Seversky set out the following challenge: Draw up two lists, the first being all the scientific and technological advances of the last two hundred years, say, that were based on [1] a naturalistic/materialistic/ physicalist metaphysics, [2] the second being a list of all such advances based on a teleological metaphysics. A simple comparison should reveal which has been the more prolific and productive approach. Interesting test. The answer is on list [1] there would be zero entries. On list [2] there would be all the scientific and technological advances of the last two hundred years. You see, Sev, many people spout materialism. No one actually conducts their lives, from moral choices to scientific research, as if it were true. Because if it were true, there would be no point to any moral choice, and there would be no reason to expect that the universe conforms to regularities we call scientific laws. So, even the researchers who spout materialism act as if it were false when they are actually doing research. This is especially true of biology, including evolutionary biology, where the scientific literature is drenched in teleological language.  Why?  Because if one wants to describe what is going on, the use of teleological language is unavoidable.

In a previous post I demonstrated that no sane person acts as if materialism were true.  It later occurred to me that it is impossible to even speak as if materialism were true. Consider the following statement: “I believe materialism is true.” The statement implicitly affirms the following three things that are true only if monist materialism is false: Subject-object duality. There is a subject (the observer; i.e., the “I” in the statement) who perceives an object (the concept of materialism). Intentionality. A mental state exists that is directed toward some object.  Bags of chemicals do not have beliefs. Self-aware subjectivity as a declared reality. It is absurd to say the illusion of myself foisted on me by the chemicals that make up my body has a position regarding the truth of materialism.  The speaker concedes the reality of the subjective self.

While I am busy locally, I think it is important to discuss the issue as just headlined here at UD. Let me clip from the “Materialism makes you stupid” thread: >>27 CLAVDIVSApril 18, 2016 at 7:52 pm Design as a cause is compatible with materialism. Where’s the beef?>> and >>28 kairosfocusApril 19, 2016 at 5:14 am C, design is compatible with embodied designers — we are embodied designers. Evolutionary materialism is inescapably self referentially incoherent and irretrievably self-falsifying as a worldview. Whether or no it is dressed up in a lab coat . . . threatening to take the credibility of science down with it in the ruins of its inevitable collapse. And that is some serious beef. KF>> So, who is right, why? END

I have a hard time getting some materialists to admit that two plus two is infallibly four.  Here, a 5’9″ white guy has a hard time getting college students to admit that he is infallibly not a seven year old, 6’5″ Chinese woman.  

From LiveScience: Neuroscientists and many philosophers have typically planted themselves firmly on the materialist side. But a growing number of scientists now believe that materialism cannot wholly explain the sense of “I am” that undergirds consciousness, Kuhn told the audience. One of those scientists is Christof Koch, the president and chief scientific officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. At the event, he described a relatively recent formulation of consciousness called the integrated information theory. The idea, put forward by University of Wisconsin-Madison neuroscientist and psychiatrist Giulio Tononi, argues that consciousness resides in an as-yet-unknown space in the universe. Integrated information theory measures consciousness by a metric, called phi, which essentially translates to how much power over itself a being or object has. “If a system has causal power upon itself, like the brain does, then it feels like something. If you have a lot of causal power upon yourself, then it feels like a lot to be you,” Koch said. The new theory implies a radical disconnect between intelligence and consciousness, Koch said. More. That’s a good thing. There are only so many times that one can hit one’s head against a brick wall before real harm sets in. You know, perceptronium (consciousness is a form of matter) or radical naturalism (consciousness as illusion). Or heck, even rocks have minds. A smart high-schooler can convincingly refute this stuff, which is not overall a good sign. A smart high-schooler can convincingly refute this stuff, which is not overall a good sign. Whatever the merits of Koch’s theory, or Tonioni’s, they try to reduce the nonsense quotient (NQ) and deal with the relationship between consciousness and information. Note: “The new theory implies a radical disconnect between intelligence and consciousness, Koch said.” That makes a lot of sense because consciousness isn’t principally about intelligence anyway, even though some intelligence would seem to be necessary for it to function. Consciousness is subjectivity, the sense that an experience is happening to oneself. In that minimal self sense, many animals have consciousness. The discussion veers off to whether artificial intelligences can evolve into selves; some interesting points. See also: Does intelligence depend on a specific type of brain? (No) Neuroscience tried wholly embracing naturalism, but then the brain got away Would we give up naturalism to solve the hard problem of consciousness? A look at information theory and What great physicists have said about immateriality and consciousness Follow UD News at Twitter!

One of the challenges commonly met with in re-thinking origins science from a perspective open to design, is that the evolutionary materialist narrative is too often presented as fact (not explanation), and there is also a typical failure to recognise that materialist ideology cannot be properly imposed on science. Likewise, there is a pattern of failing to address the issue of the self-falsifying self-referential incoherence of such materialism. It is appropriate to highlight these issues through this basics series. In this case, we have a live case in point, here: GD, 173: >>There are some parts of evolutionary theory that are so well supported that they can be considered facts. Widespread (if not necessarily universal) common ancestry. Mutation, selection, and drift all happen; we see ’em in the lab, we see ’em in the wild, and we see their effects in genomes . . . . Methodological naturalism is part of science, but philosophical naturalism is not . . . . Everyone here is falling all over themselves accusing those of us on the science side of being hopelessly biased, irrational, etc. All I can really say is, have you looked in a mirror lately? The level of irrational bias on the ID side is completely ridiculous. Do you have all have any self-awareness at all?>> Of course, “the science side” is revealing on how evolutionary materialist scientism tends to see itself as “science,” and goes on to imagine that “science” has cornered the market on credible or serious knowledge of the physical cosmos . . . which, with whatever emergent phenomena are accepted, then exhausts effective reality. However, it is not typically recognised that such scientism is an epistemological claim laced with metaphysical assumptions, is thus a philosophical assertion about knowledge and so is self referentially incoherent and necessarily false. In 180, I responded: _____________ >>With all due respect, I must differ. To begin with, you full well know that it is a COMMON resort by Darwinists to appeal to the assertion that the Darwinist macro picture is fact, Fact, FACT; with implication that only fools dispute facts. A simple glance back above will show that I spoke to that generality. As one advocating Darwinism and/or objecting to design you can hardly properly object to my highlighting that common-run behaviour and other linked behaviours that show the pattern of ideological indoctrination and imposition I am addressing. Where, BTW, this particular issue popped up in and around UD in recent days [i.e. AC] so it is a live issue. In fact, in your onward remarks you show that you too commit much the same error of conflating highly inferential and ideologically loaded macroevolutionary explanation with direct observation of actual empirical fact: There are some parts of evolutionary theory that are so well supported that they can be considered facts. Widespread (if not necessarily universal) common ancestry. Mutation, selection, and drift all happen; we see ’em in the lab, we see ’em in the wild, and we see their effects in genomes. Do you not see the error of conflation and halo of factual character by close rhetorical association you just fell into? What we see in the lab is small changes in populations, often by loss of prior function or in Lenski’s case apparent recovery of ability to use an existing mechanism under aerobic conditions. What we have definitely not actually seen is observation of common ancestry of body plans by blind watchmaker chance and/or necessity via chance non foresighted variations of the 47 or whatever kinds, followed by differential reproductive success and descent with modification leading to the rise of divergent major body plans from a common unicellular ancestor. We have not even seen the rise of humans diverse from chimps or whatever from a common population what 6 – 10 MYA. Nor, have you or anyone else shown that blind chance and mechanical necessity can account for the required FSCO/I, at OOL in the first instance (to include origin of the von Neumann, code using kinematic self replication integrated with gated encapsulation of a metabolic automaton), or for origin of body plans or adaptations at macro level requiring 10 – 100+ mn bases worth of new genetic info. In the chimp vs human case, in 6 – 10 MY we need to account for ~ 60 mn bases, per the 2% difference scenario that is commonly put forth. With populations of order 10^4, pop gen times of order 5 – 20 or so years, and more. What we have seen is that FSCO/I has but one observed and needle in haystack blind search analysis plausible cause. Intelligently directed configuration. Which obtains whether or not we do in fact have common ancestry as is commonly inferred or believed in educated circles. But there is more, as you go on to assert something that is highly misleading but widely believed concerning why it is that an inference to design is commonly excluded in circles dominated by evolutionary materialist scientism and/or its fellow travellers: Methodological naturalism is part of science, but philosophical naturalism is not. Actually, methodological naturalism is demonstrably often a stalking horse that allows the ideology of evolutionary materialist scientism to be imposed on both science and science education. I have already cited Rational Wiki as a particularly blatant case: “Methodological naturalism is the label for the required assumption of philosophical naturalism when working with the scientific method. Methodological naturalists limit their scientific research to the study of natural causes, because any attempts to define causal relationships with the supernatural are never fruitful, and result in the creation of scientific “dead ends” and God of the gaps-type hypotheses.” if you think that is merely idiosyncratic, consider here the formal position of the US NSTA Board (of Science Teachers) in July 2000 after commissioning a major study, in a context where they went on to partner with the NAS in imposing this, e.g. in Kansas c 2005: Although no single universal step-by-step scientific method captures the complexity of doing science, Read More ›

In my last post I linked to an article in which several atheists discuss how they deal with the lack of meaning in the universe.  In response Seversky asks: What is meant by “meaning” in this context? To me, it sounds like a purpose conceived in the mind of an intelligent being, in this case God. So what you are saying is that unless another intelligent being has a purpose in mind for you, your existence is worthless and meaningless? So, a question, why should you only have value or worth or meaning if it exists in the mind of another intelligence. What is wrong with finding a meaning or purpose for yourself? After all, if God has a purpose, why can’t you? Seversky, let us assume for the moment that atheistic materialism is correct.  If that is the case, then certain facts follow as a matter of logic, including the following: The sun is an average star and only one of billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy, which is one of the billions of galaxies in the observable universe. There is nothing – absolutely nothing – in that vast immensity but space, time, particles and energy. At first only the light elements existed. But eventually clouds of hydrogen and helium collapsed into stars, and the heavier elements were formed in the nuclear furnaces inside those stars.  All of the heavier elements we observe are remnants of burned out stars. Some of the remnants of those burned out stars eventually coalesced into a planet we call Earth, and eventually a tiny subset of those particles spontaneously turned themselves into simple self-replicators. Through the process of evolution those simple self-replicators became more and more complex until at last the most complex self-replicators of all, human beings, arose. Fundamentally, however, humans are nothing but insignificant amalgamations of burned out star stuff on an insignificant rock orbiting an insignificant star in an insignificant galaxy in an incomprehensibly vast universe. A rock does not owe moral duties to another rock. The very notion is absurd.  A rock is nothing but an amalgamation of burned out star stuff, and it is literally meaningless to say that one amalgamation of burned out star stuff owes a moral duty to another amalgamation of burned out star stuff. Nothing about that analysis changes if the amalgamation of burned out star stuff is called a human. Thus, the idea that humans owe moral duties to one another is ultimately meaningless.  In a universe in which nothing exists but particles in motion, there is no good.  There is no evil. It follows that everything we do is ultimately pointless. The amalgamation of burned out star stuff we call “Hitler” did certain things.  The amalgamation of burned out star stuff we call “Mother Teresa” did certain other things.  And what Hitler did and what Mother Teresa did are equal in the sense that they are equally pointless. That, Seversky, is the universe you, as an atheist materialist, imagine you live in.  So let us answer your questions: What is meant by “meaning” in this context? By “meaning” we mean “significance within a broader context.”  There is no meaning in your universe, because nothing we do has any significance within a broader context as my Hitler/Mother Teresa example demonstrates. So what you are saying is that unless another intelligent being has a purpose in mind for you, your existence is worthless and meaningless? I am simply asking you to have the courage to acknowledge the logical consequences of your metaphysical assumptions.  I understand that you are terrified of those consequences and want to avert your gaze from them at all costs, including very often the cost of descending into logical absurdity.  But there they are nevertheless. So, a question, why should you only have value or worth or meaning if it exists in the mind of another intelligence. For there to be meaning good and evil must exist in an objective sense.  It must really be the case that what Hitler did was “evil” and that what Mother Teresa did was “good” where the words “evil” and “good” mean something beyond “that which I do not prefer” and “that which I do prefer.” What is wrong with finding a meaning or purpose for yourself? Because a transcendent moral code cannot be grounded in the being of an amalgamation of burned out star stuff.  Such a code can be grounded only in God’s being.  Go back and look at all of the atheist blitherings in that article I linked in my last post.  Every single one of them amounts to one of two things:  (1) I try not to think about it; or (2) I distract myself with things that amuse me.  That is not finding meaning or purpose and only a fool believes it is. After all, if God has a purpose, why can’t you? Because only God can impose meaning – through the objective transcendent moral code grounded in his being – on an otherwise meaningless universe.

Commenter psypaul writes regarding those (such as Sam Harris) who say consciousness is an illusion. Consciousness is an illusion….to whom? Who is being deceived? Isn’t ‘self’ an illusion as well? Doesn’t the concept of ‘illusion’ require a perceiver (person)? Absurdity. Indeed, psypaul.  As with much of the drivel that comes pouring out of the materialists, this is a statement of purported universal truth that requires an implicit exception for the speaker, thus rendering absurd its claim to being universal. “Consciousness is an illusion – except for me right now; I’m aware of (that is to say, “conscious of”) the illusion.” “There is no meaning.  Except what I just said.  That has meaning.” “We deconstructionists assert absolutely that all texts have infinite meaning and therefore must be deconstructed; except this text; it has only the plain meaning I intend; no deconstruction necessary.” “At bottom there is no good or evil in the universe; except for creationists; they are insane, stupid or wicked.” “There is no truth, except what I just said; that’s true.” Materialism makes people say stupid things.  To those who would respond that materialists don’t actually say the things that are implicit in their assertions, I say, “so what?”  If a proposition necessarily follows as a matter of logic from what someone has just said, then one of two things is true:  (1) that person accepts that necessary corollary and embraces it; or (2) he is too stupid to understand the necessary corollary follows from his assertion.  With the materialist propositions set forth above, either way he is stupid. There are other propositions requiring an implicit exception for the speaker.  Readers are welcome to add to the list.

An essay contest from the Royal Institute of Philosophy and Cambridge University Press Entrants could win £2,500, publication in Philosophy, and a half hour of fame. No, but seriously, they could contribute to an increasingly significant discussion. Old style vitalism, attributing an internal animating substance or force to living things gave way to the idea that life may yet be a property over and above physical and chemical ones. Subsequent to that it was widely thought that life is an organisational or functional feature of bodies instantiated by their physical properties. With ongoing debates about analogous issues relating to mind (especially consciousness and intentionality) still running, and renewed interest in anti-reductionist interpretations of emergence and of teleological description and explanation the question is posed: do life forms present a problem for materialism? As origin of life studies seem to devolve into every-researcher-a-new-theorist and origin of mind hasn’t got past perceptronium or similar theories of consciousness, it may be past time for some fresh thinking about life itself. Whether the philosophers listen or not, one can refine one’s own thoughts. We are told, In assessing entries priority will be given to originality, clarity of expression, breadth of interest, and potential for advancing discussion. We’ll see how far that goes. The temptation to fall back into feeble naturalism must be overwhelming at times. = “But I can’t say that. That would imply that Darwinism is a false explanation of evolution!”  Okay fine, then, buddy flower, you can’t say it. Some people will, though. Submission guidelines. Final date: October 1, 2015. Note: The links at the site are not working for News at present. If interested, you may need to contact them. Here is the Contact screen that is supposed to work. Follow UD News at Twitter!

One of the persistent dismissive assertions we see from objectors to design thought is the notion that there is “no evidence” for a designer. As we have already seen, that is questionable, immediately a reflection of selective hyperskepticism, but I believe something deeper lurks. For, the very intensity of this dismissive talking point is a clue: on evolutionary materialism, it is problematic for genuine design — based on freedom to reason, creative insight and genuine purposefulness — to exist. So, it is no wonder that those in the iron grip of this ideology will have problems acknowledging evidence of design, however strong. For, if matter, energy, space, time and blind chance and/or mechanically necessary combinations of such are all that exist, things like true purpose, reason, creativity, choice, a genuinely binding OUGHT and so also design must go. On materialist premises, they are necessarily delusional. We can readily see that for instance in the words and implications of a well-known declaration from William B Provine: >>Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . . .   The first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them. Human free will, however, is another matter. Even evolutionists have trouble swallowing that implication. I will argue that humans are locally determined systems that make choices. They have, however, no free will . . . [Evolution: Free Will and Punishment and Meaning in Life, Second Annual Darwin Day Celebration Keynote Address, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, February 12, 1998 (abstract).]>> But in fact, without responsible freedom, we cannot choose to follow logical connexions, or decide on rational grounds as to the grounding warrant for claimed knowledge, and more. For, in the end all reduces to blind mechanical forces and/or chance, manifested in genetic and/or psycho-social conditioning; nature and nurture. Thus, rationality itself is utterly undermined; evolutionary materialism is self defeating, self-falsifying by way of self-referential incoherence. As, for instance, famed evolutionary theorist J B S Haldane long since recognised: >>”It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]>> Nancey Pearcey ( in Finding Truth, HT: ENV) brings this right up to date: >>An especially damaging form of contradiction is self-referential absurdity — which means a theory sets up a definition of truth that it itself fails to meet. Therefore it refutes itself . . . . An example of self-referential absurdity is a theory called evolutionary epistemology, a [–> now quite commonly seen] naturalistic approach that applies evolution to the process of knowing. The theory proposes that the human mind is a product of natural selection [ –> and/or similarly acting blind watchmaker processes]. The implication is that the ideas in our minds were selected for their survival value, not for their truth-value. But what if we apply that theory to itself? Then it, too, was selected for survival, not truth — which discredits its own claim to truth. Evolutionary epistemology commits suicide. Astonishingly, many prominent thinkers have embraced the theory without detecting the logical contradiction. Philosopher John Gray writes, “If Darwin’s theory of natural selection is true,… the human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth.” What is the contradiction in that statement? Gray has essentially said, if Darwin’s theory is true, then it “serves evolutionary success, not truth.” In other words, if Darwin’s theory is true, then it is not true. Self-referential absurdity is akin to the well-known liar’s paradox: “This statement is a lie.” If the statement is true, then (as it says) it is not true, but a lie. Another example comes from Francis Crick. In The Astonishing Hypothesis, he writes, “Our highly developed brains, after all, were not evolved under the pressure of discovering scientific truths but only to enable us to be clever enough to survive.” But that means Crick’s own theory is not a “scientific truth.” Applied to itself, the theory commits suicide . . . >> I think Plato has some further insights for us; but, first, let us note on where we have come so far in this FTR series: Let’s discuss: >> Elizabeth Liddle: I do not think the ID case holds up. I think it is undermined by [want of . . . ???] any evidence for the putative designer . . . >> FYI-FTR*: Part 2, Is it so that >>If current models are inadequate (and actually all models are), and indeed we do not yet have good OoL models, that does not in itself make a case for design>> FYI-FTR*: Part 3, Is it so, that >> . . . What undermines the “case for design” chiefly, is that there isn’t a case for a designer>> FYI-FTR: Part 4, What about Paley’s self-replicating watch thought exercise? Now, Plato, in The Laws, Bk X on the self-moved rational agent that acts on itself and then sets in train chains of consequences: >>Ath. . . . when one thing changes another, and that another, of such will there be any primary changing element? How can a thing which is moved by another ever be the beginning of change? Impossible. But when the self-moved changes other, and that again other, and thus Read More ›

Today’s guest post is from nkendall: We have looked at the phenomena of dreams LINK: Are Dreams Incompatible With Materialism? and constancy of self through near death experiences LINK: Constancy of Self in Light of Near Death Experiences – A Disproof of Materialism as disproofs of materialism. Now I want to look at continuity of thought as a disproof of materialism.   Have you ever noticed that your mind is always presented with a continuous stream of related thoughts? There are seldom, if ever, any gaps where your mind is blank. There always seems to be a single, whole, intact thought present in our conscious awareness. I suppose there are exceptions such as seizures. Remarkably, barring interruption, each distinct thought in a sequence of thoughts is related to the adjacent thoughts in time; those before and after and in the context of one’s experiences. This is true whether we are rehashing a similar set of thoughts from memory, or when we are daydreaming or when our imaginations are heightened and presenting us with a novel, sequence of thoughts. Even more astounding is when these streams of thought are found to be creative and unique in human history and contribute to the advancement of human knowledge, human artifacts, artistic renderings and expressions of goodness in fundamental ways. Can these marvelous qualities of mind be reconciled with materialism which posits only the physical brain to account for human consciousness and intellect? No, they cannot; not even in principle.   Let’s first look briefly at materialist claims regarding consciousness and human intellect and then examine them in light of the qualities of mind that we all experience each moment of our lives.   MATERIALISM It is not known how thoughts could arise in the brain, how they could be represented in the brain or how they could be rendered in our consciousness much less what consciousness is. For many people these intractable problems are enough to dismiss materialism from the start. But materialism’s grip on Western thought has conditioned the educated class into thinking that there are no plausible alternatives to a brain-only hypothesis of human consciousness and intellect. Only by thinking about the details of our conscious thoughts and about what would have to be the case for materialism to be true, does materialism’s brain-only theory fall apart.   Materialism’s reductionist accounting of human intellect requires strict adherence to bottom up causation. Bottom up causation means that it is the sequences of molecular neural events that give rise to one’s thoughts and directs them to our conscious awareness for rendering–somehow. Therefore, the thoughts that appear in our conscious awareness are entirely determined by the prior local causal chain of molecular neural events. But if our thoughts are produced and determined by the prior causal chain of neural events in the brain then they would not be expected or necessitated in any way to produce a coherent, continuous sequences of related thoughts that were recognizable to our conscious experience. There would be no expectation that adjacent brain states (similar configurations) would result in “adjacent” (tightly related) mental states. This decoupling of local causation at the physical level and information and meaning at the mental experience level is a fundamental fact that materialism is bound by. Simply put, physical processes in the brain cannot possibly have any way of knowing what set of physical sequences in the brain would give rise to coherent mental sequences of thought. Therefore, materialism is left with either blind chance or determinism neither of which could possibly produce the rich mental lives we all experience.   COMPLEX, SPECIFIED INFORMATION The sequences of molecular neural events that materialism claims give rise to our thoughts would have to be precise and they would have to be specific. They would have to be precise and specific because there are an incalculable array of thoughts that can arise in our minds and these must then have an incalculable number of physical arrangements to underlie them. Imagine an insight that you have had or bit of knowledge that you have acquired. Then think of the innumerable ways in which it could be slightly modified even in very subtle ways. Each version of this insight would have–must have if materialism is true–a slightly different underlying neural signature otherwise they would not be distinguishable from thoughts which were slightly different. Also, since these physical processes–these sequences of molecular neural events–would have to interface with other putative physical processes, a predictable outcome could only result if the processes themselves, and the interface between them, were precise and specific.   Because thoughts and insights unfold over time, they would have underlying sequences of arrangements, not just static arrangements. Once the first thought in a stream of related thoughts were brought forth in our conscious awareness, the subsequent thoughts would be constrained by the content (the meaning) of the initial thought and increasingly so with each new thought as this collection of emerging thoughts matured into a complete insight. The underlying physical processes which materialism claims give rise to these thoughts would, therefore, also be increasingly constrained and more tightly specified as more thoughts were brought forth just as the configurations in my brain causing the movements of my hands and fingers would have to be increasingly constrained as I type out this sentence.   Therefore, under a materialist assumption, in order for a continuous, coherent stream of related thoughts to occur, an enormous number of molecular components in the brain would have to be continuously arranged in increasingly very precise and specific ways. The sheer number of molecular components involved betrays a very high degree of complexity. These streams of thought would exhibit extraordinary quantities of complex, specified information and constitute irreducibly complex configurations.   Especially noteworthy are the spontaneous emergence of unique and novel thoughts that lead to an expansion of human knowledge in profound and important ways. Although each of us have unique and novel thought streams each day, most are not significant in this regard. If materialism is true, its account of such unique and novel phenomena would entail that the underlying local causation in the brain results in a unique sequence of arrangements of Read More ›

The following is a guest post be nkendall: One of the striking things about our experience as conscious, thinking humans is how constant our sense of self–our identity–is. Never in my life has there been any suspension or change of my conscious sense of who I am other than during sleep. Throughout our lives our brains change considerably. A myriad of new synaptic connections are formed especially in the early years. Yet one’s identity is immutable. Aside from these ongoing modifications of the brain, there are catastrophic changes as well. Those who have experienced surgery under general anesthesia or suffered cardiac arrest have had their brains shut down and consciousness suspended even if only briefly. Near death experiences represent a more profound disruption of consciousness often involving complete cessation of detectable brain activity. Yet we know from countless surgeries conducted under general anesthesia and near death experiences that one’s consciousness, sense of self and mental faculties, i.e. memories, knowledge, beliefs, etc. are usually fully restored even in extreme cases following the event. Why is it that our sense of self is so constant even when the brain is subjected to change and catastrophic effects? What material causal processes in the brain could account for this constancy of self? Near death experiences are dismissed by materialists as hallucinations resulting from a brain in distress; this despite the fact that many near death type experiences occur when the subject is not near death and even cases where multiple persons witness the events, i.e. “shared death experiences”. Nevertheless, materialists believe that by dismissing near death experiences as hallucinations they are safeguarding their materialist world view. The reality is that when materialists make this claim they are unwittingly embracing an explanation that disproves materialism. If the near death experiences are hallucinations, they cannot be hallucinations of a material brain, they can only be hallucinations of an immaterial mind. The reason is simple: the brain, being an electro-chemical computer in a sense, cannot possibly generate vast quantities of novel, continuous, unique, complex specified information spontaneously especially when it involves unearthly and ineffable visual and abstract mental content which accompany near death experiences. The brain cannot even account for the complex specified information we experience in our nightly dreams. It requires a callous disregard of reason to believe that a brain in distress could spontaneously produce an interactive audio-video experience, with the most real, unearthly and spectacular mental phenomena one has ever experienced. There are no material process that could account for this even in principle. Furthermore, out of body experiences associated with near death experiences, also dismissed as hallucinations by materialists, cannot be hallucinations if what the subject is experiencing is real and can be corroborated as such. And in fact several, and perhaps many, out of body experiences have been corroborated to some extent. The last refuge of materialism is simply to dismiss near death experiences as a bunch of unverifiable anecdotes. The subjective nature of near death experiences and the timing as to when they actually occur, make it difficult to disprove materialism based on human testimony alone. Therefore, I want to take a different approach in order to disprove materialism with respect to near death experiences. I want to focus on the materialist claim that consciousness, one’s sense of self, along with memories, knowledge and beliefs could be restored by material processes unaided by an immaterial mind following a near death experience. First lets take a brief look at materialist claims about the brain. Although it is not known or even imaginable how our mental experiences could be reducible to physical phenomena in the brain; nevertheless, that is what materialists believe. According to materialism, consciousness and all mental phenomena we experience are the result of complex molecular interactions in the brain. Since all mental phenomena involve time, there is a dynamic quality to them. If materialism is true then it has to be the case that precise and specific neural sequences of events underlie these mental phenomena. These sequences of events have to be precise and specific because there is an incalculable number of ways in which various thoughts, memories, beliefs and knowledge can be modified in just the slightest and nuanced ways. Imagine a memory, belief, insight, or bit of knowledge that you possess. Then think of the innumerable ways in which it can be slightly modified even in very subtle ways. Each version of these mental phenomena would have–must have if materialism is true–a slightly different underlying neural signature otherwise they would not be distinguishable from thoughts which were slightly different. What would happen–what should happen–under a materialist accounting of mental phenomena, if the precise and specific causal sequences of events in the brain, from which all mental phenomena are purported to be derived, were disrupted in a catastrophic way? Many such cases have occurred. I want to focus on one well-known case involving a women named Pam Reynolds. Pam Reynolds had a large aneurysm deep in the base of her brain. In order to remove the aneurysm, the medical team would have to use a procedure referred to as “standstill” whereby all molecular activity in her brain would be halted. To achieve this the doctors would have to chill her body and drain all the blood out of her brain. The surgery was a success. The surgeon removed the aneurysm, the medical staff warmed the blood and re-infused it back into her brain. They then resuscitated her which required a defibrillator. During the operation Pam Reynolds had many of the classic elements of a near death experience, including two out of body experiences, an trip through a dark tunnel with a bright light, a visit with deceased relatives and it appears a brief life review. Pam’s near death experience began while she was under deep general anesthesia and ended just prior to her resuscitation. She is reported to have said that her experience was continuous–uninterrupted–from the time of her first out of body experience in the operating room prior Read More ›

Recently, StephenB wrote, RDFish is wrong; Barry Arrington is right: Materialism cannot be reconciled with objective morality: In several previous posts, RDFish stumbled into a serious philosophical error that needs to be addressed. Barry Arrington had made the unassailable point that materialism (understood as physicalism) is incompatible with such concepts as good, evil, and objective morality. The reason is clear: Materialism reduces all choices to electro-chemical processes in the brain. With that model, all apparent moral decisions are really nothing more than chemcial-physical operations or functions. Though RDF failed to refute the argument, confront the argument, or even define his own terms, he sought, nevertheless, to attack it through the back door, claiming that past atheist philosophers embraced both metaphysical materialism and objective morality. I wonder if, for some readers, there may be a possible source of confusion: One can be a non-theist and still believe in objective morality. A non-theist may believe that the universe operates in a way that includes a moral component that it is not synonymous with a personal God (for example, the more austere forms of Buddhism). Then objective morality is part of objective reality. Breaking that law is as likely as breaking the laws of nature, perhaps less so, and there are consequences. With materialism and physicalism, there is no such morality and no consequences by definition,. Which could be one reason that atheistic regimes in communist countries like China had such a high body count in the 20th century. – O’Leary for News Follow UD News at Twitter!

Asks nkendall. All that follows is his: Okay lets see what I can come up with. This is just one of several disproofs of materialism that I have tried out on atheist websites. Never once had anyone lay of glove on it: DREAM SEQUENCES – A SIMPLE DISPROOF OF MATERIALISM Here is a simple disproof of materialism that everyone can understand; consider dream sequences: ASSUMPTIONS: 1. Dreams always involve novel (NEW) content – they are not rehashings or restructuring of various memories; although the topics are in the context of one’s life experiences. 2. Dreams are high definition imagery. 3. Dreams are real imagery, i.e. you are unaware or unable to distinguish the dream imagery when it is going on from real visual imagery during waking consciousness. 4. Dreams contain complex specified information, each image element (analogous to a pixel in HDTV) WITHIN an imagery frame in a dream has to be what it is for the imagery to be coherent and correlated. And each image element (pixel) has to be what it is for the imagery to be coherent and correlated dynamically ACROSS frames. I.e. each image element is highly constrained–highly specific. PROBLEM WITH MATERIAL EXPLANATIONS Materialism posits bottom-up causation and therefore consciousness, mental thoughts are produced by the components of the brain. Yet each of the many components that would have to be involved to give rise to a dream image, would be subject to an antecedent chain of causation which would not be dictated by the mental events (e.g. dream imagery) in any way. And all these components would have to be in sync with one another. CALCULATION OF PROBABILITIES Calculating probabilities is an endeavor in searching through large space. I will be charitable to materialism with each assumption in the calculation. Calculate the superset of the overall search space: – Determine the number of brain components involved. – Determine the number of alternative states that the brain components could be in. – Determine the refresh rate or frame rate of the dream imagery. – Determine the number of image frames in the dream. Example: Let’s say a neuron synapse is our “brain component” and it could be either firing or not, i.e. binary. Let’s say that there would have to be 10 million brain components (synapses firing or not) to produce each imagery frame in the dream. Let’s say a 5 second dream sequence has 20 image frames per second. So: 2^10,000,000 * (20 * 5) = A prohibitively large number that computers cannot even represent. This is the super set of possible brain states within which our single precise set of brain states necessary to cause our coherent, correlated dream imagery. In effect, the brain would have to create a novel mini movie instantaneously. This is flat out impossible without some high level controlling and creative entity, i.e. immaterial mind. Probabilities are much poorer than universal probability bound: 10^150. OTHER INTRACTABLE PROBLEMS NOT INCLUDED Note that in this exercise I am waving away a whole host of intractable difficulties and just focusing on what can be quantitatively demonstrated. For example I am waving away the following: The fact that dreams are imagery that is not initiated by vision. The dialog that goes along with dreams. The thoughts, abstract thoughts, that go along with a dream. That you seem to be able to focus your attention to a specific point in the dream imagery. The difficulty with how the brain could identify and sequester the precise set of brain components involved in producing the dream imagery. That the brain components’ events would have to be synchronized. The difficulty with how the brain even registers imagery and thoughts in one’s consciousness.

In several previous posts, RDFish stumbled into a serious philosophical error that needs to be addressed. Barry Arrington had made the unassailable point that materialism (understood as physicalism) is incompatible with such concepts as good, evil, and objective morality. The reason is clear: Materialism reduces all choices to electro-chemical processes in the brain. With that model, all apparent moral decisions are really nothing more than chemcial-physical operations or functions.   Though RDF failed to refute the argument, confront the argument, or even define his own terms, he sought, nevertheless, to attack it through the back door, claiming that past atheist philosophers embraced both metaphysical materialism and objective morality. His list includes such notables as David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Ayn Rand, and Jeremy Bentham.   Since RDF’s claim should not, in any way, be taken seriously, it doesn’t rate a long post or call for an extended analysis. In fact, none of four philosophers indicated were both materialists and objectivists. It’s as simple as that. An abbreviated account should settle the issue:   Hume, though he was a materialist, did not believe in objective morality at all. For him, moral judgments are nothing more than subjective feelings. To say rape is “evil.” is to say “I hate rape.” This subjective view of morality is identical with the point that Barry was making. Materialist metaphysics leads inexorably to a pseudo-ethical model based solely on feelings and preferences.   Immanuel Kant was not a materialist in any way, shape, or form. Indeed, he is closer to being an Idealist, which is the opposite philosophical extreme. His ethical scheme is primarily subjective. Man is his own law. He is autonomous. He binds himself to the law that he gives himself. By contrast, objective morality binds the subject from the outside.   Ayn Rand embraced objectivist principles, but she was not a materialist.—As she puts it, “Man’s consciousness is not material—but neither is it an element opposed to matter” or again,”Man is an entity of mind and body, an indivisible union of two elements: of consciousness and matter. Matter is that which one perceives, consciousness is that which perceives it”   Jeremy Bentham, though an atheist, was silent on materialism, so there is no way to know for sure if he should be placed in that category. Unlike objective morality, his moral scheme of utilitarianism does not come from an outside source (God or nature). On the contrary, it is conceived by the subject and projected to the outside as a standard for other subjects.   So if RDFish is still hoping to find a metaphysical materialist who also embraces objective morality, I wish him good fortune. He will need it. The search for an impossible dream is overrated. It can be a continuing source of frustration.