Fred on Details of The First Principles.

I apologize to Fred for the delay in answering his question concrning the Details of the First Principles; it is a timely question, so I will answer it in a post:

Fred:
”Stan, Thank you for the answers and clarifications. I appreciate your time. In the third-to-last paragraph of your answer (Materialists do in fact claim...) you state Materialists' adherence to Cause and Effect doesn't allow for any human agency which in turn doesn't allow for any "original" - uncaused - thought, since this requires agency. You then say that because of this, reason,... also cannot exist under naturalism. How do you draw this conclusion? Would not a Materialist say that reason does not have to be uncaused (original) for it to exist? Would not a materialist also state that even granting for the non-material transcendent nature of thought one cannot deny the chemical and cellular processes occurring in the material brain in tandem with these thoughts as evidenced by countless scientific experiments; many of which have demonstrated that human behavior (and therefore thoughts) can be altered as a result of material changes through various means to the brain?”

For Cause and Effect to be completely in control of every aspect of human thinking, every thought (which must be material itself) must have a direct physical cause and that cause must be an effect of a prior cause, clear back to the big bang. Now Cause and Effect is ruled by entropy, which means that every effect must be less than its cause, with at least a portion of the cause resulting in disorder such as heat. A relentless trek toward disorder is the fate of the physical universe, and this is a rule that allows no exceptions: there can exist no reversible machines in our physical universe.

The emergence of life is the first anentropic (non-entropic) event, and that has been followed by generations of further anentropic events, all constrained to living systems. The universal law of Cause and Effect fails to account for the increasing order that is found in living systems. So there is some attempt to claim that things like sentience and thought “emerge” from complex systems somehow, yet there is no explanation for why complex systems exist in an entropic universe in the first place.

Cause and Effect as well as the Second Law of Thermodynamics are universal and undeniably applicable to every and all physical systems… except living systems. But for Philosophical Materialism to be valid, everything that exists must exist physically and obey the laws of physics. This means that, given the conclusion first and trying to fit premises to it, all life must not be exceptional, all life must also fit into the rules of the physical universe, including Cause and Effect and Entropy.

Now if entropy dictates the degradation of effects within a long chain of causes, how might we account for sentience, thought and rationality? It has to be argued that a) these things are physical, and b) they are not exceptional, so that c) if they seem to be exceptional, that is an illusion or delusion. Even the self and consciousness as well as intentionality and agency are declared illusory or delusory. (If we believe an illusion it becomes a delusion).

Brain activity is given as definitive evidence of this delusion; moreover, damage to the brain shows that no mental activity can be correctly performed without a proper brain, with all segments hooked up and working together as shown under MRI. That physical hardware is exercising software of unknown origin escapes this description, which requires that a hardware brain be hardwired with physical connections, and that these connections fire just right somehow to perform a thought, the results of which are then transferred to the conscious mind – which is a delusion.

So it is the firing of the synapses that create the thought, and the thought is a transient state, existing only in time.

We are deluded into thinking that we somehow control these transient states, even creating sequences of them as would be required for critical thinking. There is no agency in the physical universe according to Philosophical Materialism. There is only response to stimulus (effect from a cause) and the response is lossy at that. So we are locked into our delusions.

I am not making this up, as ridiculously absurd as it appears. It is the necessity of a physical-only, material-only dogmatic philosophy that forces such absurd conclusions. Those who think that these positions are not absurd should pledge to abstain from using the results of intentional, conscious agency, including clothing, buildings of all types, transportation of all types, toilets, water and power utilities, and communications devices; these are concrete products of intentional agency. Denial of agency is dumfoundingly absurd. And so are the claims that we all live in a shared delusion.

The existence of the mind, rationality, agency and self requires a completely separate understanding of our existence within a physical universe. Our existence defies the natural laws, and requires a separate and extended view of reality beyond the Materialist viewpoint. The Materialist viewpoint is not sustainable even using its own standards of empirical knowledge: it cannot prove the limits it self-imposes on reality. But even more damaging is the boatload of absurdities that become necessary to believe, if Materialism is to be preserved.

“I suppose the question then is whether it is these material processes in the brain which are the material precursors to non-material thought, or vice versa? Or is it that the two are in a circular relationship where one causes the other and back and forth, back and forth, etc. Of course, a Materialist would give the "first/original" cause of all this as being purely material, the big bang. And a theist would give first cause as the "thought" or original act of creation of God. Is this not then an endless argument which can never be resolved since neither claim can be proven?”

The Atheist / Materialist claim can be proven false, due to the non-rational absurdities required for all humans to be living in a shared delusion. Theism is an understanding of a non-physical, non-material reality that presumes that, for one thing, a sentient being is required to create sentience in other objects such as humans. This cannot be proven empirically because it is not an empirical hypothesis, but it is not non-coherent nor is it paradoxical nor does it depend on mass or individual delusion.

"Of course, you rightly point out that because of this inability to prove their claims atheists cannot claim to be any more rational than deists. Is this the main, and only, point of your blog: to deny atheists the claim of rationality? Do you go on to make any arguments in favor of the claims of theists? (I suppose I could answer the last question myself by reading your posts further!) Best wishes.”

Please do feel free to read the posts, they are categorized by subject for your reading convenience. I do not indulge in theodicies because they are not proof of anything to the materialist mind. There are a great many theological sources but very few logical assaults on the Atheist worldview such as is done here. So that is the focus of this blog. However, I provide an insight into the study and use of real logic, and that can be used to find a coherent theology; that is a particular journey that I feel every seeker must make for himself, not one that I try to influence.

Again sorry for the delay in answering your question.

Anti-Essentialism

Over at Massimo’s place, co-blogger Julia Galef takes off on several tacks at the same time. While she winds up trying to convince us that religion –Christianity – loves pain and suffering, and that humility is stupid, both subjects for another post, along the way she sideswipes Essentialism, the idea that there exist “essences” that are sets containing the necessary characteristics for all the members that are to be contained in a group or set. This might seem to be a benign concept, but it is not, to the Atheist. To the Atheist it is a threat. Galef calls it the Fallacy of Essentialism.

Atheists are committed to the idea of non-exceptionalism of humans. The human is an animal just like the others and no more. If humans are exceptional in any way, the questions of why and how that came to be demand an answer. That is not a debate that Atheists wish to entertain. It is very necessary therefore, to kill any idea of human exceptionalism. One way this can be done is by attacking Essentialism: if there are no essences, then there can be no essence that sets humans apart. Both Massimo and Julia take that position. There are no essences, no possible way to distinguish or differentiate humans or living things or anything from anything else. There is no else. To think that there are essences that can result in classification is a fallacy, or so Galef claims.

How is it, then, that the entire fundament of biology has been categorization and classification? Are there no essences that distinguish one genus from another, or genus from species, or even living thing from not living thing? Evolutionists now claim that all animals are the same, deriving from the same source. At least, the species are not stable; they are evolving. That still denies the obvious: is there no characteristic that differentiates a lioness from a male lion? Is there no difference between living things and dead things? Living things and minerals? Livers and Lungs? Blood and urine?

The following article addresses just that, and it was written earlier.

Essence of Life

I have written before about the essential denials that are required in order to support the Philosophical Materialist pose. One of the most interesting has been the denial of the existence of any differentiation between living things and non-living things, such as Massimo Pigliucci’s statement that he could see no life essence, unless it was DNA. Pigliucci is trained in biology and now is officially a philosopher since being transferred into a teaching position in the philosophy department.

Biologists have long been able to tell living things apart from mere minerals. It is their specialty, in fact, the study of living things. So certainly there must be a metric for determining if something is alive, dead, or is not capable of life. And of course there is. It is likely that every biology book informs students of something like this:

Life, n.: that property of plants and animals which makes it possible for them to take in food, get energy from it, grow, adapt themselves to their surroundings, and reproduce their kind: it is the quality that distinguishes a living animal or plant from inorganic matter or a dead organism.
Webster’s Unabridged.

Probably every 5th grader knows that. So why does the biologist – philosopher feel constrained to deny it? Or to reduce it to an absurdity?

There is a very good reason for a Philosophical Materialist to deny that life has an essence, a differentiating quality that sets it apart from mere matter. The problem is that life, its very essence, is not quantifiable materially. Life has qualities, such as those in the definitions above, but life, as an entity contained within a material entity, cannot be weighed, or measured in any way; it has no quantities. In fact, like truth, it is binary: it exists or it does not exist. A living thing possesses something at its core that is not material. And that non-material something differentiates living things from non-living things.

Obviously this is a fatal admission for Philosophical Materialism. Therefore life cannot exist as a differentiable quality from mere matter, if the doctrine of materialism is to be preserved.

This shows as clearly as possible the nature of the intellectual industry of today. Many pretenders to the title of Intellectual are sullied by their strict adherence to Atheo-materialist cant, a doctrine that comes first and foremost, an axiom and presupposition, with observable facts being either fit to the doctrine or denied outright.

The problem of life has further repercussions. Life, as a non-material entity, produces other qualities, especially in humans. These include sentience, conscious thought, agency, abstract design, intellect and the ability to communicate real and abstract concepts - all things that differentiate life from non-life, all things that are not predictable from the existence of mere matter, all things that refute the pure materialism doctrine.

So these things, life, sentience, conscious thought, agency, intellect, abstraction, these all must be “explained” within materialist parameters, or else denied as delusions or illusions. Denial is the easy way out, obviously.

Here is the harder problem for Philosophical Materialism: What is the source of this non-material entity, life? Some evolutionary biologists, in unguarded moments, claim that all life comes from prior life – an undeniable statement – that is intended to prove materialist evolution if one presupposes a magical First Life jumping into being. But that transfers the issue to a single instance, where a material, non-living entity somehow acquires this non-material quality, a quality not previously existing or predictable from material things. And this violates the universal laws of the material universe, cause and effect, and entropy.

Materialist/Evolutionists escape this issue by running away: they do not accept First Life as an issue for evolution; evolution starts after first life. The bloody gash in logic is inescapable.

The Philosophical Materialist / Public Intellectuals are not deterred by logical defects. They proclaim possession of Critical Thinking, a method they never define, one that somehow bends itself around the defects and incorporates itself into the thought pattern required to salvage materialism. And most importantly it salvages Atheism. It is Atheism that gives the Public Intellectual his eliteness, his elevated ability to create a universe to his own liking, his ability to create his own truths that are not beholden to any actual Truth.

As Julien Benda pointed out in his book, The Treason of the Intellectuals, the Public Intellectual quit any stance of disinterested search for Truth over a century ago. They incorporated political stances of racism, eugenics and nationalism in the early 20th century. Now they incorporate Consequentialism, secular socialism, Humanism and anti-Semitism in their philosophies, rather than rational objectivism.

What they don’t address is this: What is the source of the non-material entity, life, which differentiates living things from non-living? That thing, life, is merely denied as even existing, despite all evidence to the contrary. If it cannot be explained in material terms, then it must be denied, no matter how silly that is. When living things deny their own life, they also deny their own rationality.

On the other hand, maybe he is right and the essence of Massimo really is just DNA and nothing else; that would explain a few things. And if Julia is right about humility being degrading, that would explain the lack of intellectual humility and its consequent, rational objectivity, exhibited by Public Intellectuals. This is for Julia:

"Pride grows on the human heart like lard on a pig."
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn