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: :<JT>I didn't understand what you meant in a great portion of your message, but I'll try to answer the best I can.</JT> : Hello JT. : In my post to Noctillucent I commended the way he argued against the position a strict materialist would hold. A strict materialist would be a determinist, don't you agree? I therefore umed, since you replied to me, that you were a strict materialist/determinist. : Since you are not, I will try again with that in mind. : First, (and I think Noct. has covered this, but it is a premise which runs throughout my entire argument), we must agree that if a position implicitly (or explicitly) undermines the rational process, then it naturally undermines the very position it used to come to it's conclusion. Therefore, no conclusion can be rationally maintained which undermines the very rational process it uses. It reveals itself as absurd when it does so. : I am attempting to argue, as I think Noct. is, that materialism defeats itself because it does exactly that (undermines the rational process by casting doubt upon it's ability to determine truth). : :<JT>I would say that the fact that we reason, i.e., the evolutionary path to our current location in time, is partly luck, partly physics, but reason itself is not luck. If I argue that given A, B follows, therefore, C, then the reasoning itself can be verified or argued, but that is separate from the fact that I am able to reason.</JT> : You mean that is an objective truth? That is exactly what is in question here though, our ability (i.e., the rational process) to determine the truth. Just as the mindless creation of the sentence the insects spelled out cannot be trusted (for the odds guarantee it's nonsensical), so the mindless creation of mindless atoms coming together to tell you the mind is composed of atoms has the same odds of being an objectively true statement. You too have trapped us, unless we appeal to impossible odds, inside our own minds without grounds to believe in an objective existence. : ::You've undermined, by giving it almost impossible odds of validity, the very basis on which you argue. : :<JT>You're going to have to explain/expand upon this a bit. I have no idea what you mean by "odds of validity," or how I undermined anything.</JT> : Hopefully I have accomplished this above. Let me know if I've failed once again. : ::If the motion of atoms in our brains determine what we think, then what basis do we have for accepting that our brains are composed of atoms? : :<JT>Your chain of reasoning escapes me. My reasoning is a function of the mechanics of my neurons, but that in no way binds me to a determined fate. It's an undeniable fact that we have volition and consciousness. That we don't know exactly how our brains work doesn't deny that our brains do work.</JT> : You're correct that it doesn't deny that, I've no quarrel with the fact that we cannot explain it, but given a materialistic view point we can reason that that viewpoint fails to explain it because it undermines rationality. We must appeal (and it's a rational appeal, for it maintains that reason validly determines truth) to an eternal source of Reason, a rational cause of our finite reason. An eternal Reason illuminating our capacity to reason. Stated simply, reason cannot be trusted if it is determined by non-rational causes. : ::In so many words you've just admitted that what you've said has virtually impossible odds of being true. Your position can only be maintained by a grand (and I mean grrrrrand) leap of faith. : :<JT>I'll put this as succinctly as I know how: huh?</JT> : If my argument above was sound, this should now make sense. : :In all my arguments with dualists, I've noticed that all their claims are based on one thing: what we don't know. They claim we don't know X, therefore, Y. Except Y is not a necessary conclusion of not knowing X. In other words, that we don't know how the universe orginated does not necessarily imply that God created it. That we don't know how our brains work does not imply that consciousness exists on a separate, independent, immaterial plane.</JT> : If not then... : I am simply using basic logic here. If consciousness does not exist on a separate plane, and if there is not an eternal Reason illuminating our own finite ability, then we are trapped inside our own heads, taking the grrrandest leap possible in believing an external objective world exists. : :<JT>I never claimed a theory of determinism. I take it as a primary fact that I have free will and volition. I also take it for granted that no brain=no consciousnesss. The two are not at odds with each other.</JT> : How can you hold a position of free will and volition? Are you saying that atoms can determine atoms freely? In other words, there must be atoms unbound by the cause and effect chain in order for your primary fact to be true. Do you maintain this? This seems like another way of saying there exists some sort of interaction above or apart from the materialistic world of cause and effect. The reasoning one uses to infer a whole of nature, a universe of cause and effect, makes a tacit exception for the reason one uses at the time to determine that. In other words, Reason is given before nature, or if you prefer, before the whole of material existence. Something is functioning outside of the material world when we reason. Your admission that we have free will is an appeal to something beyond a cause and effect universe. : :<JT>I don't know where you're getting a slippery slope from what I have said.</JT> : See above. If you admit something exists free from our cause effect world, you give precedence to the view that mind is independent in some respects from the cause effect atoms composing the brain. : ::I'm not sure whether or not Noctillucent intended to imply that, but the way I see it is the only basis for trusting reason itself is to admit it comes from an Ultimate Reason. That Ultimate Reason must obviously be more like a person than a thing, therefore God (ultimate Reason) is personal. : :<JT>And you accuse me of a leap of faith?</JT> : Accusations are pointless, as is your tacit accusation above. Please back up your accusation by reasoning. Attack my position with logic and I will respect that. Please show why my position is a leap of faith. I've at least attempted to do so with your position. : :<JT>You missed the point I was trying to make, that a group of insects as in N's example could in theory randomly spell out a message, but that it would have no meaning or intelligence. I.e., insects may be spelling out messages in a language you don't understand, in yoru backyard right now, and where you don't even notice, a Russian may have conniptions.</JT> : Again, the point is, can you accept the message (in whatever language) from blind chance as true? Only if you appeal to impossible odds and take the leap. : This is separate from the creationism question. Does the message spelled out by the insects have any basis for trust? Does the message the mindless atoms of your brain tell you (and "you" of course implies an enduring, permanent soul) have any basis for to trust? : ::Before you ask what is reasonable, can you maintain the validity of reason itself? : :<JT>Sure.</JT> : If you still think so, then either I have failed to communicate, or you have failed to understand. I do not doubt at all that the possibility of the former is perhaps likely, but I don't know how else to communicate it. : ::Or will you leave us with a sickening (and by sickening I mean literally head spinning...causing nausea) brand of skepticism which can't even tell us what it just told us? : :<JT>Take some dramamine and say that again more intelligibly, and I'll answer the best I can.</JT> : Let me state it simply. I-f y-o-u-r p-o-s-i-t-i-o-n u-n-d-e-r-m-i-n-e-s i-t-s-e-l-f, i-t u-n-d-e-r-m-i-n-e-s- t-h-e- r-e-a-s-o-n-i-n-g u-s-e-d t-o d-e-t-e-r-m-i-n-e t-h-a-t i-t u-n-d-e-r-m-i-n-e-s i-t-s-e-l-f, which undermines the reasoning it used to determine that it determines that it undermines itself...and so on to infinity. : It would be the same as saying there is proof that there are no proofs...which is of course nonsense. Reason is our staring point, and if a position undermines it, it cannot rationally be maintained. : Jesse

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