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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Solon who wrote (81967)12/8/2009 2:08:14 AM
From: Greg or e  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 82486
 
"ALL the evidence we have indicates that thought does not exist without electrical pulses impacting sensory input in some fashion."

Turek addresses that when he notes: "Chemicals can’t evaluate whether or not a theory is true. Chemicals don’t reason, they react.

"But even if ideas were a NOTHING (no matter/vacuum/empty space--or any other such nothing)--it still would not speak to any evidence for unicorns or monkeys living in the clouds--or Zeus or Apollo or Yahweh."

Look who's off track now.

"Even if our thought/Will cannot change a deterministic universe (meaning we are hapless and helpless) it would still be possible and sensible for us to believe the opposite."

That's like saying that it is possible and reasonable for water to not boil at 100 degrees at sea level. No; it is impossible to do anything but react in exactly the way chemicals always react to stimuli given the same set of environmental circumstances.

"Because survival of an intelligent species depends to a large extent on the civilized concepts of responsibility and accountability."

Chemicals don't give a rip about anything let alone survival. They are neither responsible nor accountable because there is nothing and no one to be responsible or accountable to.

"So we ought to posit free will whether we believe in it or not. Because survival is an overriding principle...far more overriding than truth."

Matter does not worry about survival because it cannot be destroyed. It simply shifts around. To the consistent atheist materialist, Humans are no more significant than other forms of matter.