Let's to examine another of atheist Richard Carrier's objections to Alex Rosenberg's essay on the actual and consistent implications of the naturalistic worldview.Carrier's objection 7 to Rosenberg's article is this:
(Objection 7) Similarly, Alex errs in claiming “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” based solely on the premise (and this much is entirely true) “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.” Because what is essentially a person is the pattern of arrangement of the brain that causes us to exist and be as we are, and that pattern can persist even as its underlying material is constantly replaced, it follows that persons do endure as first-person agents. And, in point of fact, they are located behind their eyes and in between their ears. Their memories and personalities and skills and perceptual apparatus certainly doesn’t reside in their toes or their spleen. Destroy the brain, and you destroy the person. Sustain the brain, and you sustain the person. This brain, consisting of real data (real desires, memories, beliefs, personality traits, skills and reasoning abilities, etc.), generates a real model of that data (conscious experience), but the model is not us (for example, we don’t cease to exist when we sleep, all that data remains physically intact, we just stop building models of it for a while). The “subject of the first-person pronoun” is that arrangement of data in the brain. Thus, Alex is wrong to claim no such subject exists. He is also wrong to claim the brain doesn’t track what this arrangement does over time. And though we do change as persons, we share a causal history, and memories and other persisting features, with our past selves, and it is in that sense that we are the same person as before, not in the sense of being exactly identical (which you don’t have to be a naturalist to see is obviously never the case). Science has not undermined any of these conclusions. To the contrary, it continues to reinforce them.Let's to examine Carrier's objection in more detail:
Carrier criticizes Rosenberg by arguing that no self exists (if naturalism is true). Carrier (mis) constructs Rosenberg's argument like this:
"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” based solely on the premise (and this much is entirely true) “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"
What's in blue are Rosenberg's words; what's in black are Carrier's words.
In Carrier' straw man, Rosenberg argues from the "sole" premise that the self is not the body (or part of it) to the conclusion that there is not self. But this is not the case.
To correct Carrier's straw man, let's to read Rosenberg's entire argument: "
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)
Note that Rosenberg's argument includes the idea that to make sense of the existence of the self, we need to believe in the existence of a concrete but non-spacial ENTITY with a point of view. But, given that such entity doesn't exist according to physics (which fixes all the facts in naturalism), then the belief in a "self" is a pure illusion.
Which is Carrier's reply to that argument?
As usual, instead of refuting Rosenberg's actual argument, Carrier begs the question by assuming what needs to be proved. He says: "
what is essentially a person is the pattern of arrangement of the brain that causes us to exist and be as we are, and that pattern can persist even as its underlying material is constantly replaced, it follows that persons do endure as first-person agents"
Note that Rosenberg identifies the person or "self" with a concrete non-spatial entity with a point of view, while Carrier identifies the person with a "pattern of arrangement of the brain". So Carrier is not refuting Resenberg's view but simply ASSERTING a personal alternative on the conception of the person. He assumes his own alternative to be true, instead of refuting Rosenberg's. He didn'd address Rosenberg's argument at all.
Having made that, Carrier continues: "
And, in point of fact, they are located behind their eyes and in between their ears. Their memories and personalities and skills and perceptual apparatus certainly doesn’t reside in their toes or their spleen. Destroy the brain, and you destroy the person. Sustain the brain, and you sustain the person."
The emphasis in blue is the typical materialist position, which implies that if the brain is destroyed, the person will be destroyed too (because after all, the person is nothing but a certain pattern of arrangement of the brain)
And this argument is interesting, because it is evidence of Carrier's logical inconsistency. When he needs to contradict Rosenberg, he assumes the typical materialistic position mentioned aboved. But when he needs to argue for the "virtues" of naturalism, he defends the idea of inmortality and the afterlife.
In his book, Carrier wrote:
Your mind-pattern can in principle be formed out of many different materials, not just the one we happen to be made of, so it remains possible that we might be able one day to “transfer” our minds to a more durable, enduring medium, like an electronic brain, and thus achieve immortality that way. This would indeed be a life after death—the death of our original bodies and, to borrow a phrase from Christian theology, a resurrection in a new ‘more glorious’ body" (
Sense and Goodness Without God, p. 158. Emphasis in blue added).
Note that if the "mind-pattern" might survive after the death and destruction of the body and brain, then Carrier's claim that
"Destroy the brain, and you destroy the person" is FALSE (because the person could, in principle, continue to exist after the destruction of the brain).
And if it's true that destroying the brain, you destroy the person, then it's false that "
Your mind-pattern can in principle be formed out of many different materials, not just the one we happen to be made of, so it remains possible that we might be able one day to “transfer” our minds to a more durable, enduring medium, like an electronic brain, and thus achieve immortality that way"On the other hand (and note this carefully), in Carrier's reply to Rosenberg, Carrier defines a person as essentially a "
pattern of arrangement of the brain". But if we stick consistently to that definition, how the hell can the "mind-pattern" be "
in principle be formed out of many different materials"?
If essential to the definition of a person is that it's a "pattern of arrangement of the BRAIN", then it's false that in principle such pattern could exist (and survive after death) in extra-cerebral materials. In such case, the person wouldn't exist anymore.
You cannot pose the brain as part of a definition of which a person "essentially" is, and then to claim that a person can exist in a non-cerebral medium (like a computer).
In this point, Carrier's only defense is to argue that what is ESSENTIAL to be a person is to have a certain "mind-pattern" or "patttern of arrangement" (independently of whether such pattern is realized in the brain or in another medium like a computer). But making that move refutes Carrier's own definition of person in his reply to Rosenberg and specially and straightforwardly refutes his assertion "
Destroy the brain, and you destroy the person".
Therefore, Carrier's position is demostrably INCOHERENT. Instead of replying to Rosenberg with a bunch of logical fallacies and self-refuting incoherencies, Carrier should to have addressed Rosenberg's actual arguments.
The fact that Carrier didn't address Rosenberg's actual position is evidence that he cannot refute Rosenberg's argumentation. Naturalism HAS the implications that Rosenberg has explained in his article and for this reason the objections against it won't (consistently) work.
In my opinion, the reason why naturalists, atheistic materialists and pseudo-skeptics in general consistently stick to these fallacious arguments and defend obvious irrationalities, is that
naturalism is false. And you cannot defend falsehoods coherently. In order to defend falsehoods, you need to change your methodology constantly (in an ad hoc way to avoid objections), use double standards, misrepresent other people's arguments, use lies, be straighforwardly inconsistent and dishonest (like arguing that naturalism is not a worldview in order to avoid certain objections, while openly defending an organization which explicitly defines naturalism as a worldview) and in general be a smart and seasoned sophist.
But astute and informed readers will catch you.
Let's to mention a final example of this straightforward inconsistency and irrationality typical of naturalists and atheistic materialists. Richard Dawkins has explicitly defended the following beliefs:
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good (River Out Of Eden. p.155. )
However, Dawkins is famous by his anti-religious documentary entitled "
The root of all evil?". Any rational person would formulate the following question: if there is no evil and no good in this universe, how the hell can religion (or any other thing) be the root of all "evil"?
A non-existent evil cannot have any root at all. It is simply non-existent. (Do you see why I'm convinced that many atheistic materialists and Dawkins' followers in particular are irrational and that their minds don't function properly?)
It's simply irrational, logically incoherent, self-refuting. But this is the typical modus operandi of naturalist ideologues, materialists and pseudo-skeptics. Their minds have been destroyed by the false beliefs and fallacies inherent in naturalism, and they cannot think logically (i.e. in a consistent and coherent way) anymore. Their minds are not rational, don't function properly in order to find and discover true propositions or examine the evidence.
Another example:
Dawkins has said too: "
If I say something is wrong, like killing people, I don't find that nearly such a defensible statement as 'I am a distant cousin of an orangutan... I couldn't, ultimately, argue intellectually against somebody who did something I found obnoxious. I think I could finally only say, "Well, in this society you can't get away with it" and call the police. (in this interview)
If the above claim is true, in which "intellectual grounds" are you going to argue that religion is evil (or atheism is good)? How are you to argue that "
killing people" is bad? If ultimately, you're not equiped to argue intellectually against something you found obnoxious, then you can only oppose it on non-intellectual grounds (i.e. irrationally). Therefore, you're conceding that your moral position, decisions and judgments are IRRATIONAL.
Dawkins' position, like Carrier's position, like Hebb's
position, like Lewontin's
position, like Wolpert's
position, like Atkins'
position, like Hitchens's position, etc. are demostrably incoherent and irrational (and potentially dangerous, if followed and believed consistently). Therefore, no rational, sane and honest person would accept or support it.
But naturalist ideologues cannot see such irrationality, because they take their position (naturalism) for granted. And if naturalism is true, then even fallacies, inconsistencies, irrationalities, moral atrocities, and self-refuting arguments in favor of naturalism (and against religion, spirituality, God, parapsychology, afterlife, etc.) will be justified and permitted.
This is why I have no intellectual respect for these individuals. And this why I think any person of good will will oppose (provided she knows these facts correctly) the ideological agenda advanced by these people.
Such a naturalist ideology is not only an intellectual fraud. It's a moral abomination that people of good will is ethically, spiritually and intellectually obligated to reject, refute and expose in order to avoid the destruction of society and the spiritual, moral and intellectual corruption of the young people.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Part 1 of this series here.
Part 2 of this series
here.
Part 3 of this series
here.
Part 4 of this series
here.
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