The Deistic God

Thanks Pro, I appreciate Pro for actually following through on this debate, which clearly has been the hard-fought encounter I was hoping for. This debate I didn’t want to make much of a case for materialism, or realism, instead to only focus on Pro’s specific arguments for the existence of God, so I will not conclude with an appeal to such. The debate has also strayed somewhat into evolution and other loosely related stuff, which is refreshing to say the least. The only thing I want people to take form this debate is how to assess claims objectively, and to pick out weaknesses in it and to be wary of where conclusions overreach their goals. Opponent’s Argument Summary: Let’s have a final review of my opponent’s argument: C1.) Human’s possess an additional attribute over matter, i.e. the substance from which the physical object is composed, or assembled. P2.) There can't be an infinite regress of conscious beings P3.) The cause of consciousness in conscious beings must be uncaused and conscious P4.) Conscious beings come from conscious beings C2.) This attribute must have come from God (uncaused & unconscious) Contentious C1: The key area in contention through this debate is the significance of C1. And I’ve brought a number of arguments to the tables that help establish that consciousness is an attribute akin to other attributes that other material artefacts or systems indeed possess or are attributed. I gave a number of examples which sought to establish what this alleged causal gap my opponent claims to exist between matter and consciousness, the argument from brain-dead parents demonstrates that at least in principle conscious beings can arise form unconscious beings, and my opponent’s reposté that the process requires babysitting by conscious beings I argues misses the point, that in principle a purely materialistic process is observed that gives rise to conscious beings. Indeed my opponent did not argue that consciousness is a substance that is passed down from parent to child, and actually seemed to advocate that consciousness is a result of a material cause (albeit via conscious material beings). Which by itself essentially destroys Pro’s case that the cause must be God (an immaterial being), especially given what we know about evolution. Furthermore there’s the argument from brain complexity (in other members of the animal species), and detached self I made, which are predictions that are logically necessary from materialistic assumptions, but require additional pleading for an idealistic case. My opponent offered no significant rebuttal to the argument of scaling of brain complexity besides his assertion that the brain acts as a mediator of a sort, to which which I argued, is an additional unsupported assumption, and should be ruled out a priori via Occum’s Razor. Contentious P3 & P4.: Given that Pro has put forward P4, he also concedes that consciousness has material causes, as conscious beings themselves are material in their composition, and we both seemed to agree that P4 is just a general observation. General observations break down as I argued when you trace things back to their origins and extremes. Classical mechanics holds well until you get to the very small scales where quantum mechanics is a far more accurate descriptor, biogenesis seems to hold well until you push the time of origins back to chemical origins where the definition of life is thrown around, and it’s very apparent that he same thing is the case with consciousness. I’ll repeat Pro provided no significant rebuttal with the observation that conscious beings become more aware with increasing brain complexity (in animals), something that is a logical prediction of purely physical processes, and provides the ‘gradient’ for conscious beings that gradually pass the ‘threshold’ for the definition of conscious. Argument ad Ignorantum: Even if one were to accept the original conclusion, that matter cannot account for consciousness, to state that consciousness is an argument ad ignorantum, as it ignores all the other potential immaterial causes. The only positive argument he gave for that it must be conscious I addressed in my rebuttal to P4 (conscious beings from conscious beings). On Matter & the Negative Proof: As already discussed, Pro’s argument is most fragile as only one mechanism or process which gives rise to consciousness from non-consciousness is needed in order to make this entire argument unsound. Much of pro’s case has actually just been attacks on materialism to support the conclusion that consciousness cannot be a result of purely physical processes. I already mentioned there are multiple explanations of consciousness and reality apart from materialism and idealism, and even if Pro ruled out materialism, it does not actually support his particular case of idealism, much like attacks on evolution does not support creation. I never received a comprehensive rebuttal regarding self-aware processors, he in fact conceded the point that properties can be emergent, properties that bare matter, or the previous components it’s made of did not previously possess. And henceforth, lack this ‘causal gap’. “As for working processors, I concede Con's point of emergent property. But as is evident, all the emergent property in his examples are physical eg capacitors, magnets etc. But consciousness (again, as experienced) isn't physical.” Even assuming consciousness is immaterial, how does it follow that material processes cannot give rise to an immaterial attribute? In the same category of concepts, etc.? Opponent’s Final Remarks: I find it rather incredible that Pro would sprint off with a plethora of unsupported attributes, feats and assumptions about the deity he has dictated in this debate. In this debate we have only argued about the source of consciousness. Now, incredibly in his closing statement we saw the following: “Because all things must exist in space. Why do I say it willed the universe (or multiverse or megaverse, or all possible verses) into being ? Because it will be absurd to for a God which made the physical world, to make it by physical means” All the sudden this deity becomes a creator of the universe now (?!). I find this a rather incredible leap, far more so than the ‘causal gap’ Pro has attempted to demonstrate so far. While this probably should have no impact on the debate, I find it exceedingly worry how far Pro is willing to run off with the conclusions he thinks he has made, as I have noted throughout the debate. Making assumptions farther than your evidence concludes, and making things say more than they can is ‘shaking the tree’, or taking more than your justified share. One does not use evolution to demonstrate abiogenesis, or Newtonian gravity to demonstrate black holes. The very fact that Pro has lumped all these attributes in with this conclusion demonstrates that the Deistic God is a bad theory precisely because it tries to explain everything, by becoming a theory of literally anything. By being a theory of anything there is no potential for predictive or utility power, and no measure upon which it can be tested. A big red flag for a bad theory. Conclusion: I have amply demonstrated Pro’s case to be built on a number of fallacies and contentious assumptions that go much farther than our facts allow, furthermore as one large argument ad ignorantum on multiple fronts. And that is all I needed to show in order to demonstrate Pro’s case unsound. Acknowledgements: I am grateful to Pro for taking the time to follow through on this debate, perhaps now our forum exchanges will be more productive.