Posted by Noctillucent on July 25, 19101 at 22:14:52:
In Reply to: 3 5 6 13 24 41 posted by John Tchoe on July 24, 19101 at 11:49:36:
John: What about when someone wins the lottery? Sure, the odds are incredible that any one set of numbers will come up, but does it have any meaning? Does it imply some sort of intent?
Me: It’s one thing to say that SOMEONE wins the lottery, it is a very different thing to say that YOU win it. I think you’ll agree that’s a meaningful difference.
John: As for your insect example, correct me if I'm wrong, but now we're talking about creationism, aren't we? How do you know that they aren't spelling out a bunch of things in other languages which haven't been invented yet? People used to think that the face on mars meant something, that an intelligent race had built a monument there, until we took a closer look and found out that it was just a natural structure which didn't resemble a face at all at higher resolutions.
Me: Here’s the point you’re missing. The brain as a physical object is fully described in terms of atoms and electrons and the spatial relations between them. The atoms and electrons are mindless bodies. The spaces between the particles, being nothing, are also mindless. Everything the brain does in terms of a physical response to stimuli is accounted for in these terms. These terms, being mindless, don’t care what John thinks, feels, or believes. Whether your thoughts are true, or false, or exist at all, makes no difference to them, for abstract meaning is not a factor in how these mindless bodies respond to physical conditions.
According to physiology, blind physical forces determine everything in your brain. If a physical force is present, a physical response takes place. If a physical force is not present, there is no physical response. Thoughts, as abstract meaning, add nothing by their presence, and would subtract nothing by their absence. There is therefore no evolutionary pressure to select out true thoughts from false ones. Only if abstract thought had a power to directly move or effect mindless atoms and electrons would it contribute anything to physical survival, and so come under the controling influence of natural selection. Given that the possible number of false thoughts in any situation are innumerably greater than true thoughts, to believe that your thoughts consistently and reliably correspond to reality by mere luck would require a statistical miracle.
Barring that miracle, there is simply no reason for John to believe his thoughts rightly tell him anything true about reality, including even that he has a brain, a physical body, and inhabits a physical universe.
In other words, no theory of the mind is believable if it makes unbelievable any evidence for it.
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