Direct quote from a sidebar of that very page you linked;

Despite Penrose's contributions, most of the thinkers who have appraised his work say that he has so far failed to support the claim that consciousness could not be explained by existing scientific principles
[/quote]

Or, in other words, just because someone is smart and wrote a book doesn't mean anything without supporting evidence.

Even the link given earlier as a counter to 'neo-darwinism' suffers much the same problem with the sources; either the source in question has no sound scientific backing just a bunch of ideas in a book (nothing wrong with this, ideas need to be put out there, it's how we advance, but it's not science without evidence) or the author takes the points out of context.

My favorite for example;

Further, if neo-Darwinist evolutionary ideas of gradual genetic change were true, then one would expect to find that simple organisms have simple DNA and complex organisms have complex DNA. In some cases, this is true. The simple nematode worm is a favourite subject of laboratory study because its DNA contains a mere 1,000 nucleotide bases. At the other end of the complexity scale, humans have 23 chromosomes which in total contain 3,000 million nucleotide bases.

Unfortunately, this promisingly Darwinian progression is contradicted by many counter examples. While human DNA is contained in 23 pairs of chromosomes, the humble goldfish has more than twice as many, at 47. The even humbler garden snail -- not much more than a glob of slime in a shell -- has 27 chromosomes. Some species of rose bush have 56 chromosomes.
[/quote]

Personally I've never seen a single claim from evolution which states 'more complex = more DNA' (and until we sequence the DNA and figure out what it is for who knows why a rose bush has all that material; much of it might be useless 'marker' or 'junk' DNA, or even left over virus DNA).

I could probably pick out a few other points which run counter to the 'modern' take on evolution (and this letter is 16 years old so maybe some of the things were issues or language has changed) but I feel I've made my point.

Oh? Is that rubbish as well?

http://en.wikipedia....d_consciousness

I'm not saying Penrose is "correct"(many others, including Minsky, for instance, disagree and he's arguably the top mind of our day in the field of AI - but then again it would make sense for an AI expert to insist that AI can reach human intelligence, wouldn't it ), but, hell, it's Penrose. Go ahead and tell me that you think he's being ignorant and full of 'ideological pseudo-scientific rubbish'. Penrose and Grammatikakis are not even theists.

I was referring to Grammatikakis when talking about ideological pseudo-scientific rubbish. That quote which you translated specifically is ridiculous and intentionally misleading. The name of Einstein in particular was purposefully inserted to lend credence to a statement which Einstein would have disagreed with.

Regarding Penrose. Oh, I'm sorry. You italicized his name. It's Penrose. All hail Penrose. I don't care if it's Penrose, Einstein, or Moses. His arguments regarding non-computational processes in the mind giving rise to consciousness are without merit. The very quote you just gave reveals that the majority of scientists in these fields agree that his arguments are without merit. I don't know if I'd go as far as calling it pseudo-science -- at least not without reading his books on the subject and those of others -- but italicizing his name doesn't make him any more correct.

I actually will look into Penrose's arguments, now that you mention it, since the topic is interesting to me (and related to what I received my degrees in), but the fact that the argument comes from someone named Penrose won't bend my skepticism. Only rational arguments can.

[quote name='mdwh' timestamp='1312204099' post='4843105']
Fair enough, though I don't think this is an issue of the scientific method. I'm still curious to know by what mechanism does religion accept new views - that things once thought to be not true, are now accepted as true?

There are tons of religious councils through the years that completely rewrite parts of the catholic catechism. edit: the most recent being vatican 2[/quote]I know that they do, I'm curious how they do this. By what method do they decide that something that was thought untrue is now true (or vice versa)?

What about evolution are you arguing against here, specifically? What experiments are you referring to?[/quote]
http://amasci.com/freenrg/evolv.txt
That explains the issues with the existing theory of evolution from the perspective of a scientist.[/quote]I'm not sure Richard Milton is a scientist...

Is he seriously digging up the old "gaps" argument?

Birds descended from reptiles, so that blows that argument away. Although it seems he conveniently disagrees with that, too.

Is there any particular argument he makes, that you think needs addressing, to save me wading through the claptrap?

There is nothing irrational with making claims that are un-falsifiable.[/quote]I'm referring believing in such an unfalsifiable thing as a matter of faith - such as someone who believes in invisible undetectable elephants. If you don't consider either to be irrational, then fair enough, we're just disagreeing over the definition of irrational.

Unscientific is not a synonym for irrational. Rationality deals purely with logic, which is not concerned with the existence of evidence only that an argument is consistent with the evidence that exists. For example:


1. if A then B
2. if B then C
3. if A then C
Is totally rational though there is no evidence and isn't really falsifiable. It's logically consistent.[/quote]What do you mean there is no evidence? 3 follows from 1 and 2, and from the definition of the meaning of the words. Yes we make up the axioms so they give us a convenient consistent system, but I don't see how that's analogous to claiming the physical existence of something in the real world.


But we're not talking about logic, we're talking about the existence of a physical entity. I think it's reasonable to apply rationality to a person's thinking on the physical world, and not just pure logic.

As far as I know nobody has logically disproven God, so there's no reason to think that all religious people are irrational; certainly there are many who are, but that's true of any group of people really.
[/quote]No one has disproved the existence of invisible elephants. And you appeal to "But Officer, other people are irrational too!"


The judgement of rationality doesn't depend on whether someone turns out to be right by pure luck, it's about whether their thought process makes sense.

Is it rational to jump off a cliff for no reason? But what if I jump off a cliff and break my legs, but then it turned out by doing so I avoided a meteorite landing on me - if that was pure luck and I had no idea it was going to happen, that doesn't retroactively make the decision to do so rational!

But here, we haven't even discovered that the god you believe in exists, or any of the religious claims are true (and note that with so many religions, they can't all be right). You're the person arguing it's not irrational to jump off a cliff, simply because I can't prove that you won't avoid a meteorite hit by doing so.

One need only ask: "Why don't you believe in Allah and that Muhammad was his prophet?" Or "Why don't you believe in Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva?" Or, since Richard Dawkins put it most eloquently,

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.[/quote]

The thinking mind, if it actually contemplates this, has no choice but to accept that it shouldn't believe in any of these gods.

The unthinking mind, or the mind that's in self-denial, however, is unhindered.


[color="#333333"][font="Arial"]Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has. - Martin Luther[/font]

But it's the same God. Jesus Christ is Yahweh incarnated.

This right here has to be the biggest w.t.f. in the bible

Can you write something yourself (you still haven't answered the Bible questions)? Currently the evidence suggests that you don't understand what you link.
You can read a review of this amazing scientist's book here: http://www.2think.org/darwinism.shtml
Also a discussion with the man here: http://www.talkorigi...oms/milton.html

Why do all of you want me to rewrite stuff that is already written? Perhaps you would like to actually read his statement instead of making ad homonym attacks? Apparently you only need to use logical arguments when you argue for religion, not against it.

I do not see evidence for the claims. The claims tend to be cases which have either been disproved, or are unfalsifiable.
What is this evidence that can't be shared? Oh of course, you can't share it - couldn't anyone claim this about any belief they held, no matter how irrational it seemed?

There is nothing irrational with making claims that are un-falsifiable.
[/quote]
<facepalm>

There is a stark difference between something that seems irrational and something that is irrational.
Unscientific is not a synonym for irrational. Rationality deals purely with logic, which is not concerned with the existence of evidence only that an argument is consistent with the evidence that exists. For example:
1. if A then B
2. if B then C
3. if A then C
Is totally rational though there is no evidence and isn't really falsifiable. It's logically consistent.

You've no idea what rational and falsifiability means.[/quote]
What? Are you serious? Do you even know what the word rational means?

[font=arial, sans-serif][size=2]
ra·tion·al/?raSH?nl/

[color=#666666]Adjective: Based on or in accordance with reason or logic: "a rational explanation".
[color=#666666]Noun: A rational number. More »
[/quote]
Falsifiability is not a requirement for logic as shown by my example. Totally logical and not falsifiable. Seriously, look up the definitions of words before you call people out on their definitions.[/font]
[font=arial, sans-serif][size=2]

[/font]

As far as I know nobody has logically disproven [s]God[/s] invisible flying hippos, so there's no reason to think that all [s]religious [/s]people who believe they exist are irrational; certainly there are many who are, but that's true of any group of people really.

Fixed.
[/quote]
Why should you think they're irrational either? All this says to me is that you're ready to discriminate against people who believe differently than you, which is both non-scientific and asinine.

Birds descended from reptiles, so that blows that argument away. Although it seems he conveniently disagrees with that, too.

O rly?

There is nothing irrational with making claims that are un-falsifiable.[/quote]I'm referring believing in such an unfalsifiable thing as a matter of faith - such as someone who believes in invisible undetectable elephants. If you don't consider either to be irrational, then fair enough, we're just disagreeing over the definition of irrational.[/quote]
why is it irrational? I'm using the definition in the dictionary.

What do you mean there is no evidence? 3 follows from 1 and 2, and from the definition of the meaning of the words. Yes we make up the axioms so they give us a convenient consistent system, but I don't see how that's analogous to claiming the physical existence of something in the real world.[/quote]
it's analogous to using the word irrational correctly. There is no evidence for A, B, C or ~A, ~B, ~C, so believing A or ~A is totally rational as long as your beliefs follow accordingly with the knowns.

But we're not talking about logic, we're talking about the existence of a physical entity. I think it's reasonable to apply rationality to a person's thinking on the physical world, and not just pure logic.[/quote]
arguments are logic. If you want to ignore logic there's no point discussing any further.

No one has disproved the existence of invisible elephants. And you appeal to "But Officer, other people are irrational too!"[/quote]
Why are they irrational? If nobody has disproved them it would indicate rationality by definition.

The judgement of rationality doesn't depend on whether someone turns out to be right by pure luck, it's about whether their thought process makes sense.

Is it rational to jump off a cliff for no reason? But what if I jump off a cliff and break my legs, but then it turned out by doing so I avoided a meteorite landing on me - if that was pure luck and I had no idea it was going to happen, that doesn't retroactively make the decision to do so rational!


But here, we haven't even discovered that the god you believe in exists, or any of the religious claims are true (and note that with so many religions, they can't all be right). You're the person arguing it's not irrational to jump off a cliff, simply because I can't prove that you won't avoid a meteorite hit by doing so.
[/quote]
Rationality is purely logical. Just jumping off a cliff has nothing to do with rationality. There are plenty of rational and irrational reasons to jump off a cliff. With the only information you have being that you jumped off a cliff knowing nothing before or after, jumping off a cliff is totally rational. It may not be smart, but it's totally rational for the same reason "1. A" is a rational formal logical proof. This is symbolic logic 101 stuff.

LOL

You guys are confusing the word "rational" for the word "valid". way2lazy2care, you seem to be talking about Validity.

"Rational" means generally "using reason" or "sensible".

You can argue whether believing in a god is rational or not, but you don't get a free pass by pretending that a valid argument necessarily yields a rational belief, regardless of the premises.

way2lazy2care, I assume you'll need a little more help with that distinction, so please read this. Rationality refers to the use of reason. Reason is not the same as logic, though it involves it.

Now that you understand the difference between reason and "pure logic", perhaps you'll understand that: "There are pink elephants floating in the sky" alone is a perfectly fine statement from a logical point of view, but it certainly is not rational. If you think it is, well then you'll have to argue that with a mental health professional.

way2lazy2care, I assume you'll need a little more help with that distinction, so please read this. Rationality refers to the use of reason. Reason is not the same as logic, though it involves it.

Now that you understand the difference between reason and "pure logic", perhaps you'll understand that: "There are pink elephants floating in the sky" alone is a perfectly fine statement from a logical point of view, but it certainly is not rational. If you think it is, well then you'll have to argue that with a mental health professional.

That's a fair point and duly noted, but then pretty much what we're saying is that rationality is subjective, in which case we have no reason to judge people for that anyway.

edit: nor should it be brought up in debate for the same reason.