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Labels: science
posted by Kristine | Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!
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15 Comments:
Hey who is that doing the intro. Hey...
Yepper, it's me.
Neurons and calculus…it seems you are still searching for some special answer in both and I understand how you can say “There’s something weird about e raised to the power of x being its own slop,” but I think you’re looking too deeply for some key to the universe. Although as you told me, you often find answers by looking for other answers, and in dreams, but be careful about dreaming of mathematics.
Ready for more calc conversation? You seem a bit distracted. It’s cool if you are but I got concerned. And after that thread with Heddle at AtBC I promise not to call you a Christian anymore! :)
Let's wait on that, okay? Thanks.
I am reminded about my first time as the narrator introducing the the "Atheist Talk" show in the early 90's. I was really nervous and even though it seemed like a very easy thing to do, I kept stumbling. It took a few takes to get it right. Me, who had been in numerous plays having difficulty with a simple announcement.
You did just fine - too bad there is only a little snippet of video of you in the file.
Early 90's...too early for podcasts, I suppose?
I have been in plays, too - though not for a long time.
But hell, even Elvis had his moments.
Outstanding introduction, Kristine! Myers, however, should really endeavor to learn the basic fundamental concepts of dualism before he sets out to refute it.
Why thank you, Crandaddy! But what do you mean by the (uh-oh, here she goes again) "basic fundamental concepts of dualism"? Obviously, I'm not getting it.
I never finished that book on brain function because I got lost.
Calculus is on hold.
Life has interferred with blogging, with eating, with sleeping, with thinking, and with feeling.
PZ doesn't know this but he has done more than just introduced me to MN Atheists - if you think a flagellum is irreducibly complex you should see my emotions right now - not saying more at this point.
Sometimes (mostly, really), answers come with time, and one cannot rush them.
I don't mean to imply anything like that. I'm just saying that if Myers' goal was to refute dualism (which apparently it was), then he did a horrible job. No educated dualist would claim that there are angels who stimulate synapses or that there is some "soul" region of the brain, and they would probably agree very well with all of his scientific claims about the brain.
Myers, knowingly or not, simply tore down a very obvious and flagrant strawman. It would be akin to a creationist attempting to refute his evolutionist position by arguing that insects don't spontaneously generate from sterile mud, so evolution is false. It really is that laughable.
Okay doke, but what is dualism, then? (I feel stupid asking this.) I just thought it was: there is matter and there is spirit. What else is it? The soul? Is the soul in the mind according to dualism?
That's what I thought it was, but I'm not a philosopher.
I think PZ was being somewhat facetious about ghosts and angels.
It's like the dualism of the "heart" and the "head" - both are the head, really. ;-)
(Matters of the "heart" are obsessing me lately.)
Cognito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am).
If nothing else, Descartes showed us that a conscious being might be fooled and mistaken about anything and everything except for the fact that he--a conscious being who experiences--exists. You might call this a soul if you like. I prefer to call it a person. Whatever it's called, I can be sure that at least one of these things exists--namely myself.
Dualism is an attempt to explain the phenomena of persons and experiences and their relation to the physical. Dualism comes in two species: property and substance. Property dualism is basically the nonreductive physicalist approach to mental events. According to this view, there is only one physical substance but two distinct types of properties--physical and mental--the latter of which cannot be understood in terms of the former. It is irreducible to physical properties.
When most people speak of dualism, however, they refer to substance dualism. Substance dualism holds that there are two distinct types of substances. There is physical substance, and there is mental substance in the form of persons who have experiences. The substance dualist holds that minds occupy a category of being distinct from that of physical substance.
Crandaddy - I haven't gone to PZ's blog to check but if you haven't already, you might want to bring this up with him, eh?
Crandaddy - When are you going to convince DaveScot / Dembski to allow dissenting opinions over at UD?
You seem like a smart guy -how can you support DaveScot running off anybody that disagrees with him and the official party line - RIP Peter Olaffson for example?
Conversely, you could always visit us at ATBC... we are always looking for IDers that are not total ass hats or mind-numbingly stooopid.
Yeah. I know. I sympathize with you dude, it makes for a distressingly small set, but hey, what you going to do?
PS: Mea Culpa Kristine! Sorry to steal the band-width, but you know what we're dealing with at UD, so this is about the only forum to actually interact with a live IDer.
Well, I have no background in philosophy so I take my Descartes a la carte. I have a fondness for Kirkegaard's earlier writing, though.
there is only one physical substance but two distinct types of properties--physical and mental--the latter of which cannot be understood in terms of the former.
Interesting.
When most people speak of dualism, however, they refer to substance dualism. Substance dualism holds that there are two distinct types of substances.
Ahhhhh! Yes, I'm doing that too.
I doubt that PZ is interested in philosophy.
so this is about the only forum to actually interact with a live IDer.
Some little doggie could start a blog, ya know. (And you could too, Crandaddy.) ;-)
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