Phenomenal Consciousness
From
this article on Scientific American:
The new field of experimental philosophy introduces a novel twist on this traditional approach. Experimental philosophers continue the search to understand people’s ordinary intuitions, but they do so using the methods of contemporary cognitive science (see also here and here)—experimental studies, statistical analyses, cognitive models, and so forth. Just in the past year or so, a number of researchers have been applying this new approach to the study of intuitions about consciousness. By studying how people think about three different types of abstract entities—a corporation, a robot and a God—we can better understand how people think about the mind.
It seems another way of introducing materialistic methods into philosophy to me.
It's just like saying that answering questions like
Is the European Union feeling happiness/pain for the result of the referendum in Ireland?
Or
Is the European Union prepared to confront the challenge of a greater and deeper integration among its States?would make better understand the nature of European Citizen (if there will ever be one).
Labels: God's Mind, Man's Soul, Questions
Rational readings.
In this interesting article on the
Catholic Herald about prof. John Haldane I read:
"I do feel, I'm afraid, that Christians have de-intellectualised over the last few decades," he says. "The current intellectual resources that Christians have available to them are very limited. We are just not able to present very good arguments. Not that the arguments aren't there, but we don't know what they are very often or how to articulate them."
I agree with the assertion, and I think the problem does not belong to British Catholicism alone, however I put myself among those the lay people who are still in search of a framework to argument exaustively on Catholicity, I think the article could have been written quoting at least some of the arguments prof. Haldane would present to make our de-Christianised culture more rational.
Thank to
Zadok I read from Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, O.P:
Instead of notional,perfectly simple “atoms,” we have discovered
the extraordinarily complex, beautiful, and mathematical “particle zoo” of the Standard Model of physics, hovering on the border of existence and intelligibility (as Aristotle predicted long ago with his doctrine of prime matter). And order, complexity, and intelligibility exist “all the way up” as well. We see a teleological hierarchy and chain of emergence from quantized physics, giving rise to stable chemistry, enabling the nearly miraculous properties of carbon and biochemistry, providing the material basis for the emergence of life with its own ontological hierarchy of metabolic (plant), sensitive (animal), and rational (human) existence.
Although I have only had a brief introduction to quantum mechanics I would say that some form of teleology is already found in the description of the energy balance of subatomic particles, so it would be interesting to know more about Aristotle's doctrine of prime matter.
There should be more Christians in science and maths and technology, however I suspect there are serious barriers for whoever believes in God to advance in career in these fields.
Labels: God's Mind
