Sunday, November 02, 2008

Zany brainy ...

... Freedom is a no-brainer. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

But Aristotle, who also believed that every psychological event has physical correlate, came up with a completely different explanation that wholly fits the evidence. He concluded that matter and non-material rationality are fully integrated principles of human nature. Reality cannot be reduced to merely what scientists can weigh and measure.
Which brings us to the second piece Dave sent along: Creationists declare war over the brain.

Now this piece I have some problems with, starting with the sloppy terminology of the headline. Francis Collins and Owen Gingerich are both distinguished scientists. Both believe in God as the creator of heaven and earth. Does this make them "creationists"? I don't think so. That is, they do not believe that God created, separately and distinctly, wombats and humans and oak trees and so on. As for Intelligent Design, the idea can be traced back too the aforementioned Aristotle (which doesn't make it true, but does give it a reputable pedigree).
Nevertheless, I'm bothered that the focus of the ID people seems to be to disprove Darwin. If, in the study of species, Darwin is proved wrong on one or another point, fine. And, as Dave reminded me in an email, there's Popper's falsifiability criterion. But setting out to disprove something sounds like you've made up your mind already.
Finally, there's Andy Clark's, "There's nothing odd about minds changing brains if mental states are brain states: that's just brains changing brains." Well, think about it a bit, Andy. My brain gets locked in an obsessive compulsive loop. Some guy has me use mindful attention to change my thought processes. Why didn't my brain do that on its own? What got the brain to change itself. Not just my brain. The other guy's had something to do with it. Then "I" ordered my brain to work differently - and it did. If I and my brain are one this seems odd.

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