Crispin Wright on the moral, semantic and psychological implications of naturalism and ontological materialism

I've mentioned that many, perhaps most, metaphysical naturalists and materialists don't like to make explicit the full logical implications of their worldview, because in such case it becomes obvious that their ideology is irrational and self-defeating. They get nervous when you press them to draw the exact implications of their position, and carefully avoid making any explicit predictions (on concrete metaphysical topics entailed) by their ideology.

When exceptionally, they make some prediction entailed by their worldview, and you refute it or question it, they assert that naturalism doesn't entail any such predicition (what refutes the previous position) or appeal to other naturalists who think otherwise about such prediction (without realizing that naturalism, if it's true, cannot entail logically inconsistent implications. This is a clear example of how a monumental faith in naturalism can overpower rationality and critical thinking).

Morever, some metaphysical naturalists and materialistic pseudo-skeptics are professional propagandists for atheism and, therefore, act like lawyers in a court of law in defense of materialism, naturalism and (its ethical corollary) "secular humanism". They don't have the intellectual, emotional and professional equanimity to search the truth; rather, their purpose is to defend their ideology against any possible objection.

As their main existential and emotional motivation is atheism (they want atheism to be true), they try to leave all the possibilities open to naturalism, even is such possibilities are logically inconsistent with each other or (more importantly) with naturalism itself.

Fortunately, there are a few honest metaphysical naturalists out there. They're truth seekers who are not interested in propaganda for atheism or materialism, but in a true inquiry into naturalism itself, and in its metaphysical implications. They're not afraid of critially examining their own position (see for example the book Naturalism in Question as an example of this. And read philosopher David MacArthur's paper on the skeptical implications of naturalism)

One of these naturalist philosophers is Crispin Wright. In his contribution to the book Conceivability and Possibility, Wright writes:

"A central dilemma in contemporary metaphysics is to find a place for certain anthropocentric subject-matters—for instance, semantic, moral, and psychological—in a world as conceived by modern naturalism: a stance which inflates the concepts and categories deployed by (finished) physical science into a metaphysics of the kind of thing the real world essentially and exhaustively is. On one horn, if we embrace this naturalism, it seems we are committed either to reductionism: that is, to a construal of the reference of, for example, semantic, moral and psychological vocabulary as somehow being within the physical domain—or to disputing that the discourses in question involve reference to what is real at all. On the other horn, if we reject this naturalism, then we accept that there is more to the world than can be embraced within a physicalist ontology—and so take on a commitment, it can seem, to a kind of eerie supernaturalism". (p. 401. Emphasis in blue added)

Let's to comment this in detail.

1-As a consistent naturalist (and an honest truth seeker and philosopher, not an ideologue or propagandist), note that Wright doesn't believe that naturalism is neutral regarding metaphysical questions about semantics, moral and psychological matters. He fully realizes that naturalism, as a metaphysical position, HAS actual implications for all of these questions.

2-Based on point 1, Wright realizes that contemporary metaphysics faces a dilemma, caused in part because naturalism is the widely accepted metaphysical position and, at the same time, there is not an obvious or clear place for certain phenomena and properties (that Wright calls anthropocentric subject-matters: semantic, moral and psychological properties) in a purely physicalist world (a world where purely physical and material causes are operative) entailed by naturalism.

Note that it's not a sort of argument from ignorance. The argument is not that we ignore or don't know or lack evidence on how to place moral and similar properties in a physicalist ontology and thereby naturalism is false. Rather, the argument is that if naturalism is true, then a physicalist ontology has to be true; and a physicalist ontology by definition EXCLUDES non-physical entities or phenomena. Therefore, if moral or psychological properties are non-physical (=not fully reducible to physical processes or entities), naturalism is false.

3-As consequence, Wright realizes that, if naturalism is true, then reductionism to the physical follows. Moral, psychological and semantic properties are, somehow, "physical", because non-physical entities and properties cannot have a place in purely physicalist ontology. This is entailed logically by naturalism.

Note that this is exactly the same conclusion of another naturalist philosopher Alex Rosenberg. Regarding morality, Rosenberg writes: "If there is no purpose to life in general, biological or human for that matter, the question arises whether there is meaning in our individual lives, and if it is not there already, whether we can put it there. One source of meaning on which many have relied is the intrinsic value, in particular the moral value, of human life. People have also sought moral rules, codes, principles which are supposed to distinguish us from merely biological critters whose lives lack (as much) meaning or value (as ours). Besides morality as a source of meaning, value, or purpose, people have looked to consciousness, introspection, self-knowledge as a source of insight into what makes us more than the merely physical facts about us. Scientism must reject all of these straws that people have grasped, and it’s not hard to show why. Science has to be nihilistic about ethics and morality. There is no room in a world where all the facts are fixed by physical facts for a set of free floating independently existing norms or values (or facts about them) that humans are uniquely equipped to discern and act upon" (emphasis in blue added)

Regarding psychological properties and consciousness "Nevertheless, if the mind is the brain (and scientism can’t allow that it is anything else), we have to stop taking consciousness seriously as a source of knowledge or understanding about the mind, or the behavior the brain produces. And we have to stop taking our selves seriously too. We have to realize that there is no self, soul or enduring agent, no subject of the first-person pronoun, tracking its interior life while it also tracks much of what is going on around us. This self cannot be the whole body, or its brain, and there is no part of either that qualifies for being the self by way of numerical-identity over time. There seems to be only oneway we make sense of the person whose identity endures over time and over bodily change. This way is by positing a concrete but non-spatial entity with a point of view somewhere behind the eyes and between the ears in the middle of our heads. Since physics has excluded the existence of anything concrete but nonspatial, and since physics fixes all the facts, we have to give up this last illusion consciousness foists on us. But of course Scientism can explain away the illusion of an enduring self as one that natural selection imposed on our introspections, along with an accompanying penchant for stories. After all it is pretty clear that they solve a couple of major design problems for anything that has to hang around long enough to leave copies of its genes and protect them while they are growing up" (emphasis in blue added)

Regarding semantic properties and beliefs: " It is of course obvious that introspection strongly suggests that the brain does store information propositionally, and that therefore it has beliefs and desire with “aboutness” or intentionality. A thoroughgoing naturalism must deny this, I allege. If beliefs are anything they are brain states—physical configurations of matter. But one configuration of matter cannot, in virtue just of its structure, composition, location, or causal relation, be “about” another configuration of matter in the way original intentionality requires (because it cant pass the referential opacity test). So, there are no beliefs"(emphasis in blue added)

Like Rosenberg, Wright fully recognizes that naturalism, being a picture of the entire world (a worldview) is not and cannot be neutral regarding metaphysical problems about moral, psychological and semantic matters. Naturalism has to have implications for all of these fields; implications that if are proved false, would falsify naturalism.

I suspect that the latter point is what naturalist propagandists are afraid of. As they're true believers and they WISH that naturalism and atheism be true, they carefully and smartly avoid making explicit the implications of naturalism for concrete areas of inquiry. With this strategy, they avoid that the implications of naturalism be fully and rigurously known and examined.

This is why they prefer to write debunking articles about creationism, God, afterlife or parapsychology, instead of critically and objectively working out the full implications of their actual position and testing the implications with the relevant evidence and philosophical arguments.

They don't want to know the truth, except it if confirms naturalism. They are not intellectually nor emotionally prepared to reject naturalism if the evidence or philosophical arguments force them to do it. It's a sophisticated method of self-delusion and a silly way to avoid cognitive dissonance.

4-Wright concedes that the acceptation of non-physical properties or entities would imply the denial of naturalism and, therefore, provide evidence for "supernaturalism" (he calls it "eerie supernaturalism")

Note that Wright is not talking about a specific religion or God, but simply about a worldview which is incompatible with the implications of naturalism, and therefore can be called "supernaturalism" (beyond the limits of nature). If such supernaturalism entails a specific form of theism, is another (important) question, but it is not the point relevant for Wright's argument.

His point is that naturalism has clear implications that need to be true if naturalism is right. But if the implications are false, then naturalism is false, and some kind of "supernaturalism" has to be right.

If naturalism were false...

What you would expect if naturalism is false? I submit that IF naturalism were false, then we would expect:

1-That consciousness cannot be explained by materialism (because consciousness is not material). And for the time being, everybody agrees that there is not (materialistic) explanation at all of consciousness.

2-That consciousness, intention and mental states are causally efficacious (as seen in placebo effect, biofeedback and psychokinesis). And this is what we found both in our daily life and in some psi experiments:





3-That consciousness, not being reducible to the brain, survives after death (as suggested by some cases of near-death experiences and afterlife literature in general).

4-That believing in materialism (which is false) only can be done by faith or, at least, by partially irrational factors And this is why materialist William Lycan has expressed: "Being a philosopher, of course I would like to think that my stance is rational, held not just instinctively and scientistically and in the mainstream but because the arguments do indeed favor materialism over dualism. But I do not think that, though I used to. My position may be rational, broadly speaking, but not because the arguments favor it: Though the arguments for dualism do (indeed) fail, so do the arguments for materialism. And the standard objections to dualism are not very convincing; if one really manages to be a dualist in the first place, one should not be much impressed by them. My purpose in this paper is to hold my own feet to the fire and admit that I do not proportion my belief to the evidence." (emphasis in blue added)

If arguments for materialism and dualism both fail, then a neutral or agnostic position would be the rational choice. But believing in materialism when the arguments for it don't work, and rejecting dualism when the objections to it fail, it's irrational. (We survivalist, including dualists and others accept psi phenomena and afterlife evidence that warrant our rational choice in favor of some kind of metaphysical dualism, even if we concede, for the argument's sake, Lycan's point that the traditional or standard philosophical arguments for dualism do fail)

The next point (a complement of this) could explain why materialists accept materialism, even if it is not the rational choice.

5-That naturalism and materialism, being false, only can be believed and motivated at the bottom by irrational factors (fears, double standards, prejudices or even obsessions and delusions). And this is what naturalist philosophers like Thomas Nagel has realized: "I believe that this is one manifestation of a fear of religion which has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life... My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world"

If you change "religion" by "supernaturalism", you'll see that Nagel is referring to the same topic than Wright. Nagel is not referring to religion as an social instituion or dogma, but to the existence of supernatural (nonphysical) phenomena.

6-That empirical evidence for phenomena prima facie incompatible with naturalism and materialism would exist. And this is why we find, for example:

7-That the evidence for such phenomena be rejected, by rhetoric and irrational arguments, by materialists and professional debunkers (and this is exactly what we found).

8-That true believers in materialism and naturalism will defend many other obviously absurd and false beliefs, without realizing it. (In fact, if they are not able to see the fallacies and incoherences of the materialistic position, it's perhaps because their minds don't function properly. So it's not surprising that they also will believe in and defend many other ridiculously false, irrational and self-destructing beliefs) And this is exactly what we found, for example:

I could mention another 10 or 20 facts, phenomena, evidence or arguments that exist and we'd expect to exist if naturalism were false. But this post is already too long and I think I made my point clear.

Steven Novella on Raymond Tallis's thoughts on consciousness

In a recent blog post, Steven Novella has commented on some ideas expressed by Raymond Tallis in some articles (like this one and this one).

Let's examine some of Novella's arguments against Tallis.

Tallis argues that "Even if we were able to explain how matter in organisms manages to go mental, it is not at all clear what advantage that would confer. Why should consciousness of the material world around their vehicles (the organisms) make certain (material) replicators better able to replicate? Given that, as we noted, qualia do not correspond to anything in the physical world, this seems problematic. There may be ways round this awkward fact but not round the even more awkward fact that, long before self-awareness, memory, foresight, powers of conscious deliberation emerge to give an advantage over those creatures that lack those things, there is a more promising alternative to consciousness at every step of the way: more efficient unconscious mechanisms, which seem equally or more likely to be thrown up by spontaneous variation"

Note that Tallis' point refers the function of consciousness in the context of the evolutionary origin of consciousness. If qualia doesn't correspond to anything existing in the external world, then it's obviously problematic to explain consistently how qualia would offer some adaptative biological adventage which would favor the survival of organisms.

Amazingly, Novella misreads and misrepresents Tallis' argument, and replies to him with this straw man: "One error is Tallis’s reasoning is the unstated assumption that evolution will always take the most advantageous path to survival. There may be more efficient methods of survival than consciousness, but so what."

But Tallis is not assuming that evolution will ALWAYS take the most advantageous path to survival. His point is that SOME advantage consciousness has to offer to survival if we want to make sense of consciousness from the perspective of evolutionary theory (that is, whether we want to understand consciousness in a way consistent with Darwinian theory of evolution).

Based on Novella's above straw man, he continues with this irrelevant remark: "One might as well ask why birds fly, when it is such a waste of energy and there are more efficient ways of obtaining food and evading predators"

But flying offers an adaptative advantage: they enable birds to get food, to escape predators, etc. Perhaps it is not the most efficient way to do that, but it's at least partially efficient to do it. However (and this is Tallis' point) if consciousness and qualia don't correspond to the external world, how could you explain its (at least partial) efficiency for survival?

Novella continues with this red herring: "Life through evolution does not find the solution to problems, but many solutions. Life is also constrained by its own history – so once species heads down a certain path its descendants are constrained by the evolutionary choices that have been made"

What the hell has that to do with Tallis' argumentation?

Novella says: "His arguments are ultimately extremely evolutionarily naive. They are excessively adaptationist, for example. Not everything that evolves was specifically selected for in all of its aspects. There are many epiphenomena – properties of life that arise as a side consequence. That is because life is messy."

So what? Is Novella suggesting that consciousness is a epiphenomenon? If the answer is yes, then he has to explain how could he be talking about consciousness when it is not causally efficacious and, therefore, cannot produce any effect on your own consciousness (what would imply that you cannot talk about consciousness).

But then Novella speculates about the possible advantages of consciousness (which is logically inconsistent with epiphenomenalism and hence with his above implicit suggestion that consciousness could be an epiphenomenon): "Tallis also fails to consider possible advantages for even primitive consciousness, or how it may emerge out of neural functions that themselves provide useful functions"

But then, is consciousness an epiphenomenon or not? Novella seems to be so desperate to contradict Tallis that his objections are mutually inconsistent.

Let's see more of Novella's irrelevant replies to Tallis.

Tallis argues that "It is about the deep philosophical confusion embedded in the assumption that if you can correlate neural activity with consciousness, then you have demonstrated they are one and the same thing, and that a physical science such as neurophysiology is able to show what consciousness truly is."

Note that Tallis is referring to the neuroscientifc assumption that "neural activity" is identical with consciousness (based on the correlation of the former with the latter). A is correlated with B, therefore A is B (this kind of fallacious reasoning underlies the materialistic interpretations of neuroscience, and is this assumption what Tallis is commenting on).

But look how Novella, playing with words, criticizes Tallis' argument: "Here is commits a bit of a straw man in saying that the position of neuroscience is that brain activity and consciousness are “one and the same thing.” I prefer the summary that the mind is what the brain does."

But the summary that the mind IS what the brain does is not the same than saying that the mind IS (identical to) a function of the brain? If the brain does X, and the mind IS what the brain does (X), then the mind is (identical to) X.

Note that the "is", as used by Novella, implies identity (he's identifying consciousness with a certain brain phenomenon).

Evidence of this is that Novella confirms the identity of consciousness and the brain function many times in his article (destroying his own objections). For example: "Consciousness is a brain phenomenon – a dynamic manifestation of brain function" (Consciousness = a dynamic manifestation of brain function. Emphasis in red added)

In the conclusion of his article, Novella is again explicit in the assertion that the mind IS a brain function: "In my opinion Tallis does not put forward one valid argument against a purely materialistic neuroscience view of consciousness – that consciousness is brain function" (Emphasis in red added)

And "But I am curious as to what Tallis thinks consciousness is, if it is not brain function and its existence cannot be explained by Darwinian evolution" (emphasis in red added)

These textbook examples of illogical thinking and inconsistency are based upon Novella's desperate attempt to contradict Tallis' argumentation.

In fact, Novella misrepresents Tallis' argument in this way: "Again, I find this little more than word play, originating from the false premise that the neuroscience position is that consciousness is identical to the brain"

But Tallis didn't say that consciousness is identical to the brain (so Novella is guilty of another straw man), but to neural function (which is part of the brain). And remember that is Novella himself who says that consciousness IS a brain function! (If you're confused, don't worry, this is part of Novella's strategy when playing with words)

Tallis argues: "If it were identical, then we would be left with the insuperable problem of explaining how intracranial nerve impulses, which are material events, could “reach out” to extracranial objects in order to be “of” or “about” them."

Tallis is referring to the intentionality of consciousness. For example, when you think "this is Jime's blog", you're mentally referring to this blog (which is independent of your concept of it). So your mental concept is ABOUT or has as referent something external to the concept itself (in this example, my blog).

Novella is completely ignorant of this basic concept of intentionality of mental states. And this solid and consistent ignorance explains Novella's ridiculous question (in reply to Tallis): "And what does he mean – exactly, operationally – by “aboutness”. Does he mean the abstract concept? How an object is represented in the brain? These all have neural correlates too"

Please, don't laugh so loud. Ignorance is unavoidable (all of us are ignorant about certains matters). But it's annoying when you're not aware of your own ignorance and pretend to refute other people's arguments when you have absolutely no idea what are you talking about.

Obviously, Novella has never read anything about intentionality. But he's not only ignorant of this, he's ignorant of his ignorance too.

Even a cursory reading of the wikipedia entry on intentionality would have taught him that "The term was later used by Edmund Husserl in his doctrine that consciousness is always intentional, a concept that he undertook in connection with theses set forth by Franz Brentano regarding the ontological and psychological status of objects of thought. It has been defined as "aboutness", and according to the Oxford English Dictionary it is "the distinguishing property of mental phenomena of being necessarily directed upon an object, whether real or imaginary".^[2] It is in this sense and the usage of Husserl that the term is primarily used in contemporary philosophy" (emphasis added)

(I don't rely so much in wikipedia, but I mention it here because even the most inept person would find there the definition of intentionality as used in philosophical jargon. So Novella's ignorance is unjustified and is evidence of the level of his intellectual rigour)

Tallis' point is that if consciousness is (identical to) a brain function, then it's very problematic to explain consistently and rationally how consciousness could be "about" (directed upon) external objects existing beyond itself (e.g. in the physical world). Note that this kind of aboutness is not something physical (like a animal that send a venenous outside of its body) but conceptual (a concept which is ABOUT something outside, different and beyond itself, that is, that represents and directs upon something external, different and beyond itself).

The fact that such processes have neural correlates is irrelevant to Tallis' argument, because neural correlates (as neurophysiological and electro-chemical processes) don't refer to other objects existing outside and beyond themselves, but consciousness does.

Most of Novella's objections are based on his laboriously-adquired and sophisticated ignorance of key philosophical concepts, on a superb skill to think inconsistently and illogically, and on his childish desire to contradict Tallis even in the points where Novella agrees with Tallis! (for example, in the idea that for mainstream neuroscience, consciousness IS a brain function)

Links of interest:

-Article "The Immaterial Aspects of Thought (James Ross)"

-Materialist philosopher William Lycan's paper on dualism.

-Eugene Wigner's paper "Remarks on the mind-body problem"

-Article "Some notes on skepticism"

David Hume, causality or causation, the mind-body problem, immortality and the afterlife

Some materialists and metaphysical naturalists have argued that the concomitant variation between consciousness and the brain (i.e. mental states correlate and change with brain states) proves, or strongly support the thesis that, the brain "causes or produces" the mind. Therefore, after death, the mind will dissapear.

Their argument is that, when issue is one of probability, causality is precisely what concomitant variation or conjuntion implies (actually, concomitant variation doesn't imply causality, because two events could vary concomitantly without being causally connected. But let's to pass this obvious objection, and assume for the sake of argument Hume's concept of causation) .

One of Hume's relevant texts on survival of consciousness mentioned by naturalists is this: "The weakness of the body and that of the mind in infancy are exactly proportioned; their vigour in manhood, their sympathetic disorder in sickness, their common gradual decay in old age. The step further seems unavoidable; their common dissolution in death"

The basic assumption of the argument is that, given that we observe concomitant variation of mental states and brain states (specifically, when the brain changes, the mind changes), the brain causes the mind.

Let's to examine this argument:

1-The argument is arguebly incompatible with Hume's own radical empiricist philosophy, because the latter doesn't have any ontological commitments, and for this reason, causality is in Hume's philosophy only as relationship existing in THOUGHT, not in things themselves.

According to Hume: "A CAUSE is an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it, that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other" (Treatise of the Human Nature, p. 170. Emphasis in blue added)

Note that Hume's conception of causality refers to the IDEAS that the human mind forms when it perceives sucession of events or objects; but the causality doesn't exist in the things or events in themselves.

Therefore, causality is not a necessary (metaphysical) connection between things, there is not such thing as an ontological and necessary causality. The latter point about necessity is made explicit by Hume when, refering to the essence of necessity, he said that it "is something that exists in the mind, not in the objects" (p. 160)

Please, read carefully the last Hume's assertion and think about it. This is key to understand this post.

2-If Hume is right, then the causal connection between consciousness and the brain doesn't exist in reality itself (i.e. between consciousness and the brain), but only in our mind (as ideas).

3-But if 2 is true, how the hell can Hume rationally assert that after death the mind (consciousness) will dissolve?

Consciousness would dissolve after death only IF consciousness is ACTUALLY produced by the brain, regardless of whether we believe such thing or any other. In other words, consciousness will dissapear after death only if ontological materialism is true.

In other words, only if consciousness is actually (ontologically) caused and produced by the brain, we can rationally assert that consciousness will, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, dissapear after death.

But if the causal connection between consciousness and the brain doesn't exist in the things themselves (in this case, in the relationships of consciousness with the brain), but only in our minds (as ideas), then we have no reason to assert that consciousness will dissapear after death, because the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises.

4-Given 3, we know that consciousness will be extinguised after death only if ontological materialism is true.

But ontological materialism is a metaphysical position (i.e. a doctrine about the real and ontological connections of mind with the brain), and Hume's philosophy, being radically empiricist and phenomenalist (based on the perception of phenomena), can't draw metaphysical conclusions about the real (metaphysical) connections of the mind with the brain, because such causal connections ONLY EXIST IN THE MIND (not in things themselves).

This suffices to show that Hume's conclusion about the dissolution of consciousness after death ("The step further seems unavoidable; their common dissolution in death") is clearly inconsistent with his own philosophical empiricist-phenomenalist premises.

Ideas by themselves (and this is what causality is in Hume's philosophy) cannot make consciousness dissapear after death, without implying an actual, real, metaphysical connection and dependence of consciousness on the brain (=ontological materialism), which is contrary to Hume's own philosophy about necessity of causation (="is something that exists in the mind, not in the objects").

Something that exist in the mind (as ideas) alone and NOT IN THE OBJECTS is not a rational basis to conclude what will happen to the objects in question (i.e. consciousness) after death, no more that believing in a spiritual world is a sufficient basis to infer that a spiritual world actually exist. (Your ideas about the spiritual world doesn't cause nor imply nor enable us rationally conclude the existence or non-existence of such spiritual world, because your ideas exist only in your mind, while the spiritual world exist or not exist regardless of your ideas about it)

In conclusion, materialists and metaphysical naturalists who use Hume's conclusion on the afterlife fail to see the problems and inconsistencies mentioned above; they infer metaphysical conclusions from Hume's conception of causation which doesn't have any metaphysical commitment, because it doesn't exist in objects, but only in the mind.

Therefore, concomitant variation of mental states and brain states in Hume's philosophy give us no reason to conclude that the mind is caused (in the ontological relevant sense, i.e. produced = materialism) by the brain and that, as consequence, after death the mind will dissapear.

So talking about probability is a red herring, because what's at stake is the metaphysical intrepretation of the observed concomitant variation of the mind with the brain. And the concomitant variation as such, existing only in the mind (Hume's concept of causation) is irrelevant to settle the metaphysical question of the actual, objective, mind-independent nature of the mind-brain connection, specially when the observed concomitant variation is compatible with at least two contrary and competing metaphysical positions: the production hypothesis and the transmission hypothesis.

Do you understand why I think that many metaphysical naturalists and materialists are positively, demostrably and irrefutably irrational? Their logical inconsistencies have no limits; they can argue simultaneously for the truth of logically inconsistent theses and propositions, provided it supports naturalism. And they can't see any inconsistency at all in their position.

Their only (and most basic) motivation is to exclude the idea of God, even if they have to do that with fallacies and crude logical inconsistencies.

Metaphysical naturalism, when motived by such negative emotions like fear of, angry and hate to God (i.e. to the idea of God's existence) impairs and destroys the ability to think rationally. And this irrationality is confirmed by the fact they cannot see their own fallacies and inconsistences, what make any attempt to argue with them a waste of time.

And by the way... Merry Christmas to all of you, especially to my dear metaphysical naturalists' readers.

Links of interest:

-My post on Hume's argument against miracles.

-Chris Carter's paper on consciousness.

-Philosopher James Ross' must read paper "The Immaterial Aspects of Thought"

A fictional dialogue between a survivalist/dualist and a materialist/skeptic (Part 6)

This is part 6 of my fictional dialogues between a survivalist and a materialist.

Materialist: I'd like to discuss another good objection against dualism and, by implication, against the possibility of the afterlife.

Survivlist: Good.

Materialist: I'd like to call this objection "the causal closure of the physical world" objection against dualism.

According to this objection, if dualism is true, the soul would exert causal efficacy on the body. But it cannot be true, because the principle of causal closure of the physical world says that only physical causes exert causal influence on the physical world (Otherwise, a basic law of nature like the principle of energy conservation would be violated).

Therefore, if the soul is not physical, it's non-efficacious. And if it's efficacious, it's physical and thereby enterily explainable by materialism and physicalism, which would refute dualism.

As consequence, the soul as an nonphysical substance or entity doesn't and cannot exist and thereby has not causal influence at all. And by implication, it cannot survives physical death.

Survivalist: I understand your argument. But it's flawed on several grounds:

First, if the soul is causally non-efficacious, then it cannot be causally active on the body. And if it's true, then the soul (or consciousness, or mind) is not causally eficacious on adaptative behavior either; and if it's true, then consciousness (and rationality, which is part of it in the case of human beings) is invisible and irrelevant to natural selection (which favors adaptative behavior). Therefore, rational thinking (which only exist in conscious minds) wouldn't have any adaptative value at all.

As has written philosopher and neuroscientist Jeffrey Schwartz (in regards to "mental efforts" as a causally active entity not reducible to the brain): "Materialists may argue that although the experience of effort is caused by the brain's actitivity (as are all mental experience, in this view), it has no effect on the brain. If the brain changes, according to this argument, it is because the same brain events that generate the feeling of mental effort also act back on (other parts of) the brain; this intervining thing called "the feeling of mental effort", they might argue, is a mere side effect with no causal power of its own. But this sort of reasoning is inconsistent with evolutionary theory. The felt experience of willful effort would have no survival value if it didn't actually do something" (The Mind and the Brain, p. 318. Emphasis added)

A "mere side effect with no causal power of its own" wouldn't be seen or detected by natural selection, and therefore, it can't be argued that consciousness, the mind and its internal processes (like logical and rational thinking) were favored by natural selection due to their adaptative biological value.

And this refutes some of the objections against Alvin Plantinga's argument against naturalism. The conjuntion naturalism+evolution+materialism+nonefficacious of consciousness make your position essentially, positively, demostrably and irrefutably irrational.

Second, the principle of the causal closure of the physical world begs the question against the existence of nonphysical things with causal influence. If dualism is true, then the causal closure principle is not true (or at least, not absolutely true in each case). So simply asserting that principle (which entails the falsehood of dualism) is not an logical argument against dualism.

Also, as has written philosopher Uwe Meixner: ""It is alleged again and again that the nonphysical causation of physical events is bound to violate received physics because it, allegedly, entails the violation of the law of the preservation of energy, or the violation of the law of the preservation ofmomentum. Repetition does not make false allegations any less false. First, in physics, the mentioned preservation laws are always asserted under the condition that the physical system with regard to which they are asserted is a socalled closed system: that no energy or momentum is coming into the system from entities that are outside of it, or is going out of the system to entities outside of it. Now, physics is silent on the question whether the entire physical world is a closed system. Moreover, it does not seem to be an analytic truth that the physical world is such a system. It follows that in order to have the nonphysical causation of physical events conflict with the preservation laws, it is necessary to go beyond physics and to assume the metaphysical hypothesis that the physical world is a closed system." (New Perspectives for a Dualistic Conception of Mental Causation. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 15, No. 1, 2008, pp. 18–19)

As a matter of fact, the principle of causal closure is a philosophical and metaphysical position. In fact, in wikipedia you can read the definition of the causal closure as "a metaphysical theory about the nature of causation in the physical realm with significant ramifications in the study of the mind."

But it's precisely a metaphysical position (i.e. dualism) what is at stake; so you can't assume as a premise of your argument against dualism a metaphysical position that entails the falsity of dualism, because you're guilty of begging the question (again!).

Materialist: I disagree. Leaving aside Plantinga's argument (which I consider already refuted by naturalists), I think the causal closure is justified by the evidence of all the sciences and it counts as an independent premise against dualism.

Survivalist: I disagree too. I don't think any naturalist has refuted Plantinga's argument with any nonquestiong begging objections. And some of the objectons to it are incompatible with the premises of consistent materialism (as explined above). So, they're merely sophistical ad hoc objections easily rebuttable and shown to be inconsistent with the premises that many naturalists and materialists defend in other contexts (this also give us some insights about the intellectual honesty of some of these individuals).

In any case, my argument doesn't rest on Plantinga's.

My point is that you beg the question, even when you assume that the evidence of all the sciences support your metaphysical principle of causal closure. In fact, some facts accepted by science don't support that principle:

-Cognitive Behavioural therapy assumes that changes in thoughts will be therapeutically beneficious and therefore causally efficacious. (This is why cognitive therapists try to change pattern of thinking, like beliefs, ideas, values, etc. to produce an effect and cause a change on the patient's condition)

-The placebo effect in medicine (which essentially and explicitly is defined in terms of the subjective belief of the patient, and how this subjective experience changes the body)

Also, parapsychology has evidence of the causal efficacy of consciousness on physical structures or objects.

So, if you were honest and would include ALL the evidence, you'll realize that your position is incorrect. You only include evidence that support your position, and dismiss or reinterpret (in terms favorable to your position) the evidence that refutes it. And you include only evidence favorable to your position because you believe, in advance, that dualism and survival cannot be true.

Materialist: I don't think so. And we're discussed in the previous dialogues why I think your argument are wrong.

Survivalist: Actually, I think I've proved that your arguments and objections are, at best, unconlusive and unconcinving and, at worst, clearly fallacious and false.

Materialist: Let's the readers to decide that.

Survivalist: I agree.

But let's to continue with our discussion in another moment.

Materialist: Fine.

Survivalist: Just think hard about all of these exchanges, otherwise we're wasting our time here.

TO BE CONTINUED...


Previous parts of this dialogue:

-Part 1

-Part 2

-Part 3

-Part 4

-Part 5

William F. Vallicella: The Maverick Philosopher on Daniel Dennett's dismissal of dualism

In one excellent blog entry, philosopher William F. Vallicella (The Maverick Philosopher) comments in the following Daniel Dennett's dismissal of dualism:

Dualism (the view that minds are composed of some nonphysical and utterly mysterious stuff) . . . [has]been relegated to the trash heap of history, along with alchemy and astrology. Unless you are also prepared to declare that the world is flat and the sun is a fiery chariot pulled by winged horses — unless, in other words, your defiance of modern science is quite complete — you won't find any place to stand and fight for these obsolete ideas.

Dr.Vallicella comments: "There is something intellectually dishonest about this passage since Dennett must know that it makes a travesty of the dualist's position. Yes, I know he studied under Gilbert Ryle and had phrases like "ghost in the machine" drummed into him at an impressionable age; but he is smart and well-connected and has had plenty of opportunity to be set straight. A substance dualist such as Descartes does not hold that minds are composed of some extraordinarily thin intangible stuff. The dualism is not a dualism of stuff-kinds, real stuff and spooky stuff. 'Substance' in 'substance dualism' does not refer to a special sort of ethereal stuff but to substances in the sense of individuals capable of independent existence whose whole essence consists in acts of thought, perception, imagination, feeling, and the like. Dennett is exploiting the equivocity of 'substance.'

Of course, it is very difficult for the materialistically minded to understand this because they cannot understand how anything could be real that is not material. This incapacity on their part leads them to construe the Cartesian dualist as talking about some sort of rarefied matter, some sort of spook stuff, a kind of immaterial matter if you will.

The incapacity in question also leads Dennett to the preposterous notion that a defender of dualism must stand in complete "defiance of modern science." (Note en passant that Descartes was among the founders of modern science.) But where in modern science is it established that everything that exists is material or physical in nature? Which branch of physics is competent to establish this meta-physical result? Observe the difference between the following two propositions:

1. Nothing in the physical world is in principle insusceptible of natural-scientific study.

2. Nothing is in principle insusceptible of natural-scientific study.

(1) is unobjectionable, but (2) presupposes that everything is physical. But that everything is physical is a metaphysical proposition that is neither entailed by any scientific result, nor presupposed by scientific investigation.

Since Dennett is the exact opposite of stupid, one has to conclude that he is either intellectually dishonest or simply in the grip of an ideology, the ideology of scientific naturalism. He seems to think that the substance dualist, with his supposed postulation of spook stuff, is in some sort of unscientific competition with a scientific approach to the mind. But he can make this blunder only by presupposing something obviously false, namely, that the progress of natural science has shown, or is showing, that everything is at bottom physical in nature."

I fully agree with Dr.Vallicella. It's simply implausible that an smart and seasoned professional philosopher like Dennett would actually believe in so silly positions and arguments against dualism. Even if dualism is false, you need to argue against its better defenders and in its most charitable formulation, not against straw men or easy targets.

So, the most reasonable position is to think that Dennett is driven by an ideology (the ideology of ontological materialism and metaphysical naturalism) and, fully knowing that most academic philosophers share his ideology, they won't critically examine his simplistic anti-dualistic arguments or dismissals.

And just for the record, there are exist some contemporary nonreligious philosophers who defend dualism. An example is philosopher Robert Almeder (philosophy professor in Georgia State University), who defends dualism and afterlife on empirical grounds:



Hear also this long interview with professor Almeder here.

Another contemporary philosopher who defends dualism is David Lund (see for example his book in defense of an immaterial self and his lastest book about the empirical evidence for an afterlife.).

Also, you'll find sophisticated defenses of dualism by leading philosophers of religion, like Alvin Plantinga:

So it's simply and demostrably false Dennett's assertion that "you won't find any place to stand and fight for these obsolete ideas" (this is another example of Dennett's misdirection and misrepresentation of the facts)

Links of interest:

-My post on Thomas Nagel and the cosmic authority problem

-Paper by physicist Eugene Wigner on the scientific case for dualism.

-Philosopher Chris Carter's paper on consciousness and dualism.

-My post on one of Daniel Dennett's arguments against dualism.

Mystery of the Self, From Philosophy to Modern Day Science by San Pernia and Peter Fenwick

Horizon Research Foundation Presented:

Unravelling the Mystery of the Self - From Philosophy to Modern Day Science at Imperial College London, September 10, 2009.

The symposium consisted of an engaging discussions on the nature of the self by:

Dr Peter Fenwick, Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London and Dr Sam Parmia, Fellow in Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York.

Joining them for a panelist discussion was:

Dr Christopher French, Professor of psychology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, is head of their Anomalistic psychology Research Unit which he founded in the year 2000 and Dr. Joan LaRovere, a Consultant in Paediatric Intensive Care and Director of the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London

Alvin Plantinga and the Modal Argument for Dualism

Alvin Plantinga is an American philosopher, currently the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion, and in particular for applying the methods of analytic philosophy to defend Christian belief.

Recently, he has written about philosophy of mind topics, especially in his paper Against Materialism.

In this clip, Plantinga argues for the ontological distinctness of mind and body on the basis of modal properties and the identity of indiscernibles (i.e. Leibniz's law).

Leibniz's law is a test for identity. According to it, for any entities x and y, if x and y are identical (they are really the same thing - there is only one thing you are talking about, not two), then any truth that applies to x will apply to y as well.

Therefore, if between x and y there is at least ONE difference, then you know that x and y are not identical. (Can you think about at least one difference between consciousness and the brain?)

Links o f interest:

-Eugene Wigner's paper on the scientific case for dualism.

-Chris Carter's paper on consciousness.

.Marco Biagini's paper on the scientific contradictions of materialism.