have yourself said categorically that we need to exercise a degree of scepticism towards science, since so many accepted scientific theories turn out later to be false. But of course I accept most of the findings of science and the naturalistic explanations of many phenomena. I acknowledge, however ... as you do yourself ... that science may not have all the answers. This applies especially to the crucial and unique context of the origin of life and of the mechanism that made evolution possible, in which naturalism does equal chance. That was and is the context I have been focusing on. -As regards agnosticism and atheism, we need to find the right language. Forget the roots ... the terms have gone beyond their roots. My personal suggestion: An atheist believes there is no God; an agnostic does not believe there is a God and does not believe there isn't a God. Atheism makes a statement of committed disbelief; agnosticism makes a statement of uncommitted non-belief. Can we perhaps play around with that?