Dawkins Confused Does and Doesn't Know Truth

[warshingtondude]

If you have seen some interviews done with Richard Dawkins and know his idealogy then this is TOTALLY HILARIOUS! Finally a satirical twist on the stiff discussions that usually surround this dude.

[revjimbob]

"pay grade"

Get yourself a new insult.

[revjimbob]

This is incoherent shite.

[onycho1]

Look rimjob

Just because you don't understand Prof Dawkins and his equating thought, consciousness and awarenewss with materialism is evidence of your intelligence pay grade.

Get a life...

[onycho1]

You said it brother... "WITHIN A MATERIALISTIC FRAMEWORK" thought occurs, awareness and consciousness arising out of star dust. The process of apples dropping being factual is an example of an amateur street cleaner talking on Ptolemy.

I minored in theoretical physics and have a vague understanding of QM. Sometimes it is better not to think so much drdirs. You might wearing your sense of mentally feeling your bowels empty.

[drdirs]

But you didn't say awareness and consciousness. You said thinking and reasoning. And thinking and reasoning are perfectly compatible with materialism: we think with our brains. Sorry to repeat myself. Now, could you define "awareness" for me?

And then, please, explain how QM renders all empirical science worthless and is not in itself empirical.

And then explain why you do not stab yourself in the chest. Cause, you know, maybe you'd die if you didn't!

[drdirs]

The point is this: you can complain about empirical knowledge all you want, but at the end of the day you use it constantly, and you happily rely on it for your survival.

When deciding whether or not to stab yourself in the chest, which of the following is more relevant: is it A) "There is nothing verifiable in materialism", or B) "The chest is where my heart is, and my heart keeps me alive by pumping blood through my body"

I'd say B. I think, so would you.

[onycho1]

Awareness, conssciousness = thinking and reasoning. Materialism has never been able to demonstrate consciousness, awareness, thought or reason.

So far no one understands the mechanism of self awareness.

Physics (re)discovers Philosophy: over against Cartesian and especially 19th ct. positivist dualisms which separate physics and philosophy - the emergence of quantum mechanics forces physicists to be become philosophers again.

[onycho1]

Indeed, the logic of complementarity which QM requires ripples into a larger return to complementary relationships between physics, philosophy, and religion.

(In other terms: Cartesian dualism defines both 19th ct. positivism and fundamentalism as "mirror images" of one another: each agree that only one mode of knowing can be true - and the alternative mode(s) must be false:

[onycho1]

The indivisible wholeness of observer/observed, and particles as "standing probability waves" (re)turning us to the idealist epistemologies of Kant and Plato.

Your heart is not formed in utero but the mass of embryonic cells continues to move.

One can live without materialism.

[drdirs]

But materialism HAS been able to demonstrate thought. It has not clearly demonstrated consciousness, other than by what you're doing, arbitrarily equating it to thought (which may or may not be correct). Thinking, however, is clearly measurable in the brain, and it can be influenced by physical means in predictable ways. It can also be simulated to the extent that technology permits.

[drdirs]

Self-awareness can be described as simply a thinking mechanism that has acquired information about itself. But if you attribute MORE to it than that, the "what it is like to know what something is like", and so on, that's a different type of analysis altogether, and in that analysis awareness (of thought) is NOT the same as thought.

There's no doubt that with QM, physics need to turn its attention to philosophy more than it has "classically", but where on Earth did the "and religion" come from?

[drdirs]

As for the heart, I don't think you got my point. Materialism is not ontologically "whole", if you will, of course not, cause nothing is.

But that Richard Dawkins exists is as correct as saying "stabbing yourself in the chest might well kill you". Both are empirical facts, verifiable in the framework of materialism. If there is reason to doubt one, why is there not reason to doubt the other?

[drdirs]

I know you don't doubt that Richard Dawkins exists, but to even suggest that it might be sane to doubt his existence due to the "limitations of materialism" or whatever, while it would not be sane to doubt the empirical facts about ones own heart, is a strange double standard.

God, on the other hand, is found in a domain of reasoning that you CAN reject altogether. The satire in the latter part of the video, while it was somewhat funny and well-executed, completely ignores that difference.

[drdirs]

As for wave-particle duality etc., I don't buy into what I like to think of as the misrepresentation that mere perception of an experiment really influences its outcome. Measurement, however, and the exchange of energy that any type of measurement requires, WILL have an effect, especially when this energy is NOT negligible compared to the scale of what's being studied (as it would be in classical physics).

[onycho1]

You may not like to buy into anything but the fact remains that science has conducted the split screen experiment over and over and over again. The results appear to be reproducible each time which may not agree with your buying into anything.

Classical physics has come to an abrupt change with the advent of newer evidence.

[onycho1]

What are you trying to say? The Quantum theories seem to find evidence that nothing really exists except for thought and freewill.

For according to Einstein's General Relativity states that matter is actually condensed energy but science has no idea of what energy might be.

Its all from the mind's eye point of reference.

[onycho1]

Yes verifiable materialism is no more than hypothesizing your thoughts are being stolen by moon-men.

Richard Dawkins' existence nor stabbing yourself in the heart with a sharp knife doesn't provee anything about reality.

The nature of our very solid existence or matter being anything at all is now questioned by scientists who have empirical evidence that they just don't know.

[onycho1]

What are you thinking or trying to establish? What is a thinking mechanism or what acquires information about itself? Your talking gibberish.

Who are you to THINK that the physics of Quantum Mechanics need to turn its attention to anything? Classical science and its facts, theories and observations are in the realm of faith and religious belief that one's senses are giving an accurate representation of anything.

Science is based on philosophy for nothing it finds is absolute.

[onycho1]

Okay I'm open for your demonstration that materialism has thought. Any valid source would be appreciated.

Again I'm open to any proof that 'thinking' is clearly measurable in the brain. Increased electrical or neuronal activity on a monitor proves nothing except that SOMETHING is happening but thinking cannot be equated with electrical or particle mass (material) having anything we know as awareness, thought, thinking or ciphering.

Got any real evidence that we can see?

[onycho1]

Actually the difference in truth or don't know is when Dawkins makes statements as if they were fact. Second part childish? Satire with objective truth is not childish.

Actually Dawkins is using only the experiences he states which resides in his mind and illusory. For Dawkins hasn't the vaguest concept of reality.

There is nothing verifiable in materialism but that involves some knowledge of QM.

Until you understand that materialism is incapable of thinking or reasoning, stay very quite.

[drdirs]

"some knowledge of QM". I suppose you're the expert. I love it when people take a cursory glance at quantum mechanics and go "hey, this means there's no objective reality, so I'm justified in believing whatever I want". Give me a break. There IS objective reality. QM is merely the study of certain intuitively difficult aspects of it. A failure to understand it completely does not invalidate our understanding of the higher-level universe IN ANY WAY.

[drdirs]

When you drop a heavy object, it falls to the ground. This is verifiable, repeatable, and factual. It's not truth, because truth implies higher certainty than fact, but it IS a fact. Science deals in facts, not truths, to provide useful models that approximate reality as best we can, under the assumption that what we're studying is an objective reality, which (empirically) we know is a useful assumption. Science is open and honest about these limitations.

[drdirs]

The processes of thought and reason do not defy description and explanation in a materialistic framework. We think with our brains. Our brains are material. It's really that simple. And dualism is dead - get over it.

Meanwhile, philosophy does not change reality. You can declare the universe devoid of any objective truth, but none the less you still have to live in it. By your own reasoning you don't know what would happen if you stabbed yourself in the chest. So what's stopping you?

[drdirs]

No, there's a difference between honesty and the truth. When you don't know the truth of a matter, the honest answer is "I don't know". The second part is just childish. The difference between Dawkins and God is that Dawkins is objectively verifiable.