Daniel Dennett Proves Materialism False?

According to me he is, anyway. Check out the above video.

Key to his sort of deflationary view of consciousness is his rejection of the Cartesian Theater, a place in the brain where all the sensory inputs come together in real time to form a picture for us to see. It’s like a homunculus (little man in our head) in a room with a video screen and speakers that display input from the outside to a viewer. The viewer is our consciousness. Dennett rejects it because (1) when we open up the brain we don’t see a little man inside (joke). Actually his empirical case is that the neurosciences (and experience) are telling us that the processing of sensory information doesn’t occur in a centralized location of the brain, nor at a centralized time, but is distributed throughout the brain. What information counts as conscious is determined by use (how often it is used — how “famous” the info is). This is often determined in retrospect. That is, an image might not be conscious at first, but as it gains popularity in the process of the brain, it becomes a part of consciousness. (2) Homunculi invite an infinite regress (if there’s a little man in our head, then there’s a little man in his head, and so forth).

Descartes’ view is that there is a Cartesian Theater, a first-person conscious perspective, an inner-movie in our minds if you will; it’s in our non-physical mind. Dennett of course rejects Descartes’ view that the homunculus is non-physical. Why? In the above talk he dismisses it with a one-liner to the effect that nobody is a dualist anymore (That’s not true. I’m a dualist. So are most people in the world. I guess he means most philosophers and neuroscientists, the ones in the know.). In his book Consciousness Explained he’s more polite to dualists: he spends about a half-dozen pages dismissing dualism (He offers pretty much the standard arguments. I have provided responses in earlier posts.) out of a book of about 400 pages.

I think that we are down to, once again, a case of one man’s modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens.

Dennett is arguing something like this:

(1) If materialism is true, then there can be no Cartesian Theater.
(2) Materialism is true.
(3) Therefore, there is no Cartesian Theater.

The dualist’s modus tollens:

(1) If materialism is true, then there can be no Cartesian Theater.
(2′) There is a Cartesian Theater.
(3′) Therefore, materialism is false.

Dennett spends most of his time establishing (1). He goes into various details about how the brain processes different sensory and memory events in different parts of the brain, and argues that there is no determinate time in which some info in the brain becomes a part of consciousness (this time is determined by the ability to recall and use the info).

As a dualist I say, “So what?” I agree with (1). As far as I’m concerned, Dennett’s key move isn’t his elaborate case for (1), but is his one-liner against dualism, or better, the 6 or so pages in his book. So what this dispute comes down to is the amount of evidence for materialism against the evidence for the inner-movie.

Dennett has more to say about what to do with the supposed intractables of consciousness; I hope to post in more detail later on his case as a whole. Still, I think Dennett is mistaken here. I, and everyone else, should be more certain that we have a conscious inner-world than that materialism is true, even if we have to modify our views of it a bit. I still think there is a Cartesian Theater, even if it isn’t as detailed or accurate in portraying what’s going on in terms of sensory input, and even if we aren’t as good at describing it as we might think we are. And even if the inner-world is an illusion, the illusion itself is consciousness, and impossible to deny.

What’s the evidence for materialism anyway? Dennett’s main argument in Consciousness Explained is basically that dualism is anti-scientific in that it hinders fruitful inquiry. So what?? That doesn’t make dualism false (as he admits). It just makes it inconvenient for Dennett and other naturalists. As I’ve said many times before, naturalism is merely a hunch, a program, a wish; it is not by any means known to be true. So I think that Dennett is actually, in effect, establishing dualism with his argument for (1).

Or put it this way. What Dennett is doing is saying, “Look, we have this shared metaphysical framework of naturalism /bland computationalism in which to work, and given this, deflating consciousness is the best way to account for what we know about the brain and mind.” Of course, then, he’s only speaking to other naturalists. I suppose it seems natural and appropriate since so many in philosophy and neuroscience are naturalists (though there are prominent naturalism deniers in philosophy as well). Still, neither he nor they haven’t proven their case about naturalism. Non-naturalists need not listen to him.

Dissin’ Yahweh, Part III: Why Critics are Speciesists

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speciesism

Dawkins criticizes Yahweh as “jealous and proud of it.” Yahweh can’t stand the idea of someone other than him being worshipped. Yahweh has to be the first, the best.

Pretty ugly. How do Christians deal with it? Paul Copan, in his Is God a Moral Monster?, basically says two things. First, Yahweh considers his people his bride. He has entered into a special, intimate relationship with his people like that of marriage. When his people worship other gods, they are, in effect, cheating on Yahweh. Yahweh would be less than a husband if he didn’t get jealous. The second is that Yahweh does this for his people’s own good: when they worship idols, they are turning down the true source of life for a fake. Only in Yahweh can people be truly satisfied.

On the other hand, in Desiring God John Piper says that Yahweh has his own glory as his first and supreme goal. God seeks his own happiness, glorification, and enjoyment of himself first. We fit into God’s plan in that we can enjoy God too, and in that God’s glory is furthered by our enjoyment of him. But, at bottom, God is into himself first.

I think that Piper is probably more faithful in his rendering of Yahweh. When I hear Yahweh rage against idolatry, he seems most concerned with the fact that he has been ‘dissed, though sometimes he also ties worship into the well-being of the Jews.

Besides, consider how Copan’s reply might sound to an atheist. Here’s an analogy to help. Suppose Kim Jong-un decides that he is the husband of the DPRK, and the DPRK is his bride. Then, whenever anyone expresses more adoration toward anything other than Kim Jong-un, Kim can rail against them: “How can you cheat on me, my precious bride!? I brought you into this glorious relationship with me and you throw it in my face!! You deserve to die!!” What makes Yahweh different from Kim? Plus, Copan’s excuses for God sometimes sounds an awful lot like what a codependent wife of a wife-beater might say. Yahweh did beat his wife, of course. If acting like this isn’t right for Kim, than how can it be right for God? God must, somehow, be different from Kim in such a way as to justify his demand for obedience, adoration, and faithfulness, on pain of severe punishment.

The best Christian response isn’t to try to tie Yahweh’s demand for faithful adulation to our best interest. We need not think that God must have us first in his thoughts. Instead, I think it’s better to say that God is self-centered, but then add that with God it isn’t wrong to be so. God is higher than us, and has more rights.

You see, when it comes to rights of beings, we are speciesists. This term was coined by Peter Singer to label those who think that human beings, per se, enjoy special rights. He and many others in ethics (e.g., Mary Anne Warren) think personhood is the morally relevant term for ascribing the rights of a full fledged member of the moral community.

Notice that personhood, which is described in terms of level of development and function (and not in terms of being a human being), gives a person what we normally call “human rights.” These rights are what are declared in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But our rights are limited as well. We cannot hinder the liberty or pursuit of happiness of others. Nor may we take their lives.

But why model the rights of persons on human rights vis a vis other humans? This seems speciesist to me. What they are saying is that there are degrees of rights tied with level of function, with personhood at the top. At this level beings have human rights. But why think that this is as high as it could go? Why think humanity is the paradigm of the greatest and highest? Maybe we are at the lowest (or maybe second lowest; gorillas and chimps are at the lowest) level of personhood. Maybe more advanced persons should have more rights than us.

God is a person, a person at a higher level than us, to say the very least. I say this: God has more rights than us. Following Richard Swinburne, God, as creator, has special privileges. He may take life. He may inflict harm. And he may demand worship and absolute loyalty. This is what makes God different from Kim. Kim is at our level of personhood, so he cannot demand more than the basic Declaration of Independence rights. God is at a higher level.

At bottom I think that in answering these charges against Yahweh, we need to not be so human centered. I think that avoiding our own tendency toward speciesism is the best approach.

In-Vitro Fertilization: Wrong for Christians?

I’m not so sure it is. The received view is that in-vitro fertilization (IVF) is morally equivalent to abortion. In IVF, a doctor removes eggs from the prospective mother and sperm from the prospective father, fertilizes several eggs outside of the mother’s body, then plants some of these in the mother’s uterus, while freezing the left over eggs. The apparent waste comes from the fact that IVF is a bit of a hit-and-miss procedure. Most fertilized eggs won’t make it inside the womb; that’s why more are placed in the womb than are expected to develop. The rest are expected to die. In fact, they need to die, as it would be dangerous for a woman to bring all to term (e.g., Octamom). And they have to make more than necessary to implant because the mother may want to do this again in the future: hence the frozen eggs.

Many Christians think that life (personhood?) begins with conception, that is, the fertilization of the egg. If this is so, then so many persons are murdered whenever eggs are destroyed. This occurs when, say, the mother’s first try with IVF is successful, and she decides that she doesn’t want any more kids. The frozen zygotes no longer have a womb to go to. Sometimes there are couples who take them, but there is that risk that they will eventually be destroyed (what a life, several years in a freezer, then extermination). This is murder on the view of many Christians. Zygotes also get destroyed when they are part of a group of zygotes that, hopefully, don’t all make it when planted in a womb. More murders.

Christians think this primarily because of scriptures like Psalm 139:

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Before I look at this passage, consider two things:

1. As noticed by Philip Devine (check out his blog here), zygotes may split to form identical twins. This means that a zygote doesn’t count as an individual. Neither would, presumably, a genetic code, for two persons could have the same genetic code. Devine believes abortion, in most cases, is homicide, but not in the case of the death of zygotes, for they cannot have a right to life because they aren’t individual humans. It’s only after the embryo loses the ability to split that it’s a specifiable individual.

2. With IVF, the resulting zygotes are given at least a chance of surviving. If the IVF weren’t performed, they wouldn’t have any chance at all: they wouldn’t exist! In other words, nothing is taken away from zygotes by IVF that wasn’t given by IVF. And it isn’t completely taken away, for throughout the process each zygote has some positive chance of surviving.

Returning to the passage, I note two things. First, there is nothing that specifies exactly when King David, the author, began to exist. It makes vague and poetic references to God being involved in David’s forming in the womb, but nothing there says that personhood, and hence the right to life, begins with conception. The passage even speaks of David’s existence before conception (in the mind of God), thus David’s existence doesn’t seem tied to any specific event in his prenatal development.

My tentative view is that nothing in scripture says that a right to life begins with conception. Given that there are reasons to think that zygotes don’t have a right to life, and that zygotes formed by IVF are given a chance to live they wouldn’t have without IVF, I also tentatively conclude that IVF isn’t wrong for Christians.

Two objections. First, even though zygotes can split, still, when looking back into the history of someone who is not an identical twin, it still seems to make sense that the zygote was, in some sense, this person. Thus zygotes do have an identity, retrospectively applied. Second, IVF does produce the zygotes, but there is a special responsibility that emerges once a zygote is formed to protect its life. Analogy: Fred and Sarah give birth to George. When George is 16 years old he gives them such problems that Fred considers ending George’s life. Fred could not reason: “Well, I brought you into this world; I can take you out.” That is, just because Fred’s actions lead to George’s existence, once George exists he has rights that do not depend on the means by which George came into existence.

That’s why I’m tentative about my conclusion: Maybe these objections have weight. Or maybe they can be answered. But I do think that Christians shouldn’t simply accept ethical judgements from church leaders or the Christian subculture. They should look into Scripture, and where Scripture is vague or silent, to think for themselves.

Atheist Mockery

Tags

bertrand russell, christopher hitchens, david hume, lewis wolpert, religion, Richard Dawkins

A slight detour. I’ll continue with Dissin’ Yahweh soon.

Atheist mockery. They are doing it, of course. One might be tempted to think it’s a new thing, but it’s not. Voltaire also mocked. So did Bertrand Russell. Atheists certainly mock more than theists. And it ain’t just the street atheists doing it either. As mentioned, Voltaire, Hume, Russell, Dennett, Dawkins, and many other academic heavyweights are or were mocking. Perhaps they are a role model to street atheists.

I was skimming through Atheism for Dummies by Dale McGowen at Barns and Noble. He devoted an entire chapter to mockery (or, as he put it, satire). What I got from him was that religion has a sort of protective coating of sacredness that has to be removed. Reason won’t do it, as religious believers are unreasonable. So they have to use harsher solvents. Bring out the acetone of caustic satire. Richard Dawkins also advocates mockery. Christopher Hitchens did it. So does Lewis Wolpert. So does P.Z. Meyers.

I guess it would make sense to do this if:
1. You are completely convinced that atheism is true. Going further, I’d add that atheism should be known to be true. That is, atheism is in fact true, and the evidence for atheism is so overwhelming that no reasonable case against it has any real chance of being made.
2. People who disagree with atheism cannot be reached any other way than by mockery.
3. Even if there are fools who still hold on to their little bronze-age myths in the face of mockery, we need to remove any respect society has for these people or their beliefs, for the sake of society and all the evils religion causes. We need to make them unpopular.
4. Mockery is fun.
5. Religious people deserve being made fun of.

Regarding 1, I think that pretty much all of the angry atheist types are thoroughly convinced of atheism. Dawkins thinks that the probability of his being wrong about God’s existence is less than that of a hurricane blowing through a junkyard to produce a Boeing 747. To them, the case is settled. I disagree — hence one of the main points of my blog. 2 might be true of some theists, but it’s a bit of a stereotype to think that religious people are generally irrational people. Maybe atheists sometimes think that the case for atheism has already been made (it was essentially completed some time in the late 19th century, or so the mythology goes), and the only explanation for why some still hold to God is that they are irrational and cannot accept the obvious fact that God doesn’t exist.

Regarding 3, I suppose that if the conditions of 1 are met and 2 is true, combined with the view that religion is dangerous (hence the time Christopher Hitchens spent on showing the evil results of the practice of some religious beliefs by some religious people in God is not Great), it would make sense.

Regarding 4, it’s pretty obvious that atheists enjoy mocking theists. Just watch one in action (e.g., look at all the fun those “pastafarians” on the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster site are having). It’s entertaining for them. Plus you can make a pretty good living publishing caustic books against theism. This would make atheists mere bullies (sadists?) if 5 weren’t true. But they are convinced that it is, as it follows, I think, from 1-3.

Well, what to say about it? Mockery is a clear departure from the rules of rational debate. “Appeal to Ridicule” and “Ad Hominem” are textbook fallacies. When atheists do it, they are, in effect, abandoning rational debate. I think that whatever rationale this departure from reason might have depends the conditions of 1 being met. My own view is that they are not. Atheists clearly overestimate the strength of their case.

Dissin’ Yahweh, Part II

Actually, I want to spend several posts on this one. Here’s a thought I had early this morning. Consider this piece of Psalm 42:

As the hart panteth after the water brooks,
so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

Last post I wrote that Yahweh looks more like a Nebuchadnezzar (actually Nebuchadnezzar II, the figure in the book of Daniel, hereafter NII) than someone a modern could worship. It’s interesting that Yahweh, perceiving NII’s pride, struck him with dementia. Yahweh will have no rivals. He’s NII on steroids.

But then, who could honestly sing something like the quote from Psalm 42 about NII on steroids? Oh, I thirst for thee, o’ great, buff, Nebuchadnezzar on the juice! Bizarre, to say the least.

Then again, people in North Korea worship Kim Il-sun, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un in this way. But this surely is the result of fear and coercion. But, then again, so might be worship of Yahweh be something demanded by the state. Yet King David worshiped Yahweh like this, and he was the king; he couldn’t have been coerced in this way. Then again, David could have been coerced by threats from Yahweh Himself (through the Law and Prophets). Still, it just seems to me that he really enjoyed it. He danced before Yahweh until his clothes fell off!

In fact, many worshipers of God really seem to enjoy it. I rarely do (There are times I’ve faked enjoyment, hoping for the real thing. Most of the time I worship out of obedience with a hope of a deeper connection with the deity.). But there were rare occasions where I did sense a divine delight. And I’m sure there are many who experience it far more often than I do.

The way I make sense of all this (assuming that the praise in the Psalms is sincere) is that a Nebuchadnezzar-looking deity wasn’t such a turn off to ancients. I also think that the experience of God by David and the Sons of Korah (from the above quote) goes beyond a Nebuchadnezzar experience. I doubt seriously that anyone had this kind of delight in NII. My guess is that God only superficially looks like NII, but there is a deeper reality experienced by worshipers. I suppose this is a theme in this series of posts. There is a superficial view of God that looks culturally embedded, presumably to help people relate to God. Then there are the transcendent aspects of God that are sometimes experienced in worship.

BTW, it’s no coincidence that pictures of Jesus from various races all render him as a member of that race. Ever seen a black or Korean or Nordic Jesus? Maybe that can be explained by saying that Jesus is mostly a cultural construct with a very small grain of historical fact at the core. Or it could be explained by saying that God allows his superficial image to be culturally embedded to aid in his relating to people.

Dissin’ Yahweh

Tags

Yahweh

I think that, naturalistic and scientistic assumptions aside, a main cause of the rise of atheism is the prima facie distastefulness of Yahweh, the God of the Hebrew Bible (aka Old Testament), to modern sensibility. Notice, for example, how Sam Harris, in his debate with William Lane Craig about whether morality needs God as a base, digressed into a diatribe against Yahweh (some atheists seem to think this was a good move).

Still, sometimes I'm bothered by the character of Yahweh myself. Here's a condensed and partial list of the problems.

1. God is self-centered and jealous of glory going to others (whether other gods or other people).
2. God sometimes has rather distasteful anthropomorphic features (he's presented as coming down to earth to learn of what Adam and Eve were doing, he repented of making man and vowed to destroy him, God showed Moses his back, covering Moses with his hand, etc.)
3. God sometimes demands what seems obviously immoral.
a. He commanded the extermination of various groups of Canaanites.
b. He commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and commended him when he was willing.
c. He demands excessive punishments for rather petty crimes (if crimes at all). Example, people breaking the Sabbath were to be stoned to death.
d. He criminalizes things that are not wrong (e.g., homosexuality).
e. He ignores or condones things that are obviously criminal: e.g., child abuse, slavery.
4. He demands total obedience on pain of death or extreme punishment.
5. He is obsessed with the worship of his people, and their "adultery" when they worship a different god.
6. He belittles his people.
7. He seems completely unaware of people outside of the middle east.
8. He seems unaware of basic scientific truths (e.g., his explanation of rainbows to Noah in Genesis).

In short, Yahweh seems more like an ancient near eastern king than a God that a modern could respect.

Christians are committed to not only the existence of such a being, but to the worship and adoration of Him. Hence the problem. What can a Christian say in response?

I would start by saying that it’s no coincidence that God, as represented in the Hebrew Bible, looks an awful lot like an ancient near eastern king. In fact, theologians often describe the Old Testament covenant between God and the Jews as modeled off of the relationships between peoples in the ancient near east and their subjects (see this short post on the Suzerain-Vassal Covenant, God, and Abraham).

Perhaps the people of that time wouldn’t respect a God that didn’t look like one of their kings. Perhaps that’s why God looks more like a Nebuchadnezzar than, say, a Gandhi, or a Barack Obama, or a Nelson Mandela, or a Richard Dawkins, for that matter. Still, this doesn’t remove the taste. For even if God had to somehow stoop to our level (or their level), He shouldn’t command or allow things that are immoral.

Christians usually respond with something like this (see Paul Copan’s Is God a Moral Monster?): God could only do so much in terms of reforming these people. He couldn’t just obliterate their society and reconstruct it according to a more modern morality. What he did was first try to secure their loyalty to Him. Besides, God’s purposes weren’t to create a moral utopia for the Jews as much as it was to show the human race, via an object lesson of the Jews, that they cannot consistently be loyal to God, and hence needed saving by Jesus.

But how much does this explain? Perhaps it could allow for God to wink at customs that ancient near eastern societies depended on, such as slavery, wives as property, the having of concubines, etc., with an eye to reveal that these should be changed as well, some time in the future. But what about genocide? And what about God’s megalomaniacal jealousy?

Before moving on to these problems, I would like to mention one other thing. Though I am no moral relativist, I still think that we need to be aware that we are looking at the ancient near east through our own moral lens of post-enlightenment neo-modernist thought. We are taught from a young age that kings are bad, democracy is good. We are also taught that no one is really any better than anyone else. Equality and freedom are core values in our era. And we were taught not to trust our leaders — hence our monarchaphobia, and the elaborate system of checks and balances that we take as foundational to any just government. But I can’t help but think that there is an element of the historical in our views as well as there is in the views of the ancient Jews. Again, I do believe in an objective morality, but I wonder if the morality in which we were raised completely reflects it. For example, I think that democracy isn’t really always the best form of government, though it is when one cannot completely trust one’s government (which is pretty much all the time when we have other human beings in charge). It’s a way of guarding our social contract with the government. The enlightenment told us that all authority derives from the consent of the governed, from this social contract if you will. But that may not be true. Maybe there is authority beyond that.

To be continued.

Betting on Naturalism: Decision Under Uncertainty

I’m pretty sure about this: naturalism is not known to be true. It’s mostly a hunch. Or program, or agenda. Sure, novices on both sides of the debate tend to overstate their case: street atheists sometimes say that “it’s a wrap” with naturalism the clear winner. Theists do the same too. But I think the more thoughtful on both sides would say that neither position is known to be true in the sense that there is no risk that they are wrong.

If this is true, then accepting naturalism is a decision that has risks. After all, it might not be true (of course, the same goes for competitors like theism). As we don’t know the probability of naturalism being true (at least it seems that way to me), accepting naturalism is a decision under uncertainty. What we stand to gain if we are right and lose if we are wrong becomes all the more relevant.

What if we accept naturalism and it is wrong? What do we lose? God, of course. Or at least belief in God. We lose any of the traditional religions. We lose immortality (or the comfort in the belief in immortality). We lose objectivity in ethics (if we mean more than mere solidarity by it), we lose, according to eliminative materialists like Paul and Patricia Churchland, the will, beliefs, folk-psychology as a whole. We lose any purpose in life beyond our own subjective leanings. We lose the delicious transcendent that C.S. Lewis spoke of in The Weight of Glory.

What is gained if it is true? I do want to say this first; you can’t say “science.” For theists have always been involved in science, and most respect and use it. Many of our best scientists are theists. Not being a naturalist is not an excuse to avoid science, if, say, Ken Miller (cell biologist and opponent of Intelligent Design Theory) is any example. Naturalism also doesn’t gain the “beauty of nature” either, for any theist can appreciate the same, with the same relish. The same goes for technology. But what you do gain is a unified view of all of reality that can be reduced to laws discoverable by science.

There are reciprocal risks with denying naturalism as well. Since this is a decision under uncertainty, we cannot do what I’d like to do: calculate expected utility. But I do think that the question of whether or not one should accept naturalism does amount do a decision that must take into consideration what we value. If you value a unified view of science more than any of the stuff that naturalism destroys, then betting on naturalism is for you. I can’t say that for myself, however.

What I Like About Daniel Dennett: The Cost of Naturalism

Daniel Dennett is one of those dreaded “New Atheists.” He is also a leading figure in the philosophy of mind. As a Christian I must obviously disagree with most of what he says, and I sometimes find his snarkiness annoying (consider his debate with Alvin Plantinga). Still, there is something that I really like about what he’s doing. You see, many philosophers haven’t really come to grips with the impact their beliefs would have if these beliefs were to be widely adopted. Philosophers can be rather non-social sometimes. They presume their naturalism and chug away at what a theory of mind must look like and so forth, without giving much thought to what such theories would do to the average Joe. What they do, of course, is obliterate religion. But religion is important to a big percentage of the average Joes. Many “out there” (from the perspective of a window in the ivory tower) would lose their main purpose for living.

It’s also no coincidence that many in philosophy departments don’t like undergraduates (the closest they get to the average Joe). One professor, I remember, explicitly let his grad students know that he didn’t want to talk to any undergraduates during the semester. Another I know said that they say the stupidest things. In fact, it’s almost an everyday part of conversation of both philosophy professors and grad students to run down the intelligence of the average college student. Sometimes I participated, shamefully. We don’t get out much.

This is why I like Dennett; he does get out. It’s true that most philosophers, despite their ambivalence to the public, realize that their ideas would destroy the lives of many. They mostly don’t care. They see the public as beyond saving, too stupid, brain-washed, indoctrinated, or neurotic to accept the truth. But Dennett does care. Not only does he see the implications of Darwinism (read his excellent Darwins Dangerous Idea), but he wants these implications to be made public. He wants people to wrestle with the impact the advance of science (naturalism) has on people.

I think the big problem that philosophers need to face is that there is a cost to their theories. They aren’t just abstract objects with no causal powers. They dissolve much of what society has traded on for millennia. At the wine and cheeses philosophers might make a quick joke or reference to what the public would think about their theories. But they don’t often go public with the implications of their theories. And they certainly don’t consider the cost of their theories to the many when formulating them.

I know a typical philosopher might say: “Well, even if the theories cost, they are true. We can’t deny something simply because it might hurt us. Besides, isn’t believing something false (like Christianity) just as harmful, if not more?” True enough. But do we know naturalism to be true? There are hints, perhaps. Science is successful. But, no, naturalism hasn’t been proven. So then there is a risk in propounding naturalism. There is a risk of destroying religion and all that goes with it for the sake of some failed naturalization project.

Dennett takes this risk boldly and explicitly. That’s what I like. It’s much better than saying stuff that obviously implies naturalism (or assumes it) as if it had no impact or risk at all.

Of course, there is the reverse risk of sticking with religion. But I think people are aware of this already. And people like Dennett and Dawkins are also making this clear enough.

Three Problems for Naturalism and What People Do About It

Tags

Churchland, Dennett, Intentionality, materialism, Plantinga, qualia, Searle

Just to be clear, naturalism: All reality is composed of a closed system of things that science can study.

Or, more crudely, God, angels, devils, karma, ghosts, miracles, eternal souls, etc., don’t exist.

The most widespread and plausible expression of naturalism: physicalism. All that exists is physical, or is explainable in terms of the physical, or is determined by the physical.

Here are the three things:

1. Intentionality: the “about-ness” of mental states. Physical things are never “about” anything (unless interpreted by a mind to be so, but then it’s the mind that making the “about-ness”). Mental states are often about things. I have a thought about naturalism right now.

2. Semantics: meanings. Machines can have syntax, that is, manipulate physical things according to rules specified in terms of physical properties of symbols. But they never have semantics.

3. Phenomenal consciousness: This is the inner experience we have as sentient beings. Machines don’t have this. They have “awareness” in that they can react to inputs, but there’s no “what’s it like to be” for machines. Pieces of this awareness are called “qualia.”

What do philosophers do with these? Here’s my probably too brief survey:

John Searle, David Chalmers	Expand meaning of naturalism to include them
Paul and Patricia Churchland, Daniel Dennett	Eliminate them
Most the rest of philosophy and neuroscience	Ignore them
Christian philosophers like Alvin Plantinga	Deny naturalism because of them

As a Christian I’m inclined to do what Plantinga does. I could have some respect for the first answer. But I do find one answer unacceptable; simply ignoring them. I don’t really like denying them either. These two options seem dogmatic to me. Whenever something comes up to present a problem for naturalism you can’t just ignore it or deny it. My guess (actually, it isn’t so much of a guess) is that they think the case for naturalism/materialism is sooooo strong that it warrants throwing out a few things that don’t go with it. Science is successful. The neurosciences are very successful.

Still, qualia aren’t incompatible with neuroscience (even if they aren’t reducible to it). They are incompatible with materialism, though. Thus science doesn’t say anything against the three problematic things, unless the science is accompanied by the philosophical add-on of naturalism.

Angry Atheism: It’s the Baby-Boomer’s Fault

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angry atheism, baby boomers

This post is wildly speculative. I’ll probably recant at some point. But I was watchin’ a PBS talk show (I forgot which) in which cultural psychologist Jonathan Haidt was discussing some of the differences between liberal and conservative morality (highly recommended by me, btw, is his and Graham’s fascinating article found here).

What really struck me was the change he perceived between the gap between liberals and conservatives in earlier generations and the divide that arose in the late 60′s. Consider the Reagan generation. Reagan was a conservative, for sure, but he could work with Democrats. WWII generation liberals and conservatives disagreed with each other, but they got along and could work together. But with the generation gap of the late 60′s things were different. The hippies, yippies, members of the Berkeley SDS (you know what’s cool; I’m listening to Jimi Hendrix radio on Pandora as I’m writing right now. CSN is on with a Woodstock hit), Black Panthers and the like didn’t merely disagree with conservatives, they hated them. They saw them as evil. And conservative parents from the Greatest Generation were shocked at their children’s behavior, and some of them hated liberals. They became reactionary. This shift from mere disagreement to enmity in the 60′s found a home in US politics, and the present age is perhaps the first in which there are few if any WWII generation moderates in Washington to buffer things. The elder statesmen are from my parents’ generation: the baby-boomers.

Another thought: a lot of these hippies went to grad school and got PhDs and joined academia. If an ex-hippy professor had a real beef with “the man” back in ’69, that could influence her in the direction of not only disagreeing with, say, Christians, but actually hating them (or at least the religion they belong to).

I don’t know about the past lives of people in the new atheist movement, but notice that a disproportionately high percentage of them are baby-boomers. Dan Dennett and Richard Dawkins are both boomers (Was there a baby-boom in Britain after WWII like here?).

There are younger angry atheists too. But I can’t help but think, after watching that documentary, that the generation gap in the 60s has something to do with atheists not thinking that theists are merely quaint but actually morally evil in some way.