From G. K. Chesterton, an early twentieth century Catholic writer, both anti-materialist and anti-Dawinist, in his Orthodoxy: (Courtesy Super flumina )

As an explanation of the world, materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has just the quality of the madman’s argument; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out… You can explain a man’s detention at Hanwell[1] by an indifferent public by saying that it is the crucifixion of a god of whom the world is not worthy. The explanation does explain. Similarly you may explain the order in the universe by saying that all things, even the souls of men, are leaves inevitably unfolding on a utterly unconscious tree—the blind destiny of matter. The explanation does explain, though not, of course, so completely as the madman’s. But the point here is that the normal human mind not only objects to both, but feels to both the same objection. Its approximate statement is that if the man in Hanwell is the real God, he is not much of a god. And, similarly, if the cosmos of the materialist is the real cosmos, it is not much of a cosmos. The thing has shrunk. The deity is less divine than many men… Read More ›

A late 2010 cosmology book features cosmologist Paul Davies as editor. Davies is known for a number of reflections on extraterrestrials.

Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics

“This is the anthology we have been waiting for … seminal papers deal with matter through the history of Greek thought, seventeenth-century materialism and twentieth-century dematerialism, the need for a new scientific world view in the light of the quantum nature of the universe, and the storage and transmission of information in biological systems with the new knowledge of their genomes and development … Philosophers, theologians and scientists all have their say, wrestling with the theme of God as the ultimate informational and structuring principle in the universe.”

Professor Sir Brian Heap, St Edmund’s College, President, European Academies Science Advisory Board, German Academy of Sciences Read More ›

O’Leary: What, specifically, do you recommend that people do, to recover art from the fact/value split? We all know about it, but in my experience, one of the effects of such a split is to render such subjects undiscussable. There was a time when, for example, poetry was public to the point that technical or science ideas were advanced therein (cf Hesiod’s Works and Days or Dante’s Paradiso ). Today, it is a purely private affair and almost all evaluation of works of art, literature, or music is experienced as an exercise in prejudice. It must be experienced that way, of course, when all norms are rejected in principle.

For the arts, is there actually a way out of this mess?

Pearcey: The way out is to recognize where those ideas come from. The subjective view you describe so well arose from Romanticism. The key thinker was Hegel, who taught a kind of pantheism—an Absolute Spirit or Mind unfolding dialectically over history. What was important was not the outer realm of physical nature, but the inner realm of the spirit or consciousness. Art was redefined as the expression of the artist’s inner experience.

This was a historical novelty. Read More ›

I now and then see it claimed that, among its various contributions, one key benefit of Intelligent Design is that it poses a direct challenge to naturalism, or materialism. The problem I have with this sort of talk is that one of the key planks of ID is a kind of metaphysical neutrality – the recognition that any designer or designers responsible for this or that particular design in the natural world can, at least in principle, be (for lack of a better-word) “non-supernatural”.

This is claimed often enough by Dembski, Behe and company, but my favorite quote on this front comes from a post right on this site: ID’s metaphysical openness about the nature of nature entails a parallel openness about the nature of the designer. Is the designer an intelligent alien, a computional simulator (a la THE MATRIX), a Platonic demiurge, a Stoic seminal reason, an impersonal telic process, …, or the infinite personal transcendent creator God of Christianity? The empirical data of nature simply can’t decide.

The problem is that if this is accurate – and frequent, consistent attestation by a number of prominent ID proponents seems to indicate as much – then it seems to me false to think of ID in and of itself as representing a challenge to either naturalism or materialism. Indeed, ID – even if ID inferences are not only strong, but ultimately true – seems entirely compatible with both positions, at least in principle. But I think it’s possible to recognize that, while at the same time explaining how ID can nevertheless represent a challenge to these positions, at least in a qualified manner.

So, let’s get right on that. The explanation I have in mind is simple, but important.

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A friend, watching a serial thriller, The Oxford Murders, jotted down this interesting bit of dialogue between a professor who holds the Darwinist view of the brain (shaped for fitness, not for truth) and a design-based one (design in mathematics is real, and the brain is designed to apprehend it):

Elijah Wood is sitting in a lecture hall listening to a professor discuss the significance of Wittgenstein and the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

Professor: There is no way of finding a single absolute truth, an irrefutable argument that might help to answer the questions of mankind. Philosophy, therefore, is dead. Because “Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent.”

[Elijah Wood raises his hand]

Professor: Oh, it seems that someone does wish to speak. It appears you are not in agreement with Wittgenstein. That means either you have found a contradiction in the arguments of the Tractatus, or you have an absolute truth to share with us all.

Wood: I believe in the number Pi.

Professor: I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you. What was it you said you believed in?

Wood: In the number Pi, in the Golden Section, the Fibonacci Series. The essence of nature is mathematical. There is a hidden meaning beneath reality. Things are organized following a model, a scheme, a logical series. Even the tiny snowflake includes a numerical basis in its structure. Therefore, if we manage to discover the secret meaning of numbers, we will know the secret meaning of reality. Read More ›

Computational physicist Vlatko Vedral reviews Paul Davies and Niels Henrik Gregersen’s new collection of essays at physicsworld.com in “An inordinate fondness for bits” (Jan 11, 2011). In Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics (Cambridge University Press 2010), he says,

Each article explores the hypothesis that information is at the root of everything. And I mean everything – from atoms to, perhaps, a deity.

Well, that last’ll get attention.

Hmmm. Are the contributors trying to mock the intelligent design guys, but they lost the plot somewhere? Well,

The collection starts with historical essays by philosopher of science Ernan McMullin and philosopher-theologian Philip Clayton, who write about materialism (the worldview that states that the only thing that really exists is matter and that all other phenomena are just interactions between different pieces of matter) and its receding hold on philosophy. The stage being set, Davies and fellow physicist Seth Lloyd then present a physics perspective on information. Davies is without a doubt one of the best popular-science writers in the world, and his article demonstrates why. In it, he explains why, in light of modern physics discoveries, materialism is not the most viable philosophy. Lloyd then expands on this idea by introducing the notion that the universe is a giant information-processing device. This is a view that has emerged from my own field of research – quantum computation – and Lloyd is one of its most prominent advocates.

Hold that thought. Materialism is “not the most viable philosophy”?

Well, why did Baptist U Baylor shut down Dembski and Gordon’s Polanyi Center in 2002 for sponsoring a conference where lots of learned folk said substantially the same thing? Why was it big time heresy among … the Baptists when atheist Vedral is okay with it?

Alas, theo-weirdness soon kicks in:
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Wanted: Examples from recent textbooks that match these examples from the 1990s through 2001?:

From Joseph S. Levine and Kenneth R. Miller, Biology: Discovering Life (D.C. Heath and Co., 1st ed. 1992, p. 152:

Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless–a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit.Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us.

(My source tells me that this language was not removed for the 2nd ed. in 1994.)

From Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology (1998, 3rd Ed., Sinauer Associates), p. 5:

Darwin showed that material causes are a sufficient explanation not only for physical phenomena, as Descartes and Newton had shown, but also for biological phenomena with all their seeming evidence of design and purpose. By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous. Together with Marx’s materialistic theory of history and society and Freud’s attribution of human behavior to influences over which we have little control, Darwin’s theory of evolution was a crucial plank in the platform of mechanism and materialism…

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The thesis expressed in the title of this “opening bat” post is plainly controversial, and doubtless will be hotly contested and/or pointedly ignored. However, when all is said and done, it will be quite evident that it has the merit that it just happens to be both true and well-warranted. So, let us begin. Noted Harvard evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin inadvertently lets the cat out of the bag in his well-known January 1997 New York Review of Books article, “Billions and Billions of Demons”: . . . to put a correct view of the universe into people’s heads we must first get an incorrect view out . . .   the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural Read More ›

The editor of the Indian Journal AntiMatters is a German physicist, Ulrich Mohrhoff, a long-time resident of India who has published numerous scientific papers on quantum mechanics. Since he had published an article based on chapter 5 of my new Discovery Institute Press book In the Beginning… in AntiMatters (and also my “Epilogue”), we asked him if he would write an endorsement for the new book. He declined, saying while he appreciated my critiques of Darwinism, “it is preposterous to assert that ID is the alternative to materialism.” (I believe this was specifically referring to the introduction to my chapter 6, where I claim that the strongest argument for ID is to clearly state the alternative view, [materialism].) I quoted Read More ›

Here’s a great reason for rejecting pop neuroscience, titled “We are neuroscientists and we come in peace”: Peace? Hmmm. Just try coming to war here and see what happens. Just when it seemed things could get no worse, Hank Greely of Stanford Law School pointed to several areas of potential friction between neuroscience research and widely held religious beliefs (findings that point to consciousness, or a form of it, in nonhuman animals, for example, might undermine the notion that humans occupy a unique position in the world) and asked whether neuroscientists might get dragged into the type of culture war waged by evolutionary biologists and creationists. … “What Makes The Human Brain Unique”? What makes the human brain unique?: Has Read More ›

Time Magazine addresses the problem that neuroscientists who think the mind is real often discuss (John Cloud, October 13, 2009):

How people react to a medication depends in large part on how they think about it.

Exactly why the placebo and nocebo responses arise is a puzzle, but a fascinating article in Wired magazine noted earlier this year that the positive placebo response to drugs has increased during clinical trials over the past few years. The article speculated that drug advertising – which exploded after 1997, when the Food and Drug Administration began allowing direct-to-consumer ads – has led us to expect more from drugs. Those expectations, in turn, have made us feel better just for popping a pill. (Placebo responses can also occur simply when you book appointments with doctors[*] or psychotherapists[**].)

No surprise, really. If your problem is,

– *Why should I pay $159.95 plus tax for a medication? Dunno. Maybe some consumer research would pay off.

But if the question is Read More ›

Its been fascinating to read the discussion started by Barry Arrington that seems to expose some critical holes in the moral thinking of materialism. The discussion seems to range from justifying the existence of pornography to denigrating religious organizations that proselytize as they offer help and assistance to those in need. And, as Barry pointed out, the discussion is 41 posts in (actually as of now 53 posts), and still no materialist has condemned the views of the poster called Seversky on moral grounds. Perhaps having to decide between helping women in poverty by buying pornography or by funding a religious charity is too morally complex a choice for clarity for a materialist, so I want to offer an alternative. Read More ›

From an apparently unsigned Health column in The Hindu, courtesy The Guardian news service, “Our ideas of brain and human nature are myth,” we learn

Perhaps that sounds a little overblown, but it’s not. Who, dear reader, do you think you are? Do you think your mind is capable of independent judgment and largely directs the course of your life? Do you think that most of your decisions in life have been the product of your rational, conscious self? Do you believe you are in control of your life? Do you cherish ideas such as self-expression, a sense of autonomy and a distinct, self—authored identity? The chances are that, albeit with a few qualifications, most of your answers are yes. Indeed, given a pervasive culture which reinforces all these ideas, it would be a bit odd if you didn’t.

But the point about this new explosion of interest in research into our brains is that it exposes as illusions much of these guiding principles of what it is to be a mature adult. They are a profound misunderstanding of how we think, and how our brains work. They are fairytales, about as fanciful and as implausible as goblins.

Does it indeed? Further,

It’s not an accident that many of the biggest bestsellers in this territory are about decision-making — Blink, Nudge and The Decisive Moment. The image which comes to mind is that they are all sticks of dynamite dug in to explode the great sacred mythology of our time: namely that individual freedom is about having choices, and that progress is about the constant expansion of those choices.

Read these books and you discover that people are useless at making choices. We are lazy, imitative, over-optimistic, myopic, and much of our decision-making is made by unconscious habits of the mind which are largely socially primed.

Ah, I see. Any guesses as to how this thesis will be used?

It’s intriguing how much attention the thesis has attracted from many parts of the political establishment, such as policymakers in pensions, health and the environment, because often the gains from nudging seem pretty small — it is fanciful to think it can solve the environmental crisis.

Well, where’s the feather I knock myself over with when I am totally astonished? This is a thesis perfectly attuned to authoritarian government. It’s also nonsense. Read More ›

In my “Bleak Conclusions” post I quoted kairosfocus who was in turn quoting Hawthorne for the following: Assume: (1) That atheistic naturalism is true. (2) One can’t infer an “ought” from an “is.” If these two things are true, nothing exists from which we can infer any moral principle. If moral principles cannot be inferred, nothing is prohibited by any moral principle and therefore all things are permitted. This leads to the conclusion that the Holocaust was permitted. I asked our materialist friends to explain to me how, if their premises are true, they can avoid the conclusion that the Holocaust was permitted. The nearly 300 comments boil down to indignation mixed with the childhood rejoinder – “Oh yeah, same Read More ›

On Thursday, 16 October 2008, the University Philosophical Society of Trinity College, Dublin — the world’s oldest debating society (founded 1684) — will sponsor a debate on evolution, creation, and materialism. The debate will occur at 7:30 pm in the Debating Room of the Graduates’ Memorial Building (that’s the building in the photograph above), just off the College’s Front Square. The evening’s discussion will open with a paper read by Bob Bloomfield of the British Museum [scroll down in the link for Bloomfield’s biography and current work]. Responses will then follow from David Berlinski, Fellow at the Discovery Institute, Stephen Moore, of the Northern Ireland based Giants’ Causeway Creation Committee, and me. Opposing will be Christopher Stillman, Fellow Emeritus in Read More ›