Sic et Non self deconstructs

[_Gadianton]

Within a short offering from the Proprietor of Sic et Non, years of anti-materialist rhetoric is deconstructed and C. S. Lewis is thrown under a bus.

I love dogs. And my dogs have always seemed to love me. (Plainly, they lack human discernment.) But has it really been love? Or, when we imagine that they love us, are we merely anthropomorphizing them, the way we also imagine that they’re smiling at us when, in fact, they’re physically incapable of smiling? These books might help to resolve the question:

“New books explore why dogs and humans have such a special bond: Dog Is Love and Our Dogs, Ourselves look at the relationship we have with our canine companions”

The admissions are stunning. First, "love" exists outside of human discernment (human cogito) in a material world. Second, he admits love isn't trivially behavior or a social construct; there is what appears as love, but isn't love, and what appears as love but is indeed actually love. Actual love can be determined by scientific investigation.

From the link he cites:

Clive Wynne, a canine behaviorist and founding director of the Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University in Tempe, has always loved dogs, but it took him many years to become convinced that the feeling is reciprocated....

...and we risk anthropomorphizing dogs. But acknowledging their capacity for love is the only way to make sense of why dogs are so devoted to us and thrive in our company, he argues. Dog Is Love takes readers all the way from theories about how dogs became domesticated to recent behavioral, biological and genetics research that provides convincing evidence that our canine companions feel affection.

At a high level: dogs love us, and the "blind forces of atoms" explain the entire thing. In fact, as David Hume anticipated, it's the only kind of explanation that could actually be an explanation.

If love from dogs exists in the reducible world outside of the human cogito, then so does human love, and if love falls, which is the prime example of pure non-material essence for anti-science writers, then pure non-material essence itself falls.

What can I say, welcome to the real world, our friends at Sic et Non. As you yourselves have just admitted, it's really not so bad here.

[_Physics Guy]

I'm afraid the only reason I can see why a lot of religious people are so keen on substance dualism is that they haven't thought carefully. We can still have souls without our souls being made of any special kind of stuff, in the same way that books can have meaning without their meaning being an extra constituent besides ink and paper, seeping invisibly between the pages.

Conversely, however, I think there are some atheists who attach undue importance to the issue of whether spirit is a kind of stuff. The strong A.I. view that mind is pattern implies that mind and matter are distinct in a sense that may not be the same as substance dualism but that is for many practical purposes equivalent.

[_Gadianton]

It is true that new Atheists are a totally different breed in this regard, being disposed toward functionalist or computation models of mind. They believe that mind is hardware neutral. And so classical material reductionism is out the window. But don't let that stop the battalion at Sic et Non from spending their years attacking the wrong thing. Unfortunately, while Dan Dennett and Steven Pinker aren't confused on this point, they aren't big fans of philosophy in general, and so their work doesn't give readers as much to go on as they need to put it in proper context, and so many atheists see themselves as reductive materialists when they aren't. But they don't care, because they don't want to get stuck navel gazing in terminology, they just want to talk about science.

[_moksha]

I imagine the Maxwell Institute has briefed the BYU administration as to the danger that emanations from Sic et Non and the Interpreter could rupture the Time-Space Continuum.

[_Dr Exiled]

Paging Mfbukowski over at MD&D. DCP needs a self-appointed teacher such as yourself to tell us how Gadianton "doesn't get it." Perhaps Rorty or James can come to the rescue somehow? DCP seems to be saying that your attraction to your wife or your favorite color can be explained scientifically. Hence, your continued attraction to Mormonism can be explained scientifically, like so many anthropologists and psychologists have been explaining for years.

If you read this, please let us know how you respond to Gadianton's OP?

[_DrW]

In the 17th century, René Descartes’ formulation of substance dualism went so far as to identify the pineal gland, centrally located in the brain, as the seat of the soul.

In the 21st century, the pineal gland is known to produce physiologically active chemicals (including serotonin, melatonin and most significantly, DMT*) that provide very strong evidence against the existence of a Cartesian (or Mormon for that matter) material soul.

The effects of endogenous and exogenous psychoactive chemicals on human brain activity, as determined by fMRI and PET scans, and resulting in changes in cognition, perception, behavior, and yes even personality, are best explained by the theory that mind is brain.

Profound, life changing insights, including those that permanently and significantly change personality, as well as the spontaneous acquisition of new skills in art, math** or music, for example, can result from brain injury. We know enough about how the brain works that we can now pretty much predict how an injury to specific brain regions will alter mood and affect, and even personality.

The observation of brain function during epileptic episodes (especially temporal lobe seizures), often described by patients as deeply religious experiences, is an especially good example.

Psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, is now undergoing FDA trials in an approach to mental health care known as “Psilocybin Assisted Therapy”. With psilocybin, patents are able to re-wire their brains to overcome depression, addictions, and anxiety – all things that religion claims to be capable of – but very seldom is.

PET and fMRI measurements of brain glucose metabolism and brain region connectedness of placebo and psilocybin dosed brains showed that glucose metabolism was increased in specific brain regions and the number of connections among brain regions increased substantially for those who had taken the drug.

Synesthesia is often reported as a result of this expanded connectedness in the brain. Synesthesia is a state of altered perception wherein one associates numbers with colors in a specific and persistent way. A printed numeral presented in black typeface, for example, will invoke the perception of a specific color. In this crosstalk between cognitive centers, sounds can have colors, sounds can have geometric shapes.

Induced changes in brain function, including those from electromagnetic field exposure (e.g. the God Helmet), ingestion of any number of natural products*** (e.g. psilocybin) or synthetic drugs (e.g. LSD), mechanical injuries, surgical procedures, and disease states such as brain tumors, together with their associated changes in cognition, perception, personality, and even character, all support the following passage in Dean Robber’s OP:

"---- the blind forces of atoms explain the entire thing. In fact, as David Hume anticipated, it's the only kind of explanation that could actually be an explanation."

_______________________________________

*https://www.psypost.org/2019/07/study-provides-evidence-that-dmt-is-produced-naturally-from-neurons-in-the-mammalian-brain-54051

**https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sensorium/201404/struck-genius

***https://michaelpollan.com/resources/psychedelics-resources/

[Guest]

Is DMT proponent Rick Strassman a Cartesian dualist?

DMT: The Spirit Molecule makes the bold case that DMT, naturally released by the pineal gland, facilitates the soul's movement in and out of the body and is an integral part of the birth and death experiences, as well as the highest states of meditation and even sexual transcendence.

[_Maksutov]

Modern dualists still focus on the pineal gland and its toolkit of enzymes and their biochemical products as the means by which humans can interact with the divine.

These physiologically active compounds include serotonin, melatonin, dimethyltryptamine and 5-methoxy dimethyltryptamine. Here are two recent examples of claims regarding the importance of indole amine molecules derived from the amino acid tryptophan in the interaction between the physical body and its (imaginary) soul or the divine.

Amazon describing a recent book on DMT by Rick Strassman.

DMT: The Spirit Molecule makes the bold case that DMT, naturally released by the pineal gland, facilitates the soul's movement in and out of the body and is an integral part of the birth and death experiences, as well as the highest states of meditation and even sexual transcendence.

Here is a book on 5 methoxy DMT by Gerardo Ruben Sandoval

The God Molecule: 5-MeO-DMT and the Spiritual Path to the Divine Light

[img]https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/content/dam/sigma-aldrich/structure0/058/mfcd00005658.eps/_jcr_content/renditions/mfcd00005658-medium.png
[/img]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment

The Marsh Chapel Experiment, also called the "Good Friday Experiment", was a 1962 experiment conducted on Good Friday at Boston University's Marsh Chapel. Walter N. Pahnke, a graduate student in theology at Harvard Divinity School, designed the experiment under the supervision of Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and the Harvard Psilocybin Project.[1] Pahnke's experiment investigated whether psilocybin (the active principle in psilocybin mushrooms) would act as a reliable entheogen in religiously predisposed subjects.[2]

[_Arc]

Maksutov, you were too quick on the keyboard for me. I truncated the original post above because the chemical structure graphics did not display properly. Might try again later. The structure that did display properly is DMT.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment

The Marsh Chapel Experiment, also called the "Good Friday Experiment", was a 1962 experiment conducted on Good Friday at Boston University's Marsh Chapel. Walter N. Pahnke, a graduate student in theology at Harvard Divinity School, designed the experiment under the supervision of Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and the Harvard Psilocybin Project.[1] Pahnke's experiment investigated whether psilocybin (the active principle in psilocybin mushrooms) would act as a reliable entheogen in religiously predisposed subjects.[2]

Upon ingestion, psilocybin is rapidly converted to psilocin, which is the hallucinogenic agent. Psilocin is 4-hydroxy DMT. That is, DMT with a hydoxy group added in the 4 position on the benzene ring.

LSD, DMT, psilocybin (psilocin), and 5-methoxy DMT are tryptophan based hallucinogens that exert their activity via a group of receptors for the neurotransmitter serotonin (5-hydroxy tryptamine).

Several popular pharmaceuticals for treating depression, anxiety and mood disorders, including Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft, are selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These act to increase the amount of available serotonin in the brain. They can substantially improve mood and affect.

As Gadianton and DrW indicated, it's all down to the "blind forces of atoms".

[_Philo Sofee]

As Gadianton and DrW indicated, it's all down to the "blind forces of atoms".

An interesting assumption based on incomplete knowledge. I see no reason to accept it at this point.