To put it crudely, we think we know about carbon atoms, hydrogen atoms, oxygen atoms etc. So since we think we know these things and we expect a human to have more we assume there must be ‘soul atoms’ that are invisible and undetectable but somehow give a human whose alive a soul.

But wouldn’t it be just as reasonable to say we know a lot about hydrogen atoms when they are sitting in pure form in our chemistry lab but very little about how a highly complex arrangement of such atoms will behave (i.e. when arranged in the form of a human brain)?

Or to deploy yet another analogy, you can read all there is to read about HTML and related web markup languages but that alone won’t tell you what the entire web is like nor will it tell you what the web was like in 1998 versus 2005 versus today….even though in all those periods it was made up of every day ‘atoms’ (the atoms here being individual web pages)

It is very enjoyable to discuss things with you.

You wrote:

So you’re right, its a ‘materialism of the gaps’ but it’s not squeezing materialism into gaps of non-materialism, its assuming the gaps contain materialism just like the non-gaps do. The ‘God of the gaps’ assumes God is living inside the gaps between which materialism dominates.

That is how it looks from the materialist perspective. There is another perspective. It is that the ultimate reality is supernatural, and that the natural is merely an ephiphenomenon of that ultimate reality. From this perspective materialism itself is a gap, a useful gap when used as a window, one that provides a limited view of the ultimate reality — if one doesn’t get so involved in examining the window and its haziness that one no longer looks past them, or doesn’t believe there is anything beyond them. Materialistic science is very useful when it recognizes that the hazy window isn’t all there is, and cleans it the best it can so as to provide a better view into the ultimate reality. Contemporary materialistic science, different from the properly materialistic science of the past, insists there is nothing else besides the window and the haze.

The problem is that if you’re going to build an argument in the form of “X is supernatural because matter cannot do X”, you must support the case that “matter cannot do X”. There’s a lot of things we know matter cannot do. We know it can’t travel faster than the speed of light, for example. But there’s a huge number of things that matter can do but we just don’t know yet. For example, how about the best selling book of 2015? It’s just matter, if I had a time machine I could zip there pick up a copy on Dec 31st 2015 and zip back with that collection of atoms….but we don’t know what it is right now but its no doubt something.

So you’re right, its a ‘materialism of the gaps’ but it’s not squeezing materialism into gaps of non-materialism, its assuming the gaps contain materialism just like the non-gaps do. The ‘God of the gaps’ assumes God is living inside the gaps between which materialism dominates.

If I’m drving thru town, on block 1 I notice homes. Block 2 I am fiddling with the radio. Block 3 I notice yet more homes. I have a ‘gap’ for what is on block 2. ‘God of the Gaps’ is like assuming there’s a massive spaceport on block 2. Your ‘naturalism of the gaps’ would be like assuming there’s just more houses on block 2. While any assumption may be wrong, the latter is probably less likely to be wrong than the former.

Scientists who are Christians understand that ultimately there can be no real conflict between true science and true religion because the natural and the supernatural both have the same Author. I think this is why they tend to remain calm and maintain their scientific objectivity when the findings of science aren’t going their way in terms of their religious beliefs.

Which makes me ponder whether the issue isn’t whether the line between the supernatural and natural is an artifact of our knowledge and little else. To put it bluntly when God was making souls, did he say ‘this stuff is supernatual’ or did he just say ‘this stuff is just more natural stuff in that has its own particular qualities’. Why would ‘soul atoms’ to him be any different than hyodrogren atoms?

For example, that SETI scientists would be able to differentiate between mindlessly generated noise and an intelligently designed message originating in the depths of the cosmos was not controversial. This is because everybody knows that science is capable of determining whether it is more likely that a given phenomenon is the result of the work of an intelligent agent or more likely that it is a purely natural phenomenon.

Actually everyone does not know that. Since SETI has yet to find any signals that consistently can’t be explained via unintelligent naturally generated causes, this ‘test’ has never been put to the test.

Yet when it came to the discovery of the astoundingly complex functionality of life, with its densely packed DNA software and miniaturized factories all but shouting out that this is no accident (and it has been mathematically demonstrated that it is a virtual impossibility for it to be accidental)

No it hasn’t. Yes its mathematically impossible for it to be an accident in the sense that if you put a lot of atoms in a bag and shook it up its almost impossible for them to ‘just fall’ together in the right way to make DNA or a cell. Nonetheless atoms don’t just fall together the way the balls in a lottery drawing do. They are inclined to attract or repel each other as per chemistry tells us and the number and type of complexity of possible interactions is so huge that its impossible to calculate any ‘odds’ at all mathematically.

Let me show you an example of where I think this idea gets it wrong:

Say you have a chess board and set of standard chess pieces. Your toddler will throw some of them down on squares at random. What are the chances that this will ‘accidently’ produce a white king in checkmate with 3 white pawns within two rows of the black side and 2 black pawns within a row of the white side? Very slim no doubt.

Now suppose I showed you that arrangement and told you it was produced by having a computer chess program play itself. You wouldn’t be shocked and start claiming that chess programs were supernatural entities.

The odds of such a thing happening then should not be calculated by the toddler example above. It should be calculated by taking the set of all valid chess games and then seeing how many of them end with the configuration above. The mathematician attempting this would soon realize that to calculate the set of all possible chess games would produce a number that is probably finite but so huge that even a computer the size of the universe running the life of the universe couldn’t calculate. With no ability to get at these numbers, there’s no ability to calculate the odds of them happening.

I think the flaw in your argument is that you’re confusing human limits on our understanding of how matter works with limits on what matter can actually do.

Or maybe materialistic science is refusing to admit that there are limits on what mindless matter can do all by itself, causing it to resort to rather silly “naturalism of the gaps” arguments. It can be just as silly to say, when science is confronted with the inexplicable, “We will eventually find an entirely natural, mindless explanation for that,” as it can be to simply say, “That is the part God does.”

True, relentlessly objective science doesn’t care about whether the ramifications of its findings tend to undermine or affirm belief in the various religious/philosophical systems.

Scientists who are Christians understand that ultimately there can be no real conflict between true science and true religion because the natural and the supernatural both have the same Author. I think this is why they tend to remain calm and maintain their scientific objectivity when the findings of science aren’t going their way in terms of their religious beliefs.

This is not the case for the materialists. For example, that SETI scientists would be able to differentiate between mindlessly generated noise and an intelligently designed message originating in the depths of the cosmos was not controversial. This is because everybody knows that science is capable of determining whether it is more likely that a given phenomenon is the result of the work of an intelligent agent or more likely that it is a purely natural phenomenon. It was also because finding out there are other intelligent creatures in the Universe didn’t pose a threat to the essential beliefs of a religious/philosophical system.

Yet when it came to the discovery of the astoundingly complex functionality of life, with its densely packed DNA software and miniaturized factories all but shouting out that this is no accident (and it has been mathematically demonstrated that it is a virtual impossibility for it to be accidental) the materialists suddenly lost their scientific objectivity and refused to accept that sometimes the involvement of an intelligent agent is the best explanation for a given phenomenon. They did not do so because it suddenly became unscientific to acknowledge that some phenomena are best explained by the involvement of an intelligent agent; it was because they saw this discovery as directly threatening their atheistic beliefs.

True, relentlessly objective science is willing to admit that the involvement of an intelligent agent in life coming about is currently the most plausible explanation. Zealous atheism isn’t. It
is a case of materialistic science refusing to admit that there are limits on what mindless matter can do all by itself.

I think the flaw in your argument is that you’re confusing human limits on our understanding of how matter works with limits on what matter can actually do.

“Is it your stance that such a thing could never be made?”

Yes, unless the day comes when science can artificially create a rational soul in the laboratory, which I don’t think will happen any time soon.

“Or that no matter what a computer said or did you would never consider revising your view that it was just a bunch of ‘clever programming’?”

There is no reason to revise my view until someone explains how to configure matter and energy such that it can seize upon and be affected by that which is immaterial. I don’t think this explanation will come from atheistic, materialistic science as it refuses to accept what is obvious to most people: that there are realities that do not consist of matter and energy, that is, “supernatural” realities.

“If its the latter are you any different form the deterministic atheist who insists no matter how unexpected a person might be, they are still just a bunch of atoms following regular patterns of nature?”

I am different from the deterministic atheist in that I see that there is no rational explanation for what we find in our own consciousness, for what we find in nature, or for the existence of the natural Universe itself without the inclusion of supernatural realities.

Conscious self awareness, free will, and the ability to grasp immaterial abstract concepts are all unexplainable if one looks for those explanations in matter and energy alone.

If the natural Universe had a beginning, which science in recent years has indicated is the case, then only a supernatural reality could have brought it about, as there was nothing natural around to bring it about before the natural Universe began.

The most plausible current explanation for that first single celled, reproducing life form, which we now know consists of nanotechnology light years beyond anything modern science knows how to build from scratch, is an explanation that includes the involvement of an intelligent agent in the process of bringing it about. That does not in itself necessarily indicate that the intelligent agent was a supernatural one. Yet fear that many will draw that conclusion has brought about an amazing denial of the obvious in atheistic science that will one day be generally mocked and ridiculed, contemporary science perverted by atheism taking on the role of the inquisitors and those who dare to state the obvious playing the part of Galileo.

I think reasonableness requires the belief that intelligent life with a free will cannot exist without a supernatural component, and in so far as science will never be able to create such life artificially, there will never be a robot or android that possesses something like what we call “inalienable” rights when speaking of humans.

Is it your stance that such a thing could never be made? That at a certain point a computer could never go beyond a certain ceiling of ‘clever programming’ whatever that is (writing a fictional story, or to use Star Trek, I believe for a while Data could not sincerely laugh)? Or that no matter what a computer said or did you would never consider revising your view that it was just a bunch of ‘clever programming’?

If its the latter are you any different form the deterministic atheist who insists no matter how unexpected a person might be, they are still just a bunch of atoms following regular patterns of nature?

“Your assertion that computers do not think is true to the degree that to date we probably don’t have computers that think….but I don’t think you’ve established the statement that computers cannot think. In fact, I’d ask you to consider what you’d say if you were confronted by a manufactured computer that did in fact seem to think? If it held conversations with you, even got into arguments with you. Would you say that despite seeming like a rational entity it had no soul and therefore destroying it wouldn’t be an unjust act?”

There already is software that is pretty good at creating the illusion that it is conversing with the user. Its “thoughtfulness” is that of the programmer, not the computer, which remains a mindless, albeit very clever configuration of matter and energy. When one understands the logic the programmer used to determine how the software will respond to the user, one can “converse” with it in a way that exposes the mindlessness of the computer and the “intelligent” software running on it.

No matter how intricately and cleverly matter and energy are configured they remain just that, intrinsically incapable of seizing upon or being affected by that which is immaterial, which includes abstract concepts the grasping of which is essential for intelligence.

What a computer does is entirely deterministic. Many atheists believe that what humans do is also entirely deterministic, denying our free will but not our intelligence. They do this without offering any explanation at all of just what configuration of matter and energy allows for their interaction with immaterial abstract concepts essential for intelligence. They don’t, of course, because they can’t.

Without rationality and the ability to grasp immaterial abstract concepts there can be no free will. That is why computers or androids will always be just mindless machines the behavior of which is entirely deterministic no matter how well the illusion is created by their designers that they possess intelligence and free will. It will be entertaining to listen to the silly debate between atheists who claim that not even humans possess a free will and those claiming their robots really do have intelligence and free will.

The ability of the human intellect to grasp immaterial abstract concepts is why it is evident that it possesses an immaterial component — a rational soul — that is also the source of its genuinely free will.

I think we are coming close to Aristotle’s distinction between matter and form. As I said of a tune, what we hear are sounds, but the tune, which is a pattern or arrangements of sounds is not perceived by the senses, but grasped by the understanding – All forms are, in this sense immaterial, but are not on that account substances.

Descartes famously said that he could doubt that he had a body. “I could suppose I had no body,” wrote Descartes, “but not that I was not,” and inferred that “this I” is not a body. But, as Miss Anscombe points out “by that method Descartes must have doubted the existence of the man Descartes: at any rate of that figure in the world of his time, that Frenchman, born of such-and-such a stock and christened René; but also, even of the man – unless a man isn’t a sort of animal. If, then, the non-identity of himself with his own body follows from his starting-points, so equally does the non-identity of himself with the man Descartes. “I am not Descartes” was just as sound a conclusion for him to draw as “I am not a body.”

The computer raises the same question as your book. Computers operate in terms of strings of marks or impulses or sounds and these no more constitute thought than ink marks on a page constitute thought. …

True but the book’s story is something immaterial yet it exists in the book’s arrangement of matter….not some supernatural substance that exists in books but not in blank paper.

It is only because the writer and the reader invest the ink marks with meaning that they represent thought.

But the meaning cannot exist simply inside the readers, because until I read a book I have no idea what its about. Likewise the writer does add to the book but note he only alters the arrangement of the matter that makes the book. The meaning is immaterial yet carried in something that appears to be purely material.

This is NOT saying a book has thoughts, can think or has a soul. But it is saying that if we establish the immaterial can be contained as an arrangement of matter there’s no obvious reason why other things we think of as immaterial (i.e. a ‘soul’, doing abstract thought, etc.) would require a supernatural substance as opposed to simply a specialized arrangement of matter. No books don’t think but since a book can carry an immaterial story in simple matter, it may be possible for more serious immaterial stuff to be carried by more sophisticated arrangment of ‘simple matter’.

Nor, I would suggest, does the brain think. Rather, people think. I have, after all, non-observational awareness or reflex consciousness of my own intentional actions.

Can a person without a brain think? If it were possible to do a brain transplant (and in theory it seems possible, if well beyond our technology) what person would you and I be if we swapped brains?