Part 1 - Pat Churchland at Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0

[tedkanode123]

really good video! Thanks for sharing :)

[IRBucephalus]

Patricia Churchland is probably the only philosopher of mind that actually inspires me.

[Alexdurrant7]

@IRBucephalus Not Dennett?

[lukeev]

Thanks again for uploading.

[robotaholic]

I adore this lady

[alwaysright10000]

Man, I swear I'll never understand these Atheist/Stalinist eggheads for as long as I live. For example, how come they always say "in *THU* brain" when they mean all brains in general?

And Christ, how is it they don't get that no matter how many nurons or wires you connect -all 4.5 billion or whatever- it STILl can never add up to a SOUL?

No soul+No soul+No soul+No soul+No soul+No soul+No soul+No soul +No soul...= No soul.

Pretty simple math, eh Hawkins? (you thought I'd say Einstein!)

[LennyBound]

Churchland's position concerning the mind/soul is known as "eliminative materialism." It argues that our pre-scientific intuitions concerning the nature of the mind might be radically false, and that we should be prepared to radically revise the way that we conceive of ourselves as the materialistic neurosciences progress.

[LennyBound]

As we come to learn more we might want to deflate our outdated ontological notions and replace them with a more nuanced and explanatorily powerful naturalistic perspective. The history of science is littered with similar theoretical eliminations (i.e. phlogiston, caloric fluid, vitalism, etc.). Simply put, on her view there simply is no "soul."

[alwaysright10000]

I'm pulling your leg.

"Alwaysright" is a deliberately invidious screen name I use to post intentionally boneheaded hoax comments from time to time; mostly for my amusement but also because it can be a surpisingly effective way to gain insight into how and why people come to accept or reject the validity of various propositions (no, really).

Your straight-faced reply is admirably forebearing, but not terribly amusing.

[LennyBound]

Damn... I thought the comment was sarcastic but I wasn't entirely sure. :-)

[LennyBound]

I guess that just goes to show the quality of the YouTube comments that I'm use to getting. Haha.

[alwaysright10000]

The best one I've ever run across, the one that really takes the cake, went almost verbatim like this: "If the universe wasn't designed by God for humans to live in, why is it that Earth is probly the ONLY planet with gravity? Did that just happen by CHANCE?!!"

Aside from a misremembered word or two, I swear I'm not making this up, and it appeared for all the world to be very much in earnest.

[alwaysright10000]

In my experience, it's virtually impossible to say anything that will unequivocally betray the ruse.

I've posted ululations like, "It's NOT a fairy tail!! I've drawn great strength from the spirit of Christ since the death of my cat (Gary) and I just don't know where I'd be..." and, "You are obviously unfamiliar with the work of Drs. Alfonzo Chang and Horatio Berdbrane. If mutations in the scatorectus really were heritable, then prevaricational neologisms would rapidly acrue...".

[alwaysright10000]

"...in the cretoplasmic tracenta, and render the organism unable to survive, let alone reproduce or EVOLVE" and, even, "How come do so many of those classic musc guys lokk just like George Washington?".

And yet despite my best efforts, some apparently very bright people scarcely express any overt suspicion.

It's sort of depressing, really.