How human language refutes atheism
How human language refutes atheism
I have outlined my points in another thread here.
Now I will discuss the main points in it succinctly one by one.
To be a true atheist you have to believe that there is only material. That is to say there is no immaterial force which can control the movement of material. Let me be very clear exactly what I mean by mind or immaterial force. The mind has three basic properties:
knowledge: the ability to know what bodies to move and where in order to achieve a result
power: the ability to move those bodies to the desired location
will: the desire to actually perceive the movement of these bodies as good, beneficial, desirable or necessary.
Mind is directly juxtaposed with randomness. Randomness has no knowledge, no power, and no will. Randomness merely selects a choice from a finite set of choices. As it chooses, randomness does not care what it chooses, does not know what to choose and has no desire to choose one choice over another choice, it will simply choose any choice from a finite set, it doesn't matter. For example, let us take the alleged destruction of the dinosaurs by an asteroid which is believed to have landed near the Yucatan Penninsula near Chixculub. The Earth has no mind, so one it couldn't KNOW about the approaching asteriod. Two, if it did know, it couldn't do anything about it because it has no POWER over the asteriod or any other object. And three if it did have knowledge and power, it couldn't use it because it has no WILL. Second example, the nucleic acids T C A G form the basis of DNA. When they are replicated incorrectly, so the monists believe, this is not the result of a mind KNOWING the result of the mutations, nor does a mind have the POWER to move these nucleic acids such that they are incorrectly replicated. Third, these mutations are not the result of any WILL.
Causation
The monists believe that all movement of bodies is the result of a physical cause and that all causes trace back to the first cause, the Big Bang, which was not the result of knowledge, power and will, it just happened, it was unintentional, accidental, random, arbitrary.
The dualists believe that there are numerous causes and that each of us is the prime mover of all our ideas and actions. Our ideas are the results of our mind exercising its knowledge, power and will. For example, let's say you think the thought: "what would happen to time if I approached the speed of light?" When Einstein thought this, this thought was not the result of him blindly obeying physical causes, rather he was the prime mover in this idea. He had never encountered this idea before in any essay, but it was he himself that caused it.
Either: Will exists
Or: will does not exist
Either: Power exists
Or: power does not exist
Either: Knowledge exists
Or: knowledge does not exist
Either: all three exist together
Or: all three do not exist together
Either: ALL causes are due to an obedience to physical laws
Or: ALL causes are not due to an obedience to physical laws, but some are due to mind
The brain
The human brain, in the monists view, is no exception. It too is obeying physical laws. All outputs are the result on an input. Input stimuli, output action. So when a person utters the phrase: "I have dream that one day people will be judged not by the content of their character but by the color of their skin," that phrase is simply the result of the stimuli that person encountered. That person did not choose to utter that phrase he was just obeying physical laws, just as a rock obeys gravity when it falls down.
The problem human language poses to monism
This is where monism falls apart. How do you program a human to speak correct sentences? The number of correct sentences is easily more than a googolplex, it may even be infinite, and the number of incorrect sentences is still larger. Natural Selection cannot program a human to utter langauge because how do you write a code large enough for all the output? This code certainly could not be located in the DNA because the genetic code is only 3.2 billion base DNA pairs long. Moreover, natural selection not being intelligent and not knowing what langauge is, could scarcely contain the wherewithal that even eludes the smartest human beings.
Here is the dualist picture of language. The human mind has knowledge of what words mean and what constitutes a correct sentence. The mind then uses its power over neurons to move the mouth such that the proper sounds are uttered so that someone else can roughly understand what they mean.
Once you admit that there is a force that can manipulate material, it is very easy to understand that God is that force which can manipulate the material of the universe, and that what we do with our bodies, God can do with other material in the universe, though on a larger scale.
Now I will discuss the main points in it succinctly one by one.
To be a true atheist you have to believe that there is only material. That is to say there is no immaterial force which can control the movement of material. Let me be very clear exactly what I mean by mind or immaterial force. The mind has three basic properties:
knowledge: the ability to know what bodies to move and where in order to achieve a result
power: the ability to move those bodies to the desired location
will: the desire to actually perceive the movement of these bodies as good, beneficial, desirable or necessary.
Mind is directly juxtaposed with randomness. Randomness has no knowledge, no power, and no will. Randomness merely selects a choice from a finite set of choices. As it chooses, randomness does not care what it chooses, does not know what to choose and has no desire to choose one choice over another choice, it will simply choose any choice from a finite set, it doesn't matter. For example, let us take the alleged destruction of the dinosaurs by an asteroid which is believed to have landed near the Yucatan Penninsula near Chixculub. The Earth has no mind, so one it couldn't KNOW about the approaching asteriod. Two, if it did know, it couldn't do anything about it because it has no POWER over the asteriod or any other object. And three if it did have knowledge and power, it couldn't use it because it has no WILL. Second example, the nucleic acids T C A G form the basis of DNA. When they are replicated incorrectly, so the monists believe, this is not the result of a mind KNOWING the result of the mutations, nor does a mind have the POWER to move these nucleic acids such that they are incorrectly replicated. Third, these mutations are not the result of any WILL.
Causation
The monists believe that all movement of bodies is the result of a physical cause and that all causes trace back to the first cause, the Big Bang, which was not the result of knowledge, power and will, it just happened, it was unintentional, accidental, random, arbitrary.
The dualists believe that there are numerous causes and that each of us is the prime mover of all our ideas and actions. Our ideas are the results of our mind exercising its knowledge, power and will. For example, let's say you think the thought: "what would happen to time if I approached the speed of light?" When Einstein thought this, this thought was not the result of him blindly obeying physical causes, rather he was the prime mover in this idea. He had never encountered this idea before in any essay, but it was he himself that caused it.
Either: Will exists
Or: will does not exist
Either: Power exists
Or: power does not exist
Either: Knowledge exists
Or: knowledge does not exist
Either: all three exist together
Or: all three do not exist together
Either: ALL causes are due to an obedience to physical laws
Or: ALL causes are not due to an obedience to physical laws, but some are due to mind
The brain
The human brain, in the monists view, is no exception. It too is obeying physical laws. All outputs are the result on an input. Input stimuli, output action. So when a person utters the phrase: "I have dream that one day people will be judged not by the content of their character but by the color of their skin," that phrase is simply the result of the stimuli that person encountered. That person did not choose to utter that phrase he was just obeying physical laws, just as a rock obeys gravity when it falls down.
The problem human language poses to monism
This is where monism falls apart. How do you program a human to speak correct sentences? The number of correct sentences is easily more than a googolplex, it may even be infinite, and the number of incorrect sentences is still larger. Natural Selection cannot program a human to utter langauge because how do you write a code large enough for all the output? This code certainly could not be located in the DNA because the genetic code is only 3.2 billion base DNA pairs long. Moreover, natural selection not being intelligent and not knowing what langauge is, could scarcely contain the wherewithal that even eludes the smartest human beings.
Here is the dualist picture of language. The human mind has knowledge of what words mean and what constitutes a correct sentence. The mind then uses its power over neurons to move the mouth such that the proper sounds are uttered so that someone else can roughly understand what they mean.
Once you admit that there is a force that can manipulate material, it is very easy to understand that God is that force which can manipulate the material of the universe, and that what we do with our bodies, God can do with other material in the universe, though on a larger scale.
Those who are most effective at reproducing will reproduce. Therefore new species can arise by chance. Charles Darwin.
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Re: How human language refutes atheism
"I don't understand this shit." You could have said it that way.
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Re: How human language refutes atheism
Enough of your garbage. You are a troll or intellectually dishonest, either of which is annoying. This is not the default position of people who reject the deluded nonsense you call dualism (which you would not be one of if you were current on the scientific literature). Just by rejecting an intellectually empty position of dualism, this does not make the person a determinist. I dislike people who try to tell me my position.that phrase is simply the result of the stimuli that person encountered. That person did not choose to utter that phrase he was just obeying physical laws, just as a rock obeys gravity when it falls down.
I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. [...] I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me. - Richard Feynman
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Re: How human language refutes atheism
Each time you make these threads I think rather you should stop kicking up sand and just make a thread defending dualism instead.
I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. [...] I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me. - Richard Feynman
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Re: How human language refutes atheism
You don't understand language. Have a look at syntactical structures... we don't memorise word sequences or have a random word chain generator in our head, we consider full functions...
An example:
I went to the supermarket
If you analyse this sentence "I" is the subject "went" is the verb and "to the supermarket" is the object. "to" and "the" are grouped under the category of the object to which they correspond.
How do we learn this? Easy... we generalise... And that's why you hear kids conjugating the wrong way, because they've drawn false generalisations... Toss in the odd irregulars and whatnots and you have a very grammatically competent human... We hear and learn correct usage and after a while it becomes intuitive for us to modify words to correspond grammatically with the rest of the sentence.
How fun that spinoza sauntered into my field of study... makes it a whole lot easier to dismiss him as someone speaking out of turn. This has been informative.
An example:
I went to the supermarket
If you analyse this sentence "I" is the subject "went" is the verb and "to the supermarket" is the object. "to" and "the" are grouped under the category of the object to which they correspond.
How do we learn this? Easy... we generalise... And that's why you hear kids conjugating the wrong way, because they've drawn false generalisations... Toss in the odd irregulars and whatnots and you have a very grammatically competent human... We hear and learn correct usage and after a while it becomes intuitive for us to modify words to correspond grammatically with the rest of the sentence.
How fun that spinoza sauntered into my field of study... makes it a whole lot easier to dismiss him as someone speaking out of turn. This has been informative.
Last edited by Eriku on Mon Nov 08, 2010 6:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How human language refutes atheism
Spinoza, where did you get this idea? Which book?
I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. [...] I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me. - Richard Feynman
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Re: How human language refutes atheism
May very well be his own idea. It is a fact that they've hit major stumbling blocks with regards to programming a computer to produce convincing human language, at least when it gets feedback from a real person that it's supposed to respond to. What one has to consider is that it 's hardly a surprise, seeing as we have several parts of the brain that are highly specialised for language processing, and seeing as the human brain is faaaaaaaaaaaar more impressive than a computer. Not to mention the fact that language is essentially infinite despite having finite parts.ScienceRob wrote:Spinoza, where did you get this idea? Which book?
The wonders of grammar.
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Re: How human language refutes atheism
You spend a huge amount of time and effort and what for? To produce what is I am afraid utter nonsense. You clearly have the ability to apply yourself to such ideas. Go study what other people have said and then you might have at least a foundation to work with. This is sadly just gibberish.
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Re: How human language refutes atheism
He'd do well to start with evolution... It's gradual incrementation you know. It starts as stupid unconscious matter, where the programmings that prove beneficial survive rather than those which don't (though not 100%), then after a few billion billion tiny steps you get to something like neurons, which further open the possibility for memorisation and enhanced cognition. If we all behaved randomly, being not the most impressive apes we would soon fall, hence evolution rooted out those who didn't comply to what'll keep you alive. THAT, in a very simplified and rubbish explanation, is how you get to matter that seems to have preferences and goals.
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Re: How human language refutes atheism
I've never really been intrigued quite enough to go into the study of linguistics (being a layperson about it is enough for me) but it seems you're talking about the Turing test. It was my presumption even with machines that will pass such a test, it would merely be a result of programmed responses rather than a real ability converse.Eriku wrote:May very well be his own idea. It is a fact that they've hit major stumbling blocks with regards to programming a computer to produce convincing human language, at least when it gets feedback from a real person that it's supposed to respond to. What one has to consider is that it 's hardly a surprise, seeing as we have several parts of the brain that are highly specialised for language processing, and seeing as the human brain is faaaaaaaaaaaar more impressive than a computer. Not to mention the fact that language is essentially infinite despite having finite parts.ScienceRob wrote:Spinoza, where did you get this idea? Which book?
The wonders of grammar.
I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. [...] I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me. - Richard Feynman
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Re: How human language refutes atheism
Of course. First we'd have to crack the definition of "consciousness" before we could determine whether the computer has reached a level of it enabling it to engage us in a real conversation... If we had the definition in place I reckon computers still have some way to go.ScienceRob wrote:I've never really been intrigued quite enough to go into the study of linguistics (being a layperson about it is enough for me) but it seems you're talking about the Turing test. It was my presumption even with machines that will pass such a test, it would merely be a result of programmed responses rather than a real ability converse.Eriku wrote:May very well be his own idea. It is a fact that they've hit major stumbling blocks with regards to programming a computer to produce convincing human language, at least when it gets feedback from a real person that it's supposed to respond to. What one has to consider is that it 's hardly a surprise, seeing as we have several parts of the brain that are highly specialised for language processing, and seeing as the human brain is faaaaaaaaaaaar more impressive than a computer. Not to mention the fact that language is essentially infinite despite having finite parts.ScienceRob wrote:Spinoza, where did you get this idea? Which book?
The wonders of grammar.
I'm sorry to say that you can't find much in the way of interesting linguistics talks on youtube, but if you ever come across The Teaching Company's linguistics course it is presented very well... and it's rather interesting to look underneath the hood of all our languages to find that they're largely the same, and also to see the variety of things that exist which we'd never have thought about... (like the post-position rather than the pre-position, found in Japanese).
Anyway, I'll add what Pinker wrote in "the Language Instinct" (which is a great, but at times demanding read about our innate language abilities) about the implausiblity of a random word generator in our head, like spinoza seems to think:
""How Ann Salisbury can claim that Pam Dawber's anger at not receiving her fair share of acclaim for Mork and Mindy's success derives from a fragile ego escapes me."
At the point just after the word not, the letter-writer had to keep four grammatical commitments in mind: (1) not requires -ing (her anger at not receiving acclaim); (2) at requires some kind of noun or gerund (her anger at not receiving acclaim); (3) the singular subject Pam Dawber's anger requires the verb fourteen words downstream to agree with it in number (Dawber's anger . . . derives from); (4) the singular subject beginning with How requires the verb twenty-seven words downstream to agree with it in number (How . . . escapes me). Similarly, a reader must keep these dependencies in mind while interpreting the sentence. Now, technically speaking, one could rig up a word chain model to handle even these sentences, as long as there is some actual limit on the number of dependencies that the speaker need keep in mind (four, say). But the degree of redundancy in the device would be absurd; for each of the thousands of combinations of dependencies, an identical chain must be duplicated inside the device. In trying to fit such a superchain in a person's memory, one quickly runs out of brain."
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Re: How human language refutes atheism
I got as far as "I" then remembered that my life is finite.
"I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled"
AND MERRY XMAS TO ONE AND All!
http://25kv.co.uk/date_counter.php?date ... 20counting!!![/img-sig]
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled"
AND MERRY XMAS TO ONE AND All!
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Re: How human language refutes atheism
...and in danger of becoming boring and infected with stupid. I fled about the same point.Clinton Huxley wrote:I got as far as "I" then remembered that my life is finite.
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Re: How human language refutes atheism
You've not had your stupid vaccines?
Rational thoughts keep it at bay for me. And exposure to stupidity reminds you why you take the position you do.
Rational thoughts keep it at bay for me. And exposure to stupidity reminds you why you take the position you do.
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Re: How human language refutes atheism
I is pitiful, weak oldster with compromised immune system.Eriku wrote:You've not had your stupid vaccines?

Not really, I take the position I do because I like to fight.Rational thoughts keep it at bay for me. And exposure to stupidity reminds you why you take the position you do.

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