[Rq-rules] Farewell to CON

[grogthing]

--- Gary Sturgess <gazza666 at gmail.com> wrote:

> > If you can, by force of will, type on a keyboard,
> then
> > that's evidence that you can direct your fingers
> to do
> > things will mental expression.
> 
> Agreed. And I don't agree that I can. It SEEMS that
> I can, and because
> I don't know the ultimate causes of the particular
> physical states
> that cause me to type this, "force of will" is as
> good a term as any,
> but there's nothing metaphysical about it. Were you
> to manually
> stimulate the parts of my brain that are currently
> being stimulated, I
> couldn't NOT type through a force of will.
> 
 
Just because the physical body can be stimulated to
act via external forces in your example above, does
not negate the fact that something internal and
intangible exerts some type of causal force on the
physical body to make it act.

You can say that the act of moving your fingers can be
traced back to a certain activation of chemicals and
the firing of specific neurons in the brain. Yes, that
is physical. But a will or decision making aspect,
causes the above physical response to happen.

You can not point back to anything physical as being
the "cause" or initiator of the decision making
process.

The brain is a complex chemical electrical device that
controls the functions and movements of the physical
body (ie.. the remote control). And if you take tools
(scalples and electric stimulators and picks) to the
brain, you can clumsily activate physical reponses
from the body (ie.. punching buttons on the remote).
But the spirit or will is the proper "driver" pushing
buttons in the brain to order the proper affects upon
the rest of the body.

There is a fallicy in declaring a Universal Nagative,
such as X does NOT exist. The fallicy is, that because
they have not been proven wrong yet - they are
automatically right.

But in reality it is much harder to prove a Universal
Negative, than it is to prove a Universal Positive.

I say dogs DO exist (Universal Positive), I only have
to come up with one dog to prove the point.

To say something universally IS, any proof suffices. 

To say something IS NOT, takes even more proof,
because only after every possibility has been
eliminated, can you prove that X does not exist.

If you were raised in a single room and never left it
and you have only seen things that were brought into
the room, your experience would be very limited in
judging what is and what is not.

While we have come far in science, we have not
explored every room in our house, yet, so we can not
universally deny anything.

I am an open minded skeptic. I do not rule out
anything as impossible or unchanging, but think many
things as unlikely or unprobable.

As a skeptic, I can give my default support to the
Universal Negative propositon that "magic" doesn't
exist, but I can not declare it as an irrefutable
fact.

Gregory


"I have sworn, upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every
form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." - Thomas Jefferson

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" - Patrick Henry

"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious." - Aristotle