Clarification/Follow-up by Mary_Susan on 07/23/08 2:51 pm:
s/b forgotten. What was I thinking? :D

Clarification/Follow-up by Oldstillwild on 07/23/08 3:57 pm:
What is wrong with my assessment?

Clarification/Follow-up by Mary_Susan on 07/25/08 12:58 pm:
I miss Ken and JimMcG, and the several men who posted here.....I'm outta here.

Clarification/Follow-up by tonyrey on 07/27/08 10:15 am:
frick,

There is plenty of evidence that evolution has occurred. Darwinism is but one theory that attempts to explain all development as the result of random mutations and natural selection. It claims that intelligence and science itself are products of chance events which lack hindsight, insight and foresight! Its fundamental flaw is its exclusion of teleological, holistic and spiritual explanation and its assumption that truth, goodness, justice, equality, freedom, beauty and love exist only in the minds of human beings. Yet physical causes alone do not explain consciousness, rational activity and responsibility. All the evidence points to the mind as being more powerful than matter. Without the mind we would not even know that matter exists!

Clarification/Follow-up by tonyrey on 07/29/08 5:23 pm:
Jim, I'm surprised at your view that my concepts of simplicity and complexity are a mystery. Simplicity amounts to systematic unity rather than economy. An economical theory is not simple if it is inadequate and fails to relate diverse aspects of reality. This is the case with Darwinism which attributes intellectual, moral, social and spiritual development solely to random mutations and natural selection. Yet it does not explain how truth, goodness, freedom, beauty and love have emerged from physical causes.

Complexity implies both multiplicity and organization - as in the case of biological organisms. Darwinism does not explain how life originated from inanimate molecules nor how simple cells became more complex. It has produced results within the limited domain of natural selection but it tells us nothing about the value and purpose of existence. Even at the biological level an atheist who is a Nobel laureate has conceded that "We still seek a theory of Order in its most important form, that which is represented by the complex functional and structural integration of genetic messages." - Medawar.

Darwinism is also infertile because it implies that existence has no ultimate value or purpose. Yet science itself stemmed from the belief that reality is rational, explicable and valuable. (Why bother to explain that which is valueless?) In contrast "... to regard all order in the world as if it had originated in the purpose of a supreme reason... opens out to our reason, as applied in the field of experience, altogether new views as to how the things of the world may be connected according to teleological laws, and so enables it to arrive at their greatest systematic unity" - Kant.

Clarification/Follow-up by frick on 07/29/08 9:31 pm:
Tony --

It seems we've been down this road before. You say, "Without the mind we would not even know that matter exists".

I say, "There is no mind without the pre-existence of matter. If there is, where exactly is it located?"

As to teleology, Kant, and others, may claim such but that's not the same as proof.

All these arguments - both sides - have their persuasive points, but neither side has yet to make a provable definitive statement.

Is it all just "sound and fury"...?

Clarification/Follow-up by tonyrey on 07/30/08 3:42 am:
frick

If life were "a tale of sound and fury signifying nothing" we would be faced with the problem of how significance can emerge from insignificance, i.e. how we are capable of attaching value and meaning to anything. How would we reach the conclusion that everything is meaningless without confidence in our power of reasoning?

To ask where the mind is located presumes that everything has a location, i.e. that everything has a physical basis and that nothing is intangible. What about truth, equality, justice, freedom, personality, unity, purpose? Even the ultimate basis of physics is to be found in mathematical equations...

You say "There is no mind without the pre-existence of matter." How do you reach that conclusion? Probably from the assumption that everything has evolved by chance from atomic particles. Yet our real starting point is the fact that we are thinking, i.e. our own internal existence. We do not have direct knowledge of physical objects. We infer that they exist from sense stimuli whereas we are directly aware of our thoughts and feelings. Very often we are mistaken about external reality but we cannot imagine we have no thoughts or feelings!

It is just as easy to assert that matter is a product of mind as mind is a product of matter. And probably more convincing given the power of the mind and the fact that everything we value most is intangible: freedom, friendship, peace, love and security. But throughout history human beings have believed in the reality of both mind and matter. Scepticism about either needs to be justified.

If these are not definitive statements I should be interested to know why they are false.

Clarification/Follow-up by tonyrey on 07/31/08 3:00 am:
frick,

Perhaps I did not make it clear that, contrary to popular opinion, scientific knowledge, which is based on inference from sense data, is more provisional than self-knowledge, which is immediate, direct, testable and confirmed by the experience of others.

Clarification/Follow-up by Oldstillwild on 07/31/08 5:46 am:
Most people abide by "ancient"theories ,due to lack of own ability to really grasp truth.......

The truthiest will be the happiest(I congratulate myself....)

There is no such thing as simplicity or complexity at all......

Clarification/Follow-up by frick on 07/31/08 10:05 pm:
Tony -- If we could stick on one thing for the sake of argument...?

How about the mind?

I'm not presuming anything. I'm simply asking where is the mind located?

Then you ask how I reach the conclusion that there is no mind without matter. Well, I do so because I'm not aware of a mind existing anywhere without matter. If you know, please tell.

You say our starting point is that "we" are thinking. Well, wait a minute. Is not the we our corporeal bodies? If not, what or who is doing the 'thinking"?

I do not at all think that it is just as easily said that matter is a product of mind. In fact, I have no idea how such a thing could occur. Can you provide an example?

As far as your last clarif, re scientific knowledge vs. self-knowledge, this seems to be some sort of Cartesian approach. In what sense is scientific knowledge more "provisional" than self-knowledge. Examples would help here, too.

Clarification/Follow-up by tonyrey on 08/01/08 6:37 pm:
frick,

To ask where the mind is located implies that it is located somewhere. There are many intangibles which are not located anywhere yet we do not doubt that they exist. The fact that they exist in our minds suggests that the mind itself is intangible. The alternative is that the mind is located in the brain - but where in the brain?

Brain activity consists solely of electrical currents. How do electrical currents constitute the entity we call a person? Where is their source of unity? Where is the self that is responsible for self-control? How do electrical currents know they exist? Are they rational and purposeful? If not, being rational and purposeful are illusions! "We" do not exist and are no more than complex molecular structures with no choice as to what to believe or how to behave.

The difficulties in materialism are insuperable and lead to total scepticism and nihilism. Everything ceases to have meaning or value if it is reduced to chance combinations of molecules.

The simple fact that the mind is more powerful than matter is evidence that it is independent of matter although there is obviously interaction. Otherwise we would not be able to control our bodies. No one can give an example of how matter could be a product of mind but neither can anyone give an example of how mind could be a product of matter.

Scientific knowledge is more provisional than self-knowledge because it is the result of inference from the evidence of our senses. We infer that material objects exist because we receive stimuli from which we construct our concepts of external objects. No two persons have the same impressions of the world because our primary experiences are within ourselves and they constitute our starting point. Everything begins at home! (Home being the realm of our thoughts and feelings). We don't have to infer that we have a headache or toothache: our knowledge, alas, is immediate and direct! The rest of our knowledge, including scientific, is inferred...