I have a question for you. Can you think of anything which is True? I don't mean "true" in the sense that a statement reflects the actuality of the fact it represents, for example, "There is a truck parked in the driveway", when in fact there really is a truck parked in the driveway. That is called the Correspondence Theory of Truth". That is not what I mean.
The Truth to which I refer is a truth that is constant, unchanging, and universal. This truth is outside the power of humans to change, to modify, or to deny rationally. I can give some examples.
First is the fact that 2 + 2 = 4. If this seems too simplistic, consider this: these symbols represent a relationship that is universal; constant; unchanging. In fact they are trans-universal, because they would be true in any rational universe. Mathematics is the discovery of such universal truths. And no amount of arguing will change their truth value, so they are absolute: absolute Truths.
Another one is the existence of life. Now this might seem to be self-evident, but within Atheism, it no longer is a given. Under Atheism and its progeny, Philosophical Materialism, nothing exists except material reality, and those material things all behave by responding to Cause and Effect. Humans are no exception. So when Atheists are pushed to the limit, they must take the position that humans are deterministic and their behaviors are controlled by a chain
of preceding physical events going clear back to the origin of the universe. So there can be no free will, if Materialism is valid; and if Materialism is valid, then Atheism is valid.
In order to protect Materialism and Atheism, free will cannot be allowed to exist; free will would mean that man is an "uncaused causer", able to defy prior causation and able to make rocks go uphill merely by exercising his will to create the conditions for it to happen. Humans would be "uncaused causers", because they cause events merely by will, rather than by previous history of accumulated events causing the next event.
An uncaused causer is a defeat for materialism.
But these Truths do exist, to the mind unencumbered with prohibitive ideologies. And because Truths exist which are universal, constant and unchanging, Truths which are absolute, then the idea of the existence of absolutes is also True.
But Atheists must deny absolutes in any form, because under Cause and Effect (Materialism), absolutes must also have a cause. And the cause of an absolute would be an absolute, too. An absolute creator of absolutes is denied outright.
As you observed, Atheists have to think themselves into corners of irrational concepts in order to preserve their ideology.
One of the outcomes of the atheist denial of absolutes is that logic, without an absolute basis in First Principles or axioms, is totally relative. Logic can slip and slide around and be made to fit the non-absolutist's opinion. And everything produced by Atheists and Materialists is therefore just non-logical opinion, based on no absolutes and no experimental science.
The entire subject of a non-material existence which is outside and beyond physical existence falls outside the purview of Materialism. Materialism merely denies such existence; denial is not a proof, neither experimental nor logical.
Observation of the existence of mathematics, logic, and life is a view into something which is outside of Materialism, yet something which is absolute. The deniers deny it at their own hazard: an irrational worldview.
Ask your deniers what their absolute basis for denial might be. If there is none, then why do they think it is True?
I hope this helps at least some. Please continue to ask any questions
you might have,
Stan
9 comments:
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Does the "soft determinism" of compatibilism resolve the problem of free will? And if so, does materialism succeed in side stepping the stated incoherence?
Schopenhauer said, Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.
Thoughts.
Compatibilism is a continually failing attempt to reconcile free will with determinism, by changing the definitions (would they do that?) to add soft spots to the concepts for them to attack. Even with that, compatibilism doesn't gain much traction except with die-hard Materialists. Plato-Stanford has an in-depth look at it. I think that they have "abandoned" the classical argument because it could not be defeated. The concepts are contraries, and it takes a lot of manipulation to make it seem that they are not.
My understanding of Dennett's version of compatibilism is that he chooses to define determinism so loosely that he can drive a bus through it: determinism is only the influence of heredity and environment, but not the immediate determinism to control each thought or action via an infinite causal chain. So he can say that free will is compatible with determinism. But that is not the fully causal determinism of Materialism and Scientism, and that determinism is still contrary to free will.
Someone I read said that philosophy is an extension of common sense. Most modern philosophers are Materialists by ideology, which leads them into logical train wrecks in attempting to rationalize its defense. Common sense plays no part when trying to justify a faulty argument.
Many now claim that consciousness is an illusion and doesn't really exist, that the mind really is deterministic in the classical sense, and that self doesn't exist. These are all predicated on the presupposition that Philosophical Materialism is a cosmic, universal Truth, and that evidence to the contrary must be reduced to material "things", no matter how nonsensical the argument must be to support that.
I should mention that both compatibilists and determinists would be more believable if they made their arguments to rocks, rather than to reserve them for living people. Even compatibilists and determinists behave as if living people are something different from the deterministic minerals that physics addresses. The mere idea that humans are not agents would mean that philosophers are just dead-ends for 12+ billion years of previous causes. Try that out on a philosopher some time.
"Many now claim that consciousness is an illusion and doesn't really exist, that the mind really is deterministic in the classical sense, and that self doesn't exist."
Can such people really be serious? Don't they wake up each morning knowing their own consciousness to be real, just like the rest of us? Or do they employ Orwellian "doublethink" about that?
There are several arguments against consciousness. The one I'm most familiar with goes something like this: The brain receives signals from the external world. The brain processes the signals, does all the thinking that needs to be done, and then notifies the memory of what has occurred. What appears to be consciousness is really just a memory, however quickly attained, of what the brain just did.
The "self" is denied under similar logic. There is a model in the brain's memory which contains a history of the brain's activities. The "self" is really just a memory of what the brain has done in the past, and there is no actual "self".
I have read Atheist writers who expressed relief that they really had no self, no consciousness, and hence no responsibility for who they are or what they do. All that is done for us in advance by the brain, which notifies us via the memory what it did for us. The illusion of consciousness leads us to think that we are involved consciously, but we really are just along for the ride, rather like tourists with a tour guide.
This returns the source of human activity to a physical lump, and restores Materialism and Atheism. However, it still requires disbelief in the existence of agency via denial of its existence.
An excellent book on this is Angus Menuge's "Agents Under Fire". Menuge takes the arguments against agency in syllogistic form and demonstrates the fallacies involved. Menuge points out early on that the Materialists in science do designs, but claim not to be designed themselves. So undesigned, accidental entities are performing designs, causing experiments to be run according to the designs, and then analytically determining what results are to become knowledge. The undesigned accidentals are more complex, are agents, are analytical, while the designed is deterministically material.
Absurdity is no boundary condition in philosophy driven by rationalization, certainly not in Materialist ideology.
I think a simple "reality check" response to a worldview like that could be:
"If you claim that consciousness cannot have any effect on anything that happens, then how do you explain the fact that we are discussing it?"
I'd expect the materialist to pretend not to understand the question.
Underneath all the absurd rationalizations, there is probably a totalitarian agenda.
If they can get people to disbelieve in the existence of God, or even of their own minds, they can get them to do anything.
When the most important thing in the universe is "my opinion", then "my opinion" should rule the universe.
It becomes an ethic. Especially if I can get you to go along with it.
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