The Chronicles of Gemli

[_Gadianton]

I'm calling "time is up" on the practice rounds, and declare a formal debate between Gemli and the TBMs who participate in the comment section at Sic Et Non. I will moderate the debate from this thread and declare the winner and loser of each round. The first round began with The disappearance of Mind

I'm taking my post from another thread and pasting it as the official commentary for this round of debate. We begin with Gemli noting that, how the brain produces consciousness is a mystery. Kiwi57 takes the lead countering Gemli. He very quickly calls "straw man", but as the debate ends, he ends up producing the very "straw man" that Gemli had "beat to death."

"The fact is, no one knows how the brain produces consciousness"

No. The real fact is, no one knows that the brain produces consciousness. Materialistic reductionists, such as your good self, believe that it does - as an article of utterly evidence-free faith - but your belief is not the least bit "scientific." It is entirely, and only, ideological.

An astounding claim! One would think the fact that consciousness paces brain function might count as evidence that the brain produces consciousness. For instance, if a person is asleep or in a coma, or otherwise, unconscious, the brain behaves differently than it does when a person is conscious. What Kiwi57 may have meant is that no one knows that the brain fully accounts for cosciousness -- the brain might be a necessary but not sufficient condition for consciousness. He elaborates:

reductionistic materialists go beyond the evidence every time they insist that nothing can exist if they can't weigh or measure it.

In other words, something else in addition to - or heaven forbid Kiwi is not so deluded, entirely in place of - the brain, an immaterial something, accounts for consciousness. The blogs author chimes in on this point:

kiwi57 has it right, gemli. Listen and learn.

But this is where it's really interesting, because Gemli, in the same paragraph where he declared that no-one knows how the brain produces consciousness, anticipated the Mopologist response with examples such as:

Just because a shot of medicinal molecules can reduce psychotic symptoms doesn't mean that psychosis doesn't have a supernatural component.

This precisely nails the blog author's and Kiwi57's position that something beyond the material -- supernatural -- contributes to consciouss behavior as a yet-to-be-discovered component, in addition to or perhaps fully in place of the brain. Yet, Kiwi57's response to the above quote was:

Gem, please tell us: what did that poor straw man ever do to you, that you have to beat him up so mercilessly?

The straw man that Kiwi57 complains about is his own stated position a couple lines down, that is backed up by the blog author's righteous indignation!! The apologists themselves are creating the straw man!!

Since the apologists knocked themselves out, Gemli is declared the winner of this round.

Stay tuned, the blog author and the gang aren't easily intimidated, and a new post is up called "the disappearance of Mind."

Gemli has posted his response and the official debate in the comments section is getting started.

[_Maksutov]

No. The real fact is, no one knows that the brain produces consciousness. Materialistic reductionists, such as your good self, believe that it does - as an article of utterly evidence-free faith - but your belief is not the least bit "scientific." It is entirely, and only, ideological.

That sounds like something Franktalk would say. Amusing to see Mormons using the sort of arguments once made by theosophists.

[_Philo Sofee]

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this Gad!

[_Doctor Scratch]

Well observed, as always, Dr. Robbers. This is yet another case of the Mopologists returning to their roots: if a reason to attack a perceived enemy doesn’t exist, they will invent one. They have always cared first and foremost about the war rather than anything else. It is this trait more than anything else that got them kicked out of the Maxwell Institute, and this latest exchange is a plangent reminder why.

[_cwald]

Following.

[_Symmachus]

Gad, thank you so much for introducing me to the mighty Gemli with this thread. His comments have made me realize that Sic et Non is not as useless as I thought.

[_Res Ipsa]

I likes.

[_Lemmie]

Your recaps and analysis are excellent, Gad, thank you. This is like getting a series based on the summer blockbuster "Jenkins v. Hamblin" !

[_Gadianton]

There is a well-known story of British philosopher Gilbert Ryle, a critic of dualism, describing a campus visitor who stops by the science college, the arts college, the library, fountain, and all the main sites of his school and then asks, "But where is the University?"

The next debate begins with the principle author of the blog elaborating on the following position:

The insistence of some militantly reductionist adherents of naturalism, that “mind” is merely a more or less illusory product of purely chemical/physical processes...Why should I pay any more attention to the neurochemical events in an atheist’s brain than to his digestive process?

Why yes, why shouldn't he go about campus acknowledging the football stadium, the library and the fountain, and then yell at everyone he sees: There is no university here! To say so is blind faith and ideology! You militants!

Anyway, it looks like debate number two has wrapped up. It was a short debate, handled by the second string debaters. The first string debater Kiwi57 apparently chickened out, and was a no-show.

Gemli chimes in, responding to comments not quite in sync with the author's post:

It's not magic. Consciousness can be turned on or off, or it can be changed by the influence of illness, or of various drugs. Drugs are molecules that disrupt or enhance the molecules of which the brain is made. It's a machine made of goo. The goo itself isn't the mind, but when it functions, the mind emerges.

A strong opening statement. His first respondent is third-string debater Giordano Klar:

My brain says that there is no reason to accept your brain's conclusions, because you believe your brain's sole purpose is to aid in the propagation of DNA.

Well okay then.

Let's see what second-string debater "Jack" has to say after pretending to laugh at Klar's zinger:

That's a *huge* assumption. We know so little about consciousness that one might just as well postulate that the brain operates more like an hydrologist busy about the details of water distribution. But to give him credit for manufacturing the water itself would be ludicrous.

Worst points have been made -- see the first debate for several examples. A water distribution example shows that pipes, like neurons, carry the consciousness, the water, and affect the water, but the water doesn't reduce to the pipes. The water commands nothing, however, and so it's the wrong kind of consciousness for Mormon apologists. Further, the analogy could be made irrespective of how much we know.

Gemli goes straight for the factual misrepresentation -- that we know virtually nothing about consciousness:

Consciousness isn't quite as impenetrable a mystery as you assert. As beings who experience consciousness, we may never be able to understand it--in terms of what would we understand how we understand? But the mechanism is not hidden, and we can know about conscious experience by knowing how changes in brain structure and function affect consciousness.

He tips his hat to the experiential problem, showing that he's in full command of the subject, but simply reiterates that Jack is not making his case about how little we know. Jack follows up with a final comment:

I don't know ... I think we'd get to the bottom of it--if it was, indeed, a purely materialistic phenomenon. But, I'm not convinced that's what it is, or *all* that it is--as you already know.

Huh. Again, what does he think we're not getting to the bottom of? Why does he think we won't get to the bottom of it? His biggest issue is that he doesn't seem to understand the sense in which it's said that consciousness is mysterious, and because of this, is argument really isn't coherent. Despite a stronger effort from the apologists than the last debate, Gemli emerges the winner yet again. The score is 2 / 0.

Stay tuned, a third debate is brewing. A blog author from among the authors of the blog has a new post up about Darwin and atheism that is so scholarly, that it even contains diagrams of finches. The comments section is heating up. The author is throwing his weight around the comments section and he doesn't seem happy. Gemli has weighed in. Kiwi57 is still MIA. Too chicken to face Gemli? The second-stringers are having their say as well. Exciting times, folks, let's tune in tomorrow and see how it goes!

[_Philo Sofee]

Most definitely, lets tune in....