Practical Consequences (Humans)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Thursday, November 12, 2009, 12:26 (5282 days ago) @ dhw

I thought perhaps I ought to try to reply to dhw's confusing post, or some of it. So here goes.-dhw: Scientific evidence is not necessarily the only form of evidence [...]. I am not prepared to ignore, for instance, mystic or "paranormal" experiences.
GEORGE: So you are not an agnostic after all! You are a mystic. A gnostic.
dhw: No, George, not being prepared to ignore something does not mean believing in it. I am not prepared to ignore the possibility that there is no God, or the possibility that there is a God, so does that make me an atheist theist?-In a way I suppose it does! You are sitting on the fence looking at both sides and unable to decide which is more likely to be right. You are unable to decide despite the evidence being heavily on one side rather than the other. So long as there is the slightest possibility that paranormal experiences will one day be proved more than mere psychological phenomena, no matter how low the probability of that eventuality, you will obstinately continue to sit on your fence.-===-dhw: ...how does she know the intentions of the designer? Maybe he meant it to go wrong, so that individuals wouldn't live for ever, or maybe [...] he's not perfect, or [...] he's not all-powerful.
GEORGE: That's three distinctly separate theologies there! All with different extraordinary assumptions. The idea that a designer would design the universe so that it looked as if it wasn't designed is a contortion of logic worthy of Philip Gosse's Omphalos.
dhw: First of all, they are not assumptions. They are "maybes". -That's just a qiibble. Assumptions, suppositions, ... call it what you like.
By the way her name is Greta Christina (not Christian).-dhw: Secondly, who says the universe looks as if it isn't designed? How do you know the difference between the appearance of a designed universe and that of an undesigned universe? In any case, the reference was to life, not to the universe.-The idea that a designer would design life so that it looked as if it wasn't designed is still a contortion of logic -===-dhw: I argued that since nobody has been able to explain the nature of consciousness, belief that it is ENTIRELY biological is just as much faith-based as the belief that something else is involved.
> GEORGE: It is not faith-based. It is evidence-based. 
> GRETA CHRISTINA: The basic questions of what exactly consciousness is, and where exactly it comes from, and how exactly it works, are, as yet, largely unanswered.
dhw: What, then, is the evidence that consciousness is entirely biological?>-I don't go along with Greta Christina's view of consciousness. I don't think it's as weird as so many people seem to want to think. The only form of consciousness known is that evidenced by life-forms with brains and nervous systems. There is no evidence whatsoever for any other kind. This again is a fence that you insist on sitting on no matter how sharp it gets, or how close to the abyss! I admire your fortitude. It is almost worrthy of Simon Stylites.-===
dhw: Her assumptions that she knows how a designed life ought to be, how evolution normally works, and how consciousness will eventually be explained, do not constitute evidence." 
> GEORGE: They are perfectly reasonable expectations based on the evidence we have.
dhw: Agreed, though I wouldn't use "perfectly". -Quibbling again.-dhw: I'm not saying that atheism is "unreasonable". But since the evidence we have is so inadequate, and since the gaps in our knowledge are so enormous, it is also not "unreasonable" to believe that all these phenomena may have arisen from powers beyond our comprehension.-On the contrary the evidence we have is good, and it is unreasonable to attribute the phenomena to other causes, especially causes beyond our comprehension.
 
===-GEORGE: dhw doesn't seem to understand that science is agnostic, in the true sense of agnostic...
dhw: Of course science is agnostic. But some scientists are not. And if a scientist ridicules the notion of God on the grounds that he/she believes science will eventually prove the correctness of his/her theories concerning the origin of life and evolution, or the nature of consciousness, he/she sacrifices the agnosticism of science.-Once again dhw is evaluating both sides as having equal validity. Dawkins at least has a scale of agnosticism from 1 to 7, and places himself at somewhere near 6. He is blissfully unaware that the fence he balances on leans heavily to one side.-I'll stop there as I just seem to be repeating my previously expressed views.

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GPJ