The Jolly Nihilist (Part 5)

Well the burden of proof is on both sides, not just mine. You havent shown or proved that rationality emerges from brain configuration. You have just seen a relationship and then assumed that one produces the other. Science (not all) is based on what works and there can be different theories. Just because your theory works does not mean it is true. Its an interpretation of assuming the effect comes from the cause, but you cant see that, only that there is some relationship. It has not be proven by anyone.

Looking at the evidence with an open mind, there is every reason to think rationality and consciousness spring from brain function, much as one’s personality, character and memory are bound up with brain function. Look at Phineas Gage, who suffered a traumatic brain injury and ended up with a dramatically altered personality. Consider degenerative illnesses that ravage the brain, such as Alzheimer’s disease. In these cases, we see that injuries to, or degeneration of, the brain result in the slow erasure of the “self”: memory, character, personality, reasoning ability, etc. Show me a shred of evidence that rationality and consciousness are supernaturally imposed. And then explain how brain afflictions can so thoroughly mask a fully functional soul.



As for rationality needing a rational source, which would you take, when your sick you go to a doctor and he gives you the right medicine after rational thought or you go and throw a ball at the medicine shelves with your eyes closed and what ever fallls of you will take? I mean the irrational can give you a rational medical source? I dont think so..

Nobody is saying we should rely on irrationality. I have explained, ad nauseum, that humans employ rational thinking in order to solve problems and discern facts. It just so happens that this rationality is emergent, rather than supernaturally endowed.



Objective data is also seen from within an established paradigm of expectations and assumptions, which determines what data is collected, how they are collected, and the use to which it is applied. As a result all data is theory laden. Its your interpretation.

As I have said, there are plenty of potential evidences that would make me susceptible to Christian conversion. Yahweh, in an instant, might carve his name onto the moon. There might be a double-blind experiment in which prayer was proved to decrease complications after heart surgery. Priests might be able to resurrect rotting corpses, simply by invoking Jesus’ name. There are plenty of potential evidences out there; none has been presented in anything approaching a convincing manner.



Yes the universe is simply what "is' non-rational. Can you tell me how you model something that is non-rational with conceptual forms? Are you telling me there are mute facts in the universe. Facts that just stand out there with no interpreatioan to themselves, in isollation with no rartional context? Please tell me what is a Fact?

The cosmos is brimming with facts. Here are some:

1. The universe is about 13.7 billion years old.
2. Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old.
3. Earth is the third planet from the Sun.
4. The mass of Mars is roughly 6.4191×10^23 kilograms

I could continue endlessly. The universe had to develop in some way, and this is the way it developed. Trying to apply “rationality” to it, frankly, betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of rationality as a concept. Rationality is a tool of the mind. It is almost like you are asking, “Why does the universe not have a memory?” or “Why does the universe not speak Aramaic?” It is unwise to attempt to divorce rationality from a mind able to use it.



A fact is not what I say it is or my interpretation. True objective facts are revelation, there is a rational order, a unity of truths between the facts before we come to them. If you reject that reality as a whole has no interpreation before we come to it, then all you are doing is impossing the world of your mind upon it. For you nature is ordered by our priori ideas or categories inherent in the mind, not in nature. Can you explain why our ideas should correspond to the non-rational.

Again, you absolutely must stop misappropriating the term “rational” to a universe or any other non-mind entity. Rationality is a tool of the mind; you absolutely must accept this and cease your constant misappropriation. Again, many of your comments are akin to asking why the universe lacks a personality. Personality and rationality are functions of mind.

Now, the universe, as I repeatedly have said, is how it is. The mass of Mars is as it is whether humans have a formalized measuring system or not. The age of the universe is as it is whether humans have invented the notion of a “year” or not. Inescapably, there are absolute facts about the universe simply because the universe developed as it did. Tools of the human mind help us model the universe and discern those facts. It is remarkably simple.



Could you read a non-rational book? and give true facts about it? if not try interpreting a non-rational universe. The truth is we do find facts and we do find evidence but your worldview does not give us a reason how!

Yes, one could read a fundamentally irrational book; a good example is the Bible. I could provide facts about a copy of the Bible I might possess, such as the language in which it is published; the weight of the tome; the number of pages; the frequency with which words appear; the color of the text; the condition of the binding; and many others.

And, yes, there are facts to be found about the universe. For the eightieth time, the universe developed in a particular way and, therefore, the universe is how it is. Because the universe exists in a specific way, there are myriad facts to be found. Emergent tools of the human mind, such as rationality and reasoning, enable us to model the universe and approximate truth. There is no clearer way of stating this.



The problem here is you are just copying the attributes of my God, but in my worldview I take these attributes to be given to me by divine revelation, the Bible. A source from outside this world. Of course you wont believe this and you dont have to, its not your worldview. But working in your worldview you have just reasoned that your catfish must have the same attributes. Does not prove anthing...

The point is, there are many, many, many religions other than Christianity, nearly each of which has its own divine texts that allegedly come from the supernatural realm. The Bible is just one of the “god-written” texts that litter bookshelves the world over. If there were a genuine believer in the Ethereal Cosmic Catfish, who came to that deity through divine revelation, and who then wrote a book that purported to be ECC’s immutable words, that believer would be in the same position as you. You both would have a “perfect” book written by god—just different ones. Now, you have not spelled out which characteristics, in particular, are necessary for Yahweh to function as the “grounding for rationality.” However, I assume it is not every jot and tittle of the deity, but rather specific things. Therefore, ECC could just steal those necessary characteristics and complement them with other characteristics to differentiate it from Yahweh. In that sense, they would not be the same deity at all, but rather similar ones with crucial differences.



Good to see you put , there are rational interpretationsssssssssss. Yes there are many and just saying the universe is the way it is, just is, doesnt tell us anything about it. Again we come down to what a fact is? If I found a fact in the universe I would want to know what its relationship was to another fact and then to all the facts. Well I would if i wanted the claim it to be a true fact. That implies that there is a fixed eternal interpreation to reality, that facts are all part of a unit of truth with a context guided under a rational mind (God) for man to re-interprete. But for you "facts just are there floating in the void...Evidence is based on facts, but you are interpreting what the fact must be for the first time as it has no interpretation for itself. You just look at an object, and label it with a theory. Postmodernist come accross as mad, but in your worldview they are right.

We are treading over the same ground over and over and over again, getting nowhere closer to agreement and, in my view, no closer to you understanding what I am trying to present. Take the mass of Mars as an example. The mass of that planet is what it is; its mass is not reliant upon humans being able to model it. Earth being the third planet from the Sun is an absolute fact, whether humans exist to discover it or not. Facts can be given about the universe due to the universe existing in a specific way. Rationality and reasoning are just tools of the human mind, which help to model the universe and discern these facts.



Yes encoded with DNA, and DNA is information and information is not physical. The ink on the pages of my books, are not the same thing has the context repersented by the ink. So no it does not prove that it was by a non-rational source.

How much college education have you had in genetics? Do you truly understand how DNA and genes produce new humans? I cannot tell.

So are you saying if you re-arrange an irrational book, with all it pages enough (the pieces), the book will become rational? You seem to think that minds have facts in them and data and figures and then also the universe has them as well... I thought facts were an interpretation of a mind? a context of knowledge?

Whether I reply to you the next time depends entirely on whether you show signs of understanding what I have been repeating endlessly.

We have been through emergentism enough already. The brick and house example should be enough to illustrate the principle. For real-world illustration, look at the human brain, from which rationality and reasoning emerge.

There exist facts about the universe due to the universe’s regularity (i.e., the universe existing in a particular way). Whenever an entity exists in a particular way, particular facts can be given about said entity. I have provided examples of facts connected to the universe, such as its age, Earth’s age, Mars’ mass and others. These facts are independent of humans being able to model them (after all, if humans went extinct tomorrow, the Mars’ mass would still be the same).

Humans model the universe and approximate these facts by using rationality and reasoning, which are tools of our minds. We impose our models onto the universe—never fully comprehending it as it independently exists. However, our faculties are good enough, and the universe regular enough, that truth approximations can be had.