[Vision2020] The Eternal Soul

[Michael]

Chas,

 

You Wrote:

I like David Chalmer's concept of qualia, and I almost buy his

philosophical zombie argument, but not quite.  He never really

demonstrates, for me, that a thing called qualia needs to exist in

order to have subjective experience.  Maybe Daniel Dennett has done

too thorough of a job of indoctrinating me to his position.  

 

Me:

Well, I think 'qualia' is a pretty flexible term in the literature, but what
Chalmer's does with it is certainly fascinating! But in my argumentative
strategy, I like to use Chalmers' conclusions here as a reduction ad
absurdum-which admittedly is not going to be very persuasive to someone in
Chalmers' research direction.  Chalmers gives up on the reductive theory and
concludes that human experience is a mysterious, incredible sort of reality
that just cannot be reduced to physical explanation.  But then he proceeds
to explain this wondrous mystery in terms of 'qualia,' and then proposes
that this 'qualia' is simply something like "spin, quarks, charge," that can
ultimately be explained within a larger system that sure looks a lot like
physical explanation--all the while explaining that these 'qualia' are not
physical entities. Well, no thanks : -)  Don't think that does the trick for
many of us with the same kinds of non-reductive intuitions about our
conscious life. But then again, I know I'm not alone in seeing Chalmers'
conclusion a bit incoherent with the beginning thrust of his thesis.

 

You wrote:

I mean it in the sense that I would not

really believe it, but subsume myself in so many layers that I would

finally ignore the unfavorable evidence.  Self-brainwashing, to give

it (perhaps) a more explicable name.  To the latter question, I reply

that I consider the whole mythology that is Christianity to be

distasteful and ultimately dangerous.  Note that it doesn't have to

be, but it usually is.  From Matthew 17:6 "By their fruits ye shall

know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" I

find these words from Jesus especially true, in a condemning fashion,

of most of the history of Christianity.  Further, I don't find the

idea that the best universe that an omniscient being could engineer

involved blood sacrifice to be appealing.  If I'm going to choose a

myth arbitrarily, I wouldn't be choosing such a barbaric one.

 

Me:

Awe. This doesn't seem all that impossible a predicament.  On one hand, you
have an aesthetic response, but these sorts of things can often change,
right?  I still can't imagine liking olives, but there's still hope for me.
The blood sacrifice is something that is gruesome and barbaric, but
certainly there are gruesome and violent-like things we accept. Perhaps even
sex or child birth could fall in this category for some.  It would seem that
the blood sacrifice could fall into an over all story line such that you
wouldn't even have to accept it: like there is no more need for blood
sacrifice, since this was simply a 'response' to a worse evil; sort of like
going to war for the sake of peace. Christian don't have to like blood
sacrifice anymore. But perhaps this is an issue that Nick Gier could shed
some more light on.  

The other problem seems to be an evidential one; and there have been many
folks who have abandoned Christianity and many folks who have embraced
Christianity in light of changes in how they see the evidence or changes in
the kind of evidence they have. The only evidence you mention here is the
violence and sin in the history of the church; but I think most see this as
a questionable point, even non-Christians.  From my view, there are ways of
looking at this sort of evidence that does no clear epistemic damage. I
don't like the idea of arbitrarily picking anything, and so as long as this
is what the Christian myth would be for you-an arbitrary choice-then I'd
have to agree with your current assessment of where you are at. 

 

Anyhow, I like your honest approach to the issues. I also appreciate your
sensitivity not to offend. But from here, don't worry about offending me;
although if others are going to read along, keeping things nice could be
helpful!   

 

Yours

Michel Metzler

 

 

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