Afterlife: Pinker's skeptical thought (Endings)

by dhw, Friday, June 12, 2020, 11:43 (1408 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: i remind that cell choices may be according to guiding instructions they contain.

dhw: If cells do not have the option to make their own choices but can only follow instructions, the materialist would have to reject the concept of free will.

DAVID: Many mterialists reject free will anyway. How do they explain the complexification process in which neurons set up new networks and adjust synapse controls to accommodate differing thought patterns driven by the soul? They don't accept the soul, but at least know the person drives the brain.

If I were a materialist, I would say that the decisions made by the person who drives the brain are dictated by causes beyond his control, including the make-up of the cells that form his brain. (NB I am neither a materialist nor a dualist!)

dhw: The subject under discussion is not the origin of cellular intelligence but WHETHER cells are intelligent or not.[…]

DAVID: Your 'or not' never answers where innate cell intelligence came from. You give a nod to God a a supplier, and the rest is always nebulous.

Either God, a chance combination of materials, or a form of panpsychism (= countless innate intelligences as opposed to the one intelligence you call God).

dhw: All three “first causes” require blinkered faith if anyone is to believe in them.

DAVID: But one is the true first cause.

dhw: But nobody knows which it is. Hence the need for blinkered faith.

DAVID: Yes and one is allowed to make a logical choice.

Of course. And both atheist and theist will claim that their choice is logical.

DAVID: [...] The atheist approach is no approach at all, just hollow words.

dhw: Agreed. It is on a par with the explanation that the origin of life is an unknown, unknowable, hidden, immaterial being without a source who knows everything and can do anything and whom we can call God or Allah or Jehovah or anything we like.

DAVID: And the miracle of life is totally unexplained by 70 years of scientific effort. A designer is obviously required.

You keep repeating your belief, and I keep repeating the atheist belief (that chance created life). You keep repeating your objections to their belief, and I keep repeating their objections to your belief. I suggest we end this discussion!