tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post116779473957660027..comments2024-03-29T03:30:25.637-07:00Comments on Metacrock's Blog: Brain Chemestry and Presence of GodJoseph Hinman (Metacrock)http://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-1168057342088248532007-01-05T20:22:00.000-08:002007-01-05T20:22:00.000-08:00I forgot about the how everyone is just a "blank s...I forgot about the how everyone is just a "blank slate" and that anything resembling an innate idea is immediately tagged as being creationist nonsense. <BR/><BR/>Yet it seems that the idea of innate ideas is not going away quietly. I found this quote in an article from the Stanford/Plato database entitled "The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction"; the context is current ideas about their <I>not really being</I> a true distinction: <BR/><BR/>"Note that, while Chomskyans may be as methdologically empiricist as any scientists ought to be, they emphatically reject empiricist conceptions of meaning and mind themselves. <B>Chomsky himself explicitly resuscitated Rationalist doctrines of “innate ideas,” according to which many ideas have their origins not in experience, but in our innate endowment.</B> And there's certainly no commitment in semantic programs like those of Katz or Jackendoff to anything like the "reduction" of all concepts to the sensorimotor primitives eyed by the Positivists. (Of course, just how we come by the meaning of whatever primitive concepts their theories do endorse is a question they would seriously have to confront, cf. Fodor (1990, 1998).)"<BR/><BR/>It seems the evidence that we are innately endowed with some sort of conceptual framework from birth is growing stronger by the day, so much so that even people like Noam Chomsky and Steve Pinker are making room for the notion. <BR/><BR/>The atheists need to catch up on their reading...<BR/><BR/><>< TMtheodicyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06093785649037443569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-1167844562943617492007-01-03T09:16:00.000-08:002007-01-03T09:16:00.000-08:00thanks for the comment. I apprecaite that. But you...thanks for the comment. I apprecaite that. But you know my argument is that evolution can't give us ideas. Innate ideas when out in the 18th century. So not only is i a question as to why our brains would let us be fooled into believin myth but how could they even respond to a idea of God? sot he God part of the brain is a good design argument.Joseph Hinman (Metacrock)https://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-1167799262099046312007-01-02T20:41:00.000-08:002007-01-02T20:41:00.000-08:00Here is the punchline: "In his neurological resear...Here is the punchline: <BR/><BR/>"In his neurological research, Dr. Newberg considers this question: why would the forces of natural selection, which gave the human brain its inexpressible powers of logical observation and rational analysis—all shaped toward the serious, pragmatic goal of keeping us alive—allow that very same organ to place such fundamental hope and trust in strange, unlikely myths? In answer, Dr. Newberg contends that <B>the very neural architecture of our brains allows us no other option.</B><BR/><BR/>You are correct to state that the religious function of our brain is very, very strong evidence towards the existence of God, and can in no way be a disproof, or lack of evidence.<BR/><BR/>Of course this brain activity is certainly not a "proof" in a geometric sense....evidence, yes, proof, no. But here is a case where the evidence is so strong, so overwhelming, that no counter argument from the naturalist camp can possibly be formed against it.<BR/><BR/>While a naturalist can certainly come up with a wonderful little home-spun "just so story" to <I>explain</I> this bizzare feature of our brains, this falls well beyond the bounds of survival instinct, or survival mechanism.<BR/><BR/>Of course that is not the only problem naturalists face, a more daunting problem than that of the religious orientation in our brains is the problem of consciousness itself, which serves no logical or necessary function in terms of a species survival. A blade of grass, nor a bacteria seems to have any consciousness we can detect, but that certainly does not impare their existence... <BR/><BR/>The evolution band-aid applied so quickly by the athiest camp to functions of any kind falls write off when applied to the problem of our God conscious brains. <BR/><BR/><>< TMtheodicyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06093785649037443569noreply@blogger.com