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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Chas,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>You Wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I like David Chalmer's concept of qualia, and I almost buy his<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>philosophical zombie argument, but not quite. He never really<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>demonstrates, for me, that a thing called qualia needs to exist in<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>order to have subjective experience. Maybe Daniel Dennett has
done<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>too thorough of a job of indoctrinating me to his position. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>You wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I mean it in the sense that I would not<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>really believe it, but subsume myself in so many layers that I would<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>finally ignore the unfavorable evidence. Self-brainwashing, to
give<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>it (perhaps) a more explicable name. To the latter question, I
reply<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>that I consider the whole mythology that is Christianity to be<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>distasteful and ultimately dangerous. Note that it doesn't have
to<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>be, but it usually is. From Matthew 17:6 "By their fruits ye
shall<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" I<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>find these words from Jesus especially true, in a condemning fashion,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>of most of the history of Christianity. Further, I don't find the<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>idea that the best universe that an omniscient being could engineer<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>involved blood sacrifice to be appealing. If I'm going to choose
a<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>myth arbitrarily, I wouldn't be choosing such a barbaric one.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>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! <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Yours<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Michel Metzler<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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