@Deepsight:
Common sense , philosophical logic, faith: they are all in the same subjective realm. whose common sense and whose philosophical logic can we truly trust to discern reality. Is it Socrates, Aristotle, Plato or Pythogoras, not to mention the hundreds of other competing and contradicting philosopies? Is it the common sense of the fetish native doctor or the modern pulpit pimps?
Empirical logic speaks a universal language that all can understand, test and validate. It can also correct itself when new know is available. That is why I maintain that is by far the most reliable means of understanding reality.

Thank you very much globexl,

May I say a few things.

globexl:

@Deepsight:
What we call love is hard to define in real terms because we tend to confuse it with a whole lot of other emotional states. So to talk about love, lets talk about parental love or love between parent and offspring. I can make the argument that parental love is an evolutionary physiological trait. Over time, boilogical organisms developed a mechanism to keep track of and protect their DNA. All animal species show a tendency to nurture and protect their ofsprings. As higher mammals, we call it love. It is just a chemically induced sort of magnetic attraction to anyone carrying our own or similar DNA. Studies have shown that parents and offsprings who are seperated at birth will still exhibit an unexplainable affinity or attraction towards one another if they meet accidentaly even after many yrs or decades after seperation. So, love is in the genes. Its an evolotionary trait.

Given that we are built in a physical body, It is only natural that there will be physical processes either governing or corresponding with every mental, emotional and even spiritual state in which we exist or actively experience reality. To my mind, this fact alone does not by itself render such states a strict result of physical elements alone.

I say this because I am well acquainted with the argument you have made above: namely that emotions are the pure result of physical chemical reactions and no more. I do not share this view: I am rather of the persuasion that the reverse is the case: namely that the physical chemical reactions are the result of the emotions.

My reason for this view is simple: there is no chemical that is by itself conscious or sentient enough to be propelled towards the very fine nuances of human emotion especially when we speak in the varied realm of love. You have talked about family chemical attractions, but this loses sight of the fact that there are family members who detest each other and perfect strangers who share a bond of love till death. This alone shows us that your allusion to family ties is not sufficient to explain the phenomenon of deep human love. It is such a varied and multi-faceted thing, and expresses itself in sometimes such profound and nuanced degrees of beauty as to be poetic: my dear friend, there is no chemical that is nuanced enough to be propelled towards such. It is rather a conscious mind that is propelled towards such, because only a conscious and sentient mind can contemplate and experience such profound thoughts and notions. No chemical or combination of chemicals alone is capable of such – it is rather the case that there will be a corresponding chemical reaction accompanying such experiences of the sentient mind.

Indeed I will also go so far as to say that I am also sometimes bemused when people advance this same argument as evidence of evolutionary biology: for in the same vein as stated above, blind chemicals have no compulsion towards adaptation for survival. Blind chemicals could not care if they exist in a pre-biotic inanimate soup or if they exist in a living breathing body. Blind chemicals could thus have no inherent propulsion towards survival of a living body such as to compel them to develop through evolutionary biology. Rather, the course of the existence of a creature may have such a propulsion, and in its collective development my evolve biologically.

Thus whilst I accept evolutionary biology in some degree, I do not subscribe to the notion that it is a result of pure directionless chance either in its commencement or continuation. For me, it seems obvious that there is a quality of mind behind it - and this is not obviated even with the understanding of the process of natural selection. This fact is all the more compelling when organs with the shocking intricacy of design and fitness for purpose as the human eye, are studied. Darwin himself was known to comment that the eye constituted an evolutionary riddle. Nevertheless I digress: let me just point out that the eye can only exist and could only conceivably be required by a conscious, deliberately self aware creature with a need to observe its environment. That is the point I seek to make: that such an organ would not be blindly and purposelessly contrived by inanimate and disinterested chemicals. . .

the human brain itself is a very complex mystery that we are still trying to fully understand. But just because it is very complex does not make it supernatural. Afterall, it has had several billion years to evolve to its present level of complexity.

For what purpose does it so evolve? Why would such a massive super-computer of unfathomable complexity and purpose-oriented capacity even evolve at all? To fill what gap in nature? Just why? And just how?

I have my answer – It is required to serve as the bed and tool of a sentient being. What is your answer – blind contrivance by chemicals?

Go back to the functionalities of the brain, study what those functionalities are, and then contemplate an answer.

As for sentience, I believe that as the electrical activity inside a living cell reaches or crosses a certain electromagnetic threshhold, the organism draws to itself some sort of cosmic energy equivalent to its frequency(soul??) and self-awareness ensues.

What is this cosmic energy that you refer to. You are the first self declared atheist I am coming across who makes such allusions. I guess that’s a good thing though. Shows that unlike the hardened materialist, you have an open and intuitive mind.

As we continue to increase the computing power of micrprocessors, in time to come we might be able to create computers that become self-aware.

I doubt this very much. At all events I would caution you to distinguish carefully between a robot that can process information and deliver it accurately in multiple scenarios and the quality of self-consciousness as a sentient being. Your PC an do all that already and I doubt that anyone will argue that it is self-conscious.

I'm sure you have heard of fuzzy logic chips. These are micrporocessors that are designed to mimic human emotions. Today they are embedded in computers used for currency and equity trading where a lot of human emotions are involved.

“mimic” being the key word.

The point I'm to to make is that in time, all the hitherto enigmas of conscoiusness and sentience may be explained in purely scientific terms.

I hope you recall that we already understood together that being able to render a scientific explanation for something does not obviate the question – “what caused the how” as so eloquently phrased by MyJoe.

Agostics have a core belief in a creator, and I dont.

This is not correct. Agnostics do not necessarily have such a core belief. Agnosticism is simply the position that asserts that it does now know, period. Some agnostics think that it is possible that there is a God, but believe that such an element might be too remote and forever unknowable. It is best to understand agnosticism as the opposite of Gnosticism – which denotes knowledge. Agnosticism denotes no knowledge – which is a safe and intellectually honest position, actually.

Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable.[1][2][3] Agnosticism can be defined in various ways, and is sometimes used to indicate doubt or a skeptical approach to questions. In some senses, agnosticism is a stance about the difference between belief and knowledge, rather than about any specific claim or belief. In the popular sense, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves there is a God, whereas an atheist disbelieves there is a God.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic

If we must define god as the primordial first cause of all existence, then WE MUST OF NECESSITY also define the nature of god and what was before the first cause. Its very easy for you say its the uncause of the first cause or unmoved mover. Fancy words indeed.Those are just fancy cop-outs. They still dont mean much or explain anything. Its like trying to explain infinite space and infinite time. Where would be the starting point?

Let me simply drop a nugget for thought – Does eternity have a beginning?

That first cause we speak about, encapsulates eternity. It thus cannot logically have a beginning or a cause. It is self-existent because eternity is self existent. We can discuss this in greater detail should you so desire.

globexl:

@Deepsight:
Common sense , philosophical logic, faith: they are all in the same subjective realm. whose common sense and whose philosophical logic can we truly trust to discern reality. Is it Socrates, Aristotle, Plato or Pythogoras, not to mention the hundreds of other competing and contradicting philosopies? Is it the common sense of the fetish native doctor or the modern pulpit pimps?

Dear firend, in answer to the above question, I could just as easily quote the remainder of your post - - -

Empirical logic speaks a universal language that all can understand, test and validate. 

- - - and then ask you - "whose empirical logic?"

That serves to remind us of one thing - that there may be facts and logic that seem obvious to only a few people, and regarding which there may be eternal arguments - but there are also certain central pieces of logic which ought to hold true for virtually all but the most irrascibly dogmatic. These central pieces of logic and common sense are that which i believe can be co-ordinated into a thought system that unveils certain basic and incontestible truths.

Such an example of an incontestible piece of logic which may lead to eternal truth is this equation -

0 + 0 = 0;

which being mathematically true, leads us to the very logical and empirical recognition that things may not emerge from nothingness.

That, dear friend, is a starting point.

HHmmm. Interesting revelation. The definition of agnosticism fits perfectly well with my viewpoints. So I guess I'm an agnostic after all parading as an athiest. LOL.
HHmm. But I guess i share much more in common with athiest than thiest.

I never knew Soyinka was an atheist . . .well everyday is a learning curve I guess.