An Analysis of the Speech by Sean Carroll on Naturalism

I have transcribed the entire 10+ minute speech (after 1:40). I thought it necessary, because he doesn't present a single, coherent argument, he presents a welded series of assertions which are necessary to view as a whole. In that same sense, he doesn't present a single empirical data point, but uses the meta-concept of empiricism as a weapon. So any analysis needs to be against his meta-narrative, and that meant that the entire narrative must be viewed in order that the overall truth value can be mined from it. I have made comments throughout, but the analysis is after the end of the speech, below.

Carroll:

(1:40)
"Something we learned by doing science for 400 years is something called “Naturalism”, the idea that there is only one reality; that there are not separate planes of the natural and the supernatural; that there is only one material existence; that we are part of the universe and do not stand outside of it in any way. And the way that science got there is by basically realizing that human beings are not that smart. You are not Vulcans, you are not Mr. Spock, you are not perfectly logical.

We as human beings are subject to all sorts of biases and cognitive shortcomings. We tend to be wishful thinkers and to see patterns where they are not there and so forth. And in response to this science developed techniques for giving ourselves reality checks, for not letting us believe things that the evidence does not stand up to.

[Pure Scientism with unrestricted intellectual range]

One technique is simply skepticism which you may have heard of. Scientists are taught that we should be our own theories harshest critics. Scientists spend all their time trying to disprove all their favorite ideas. It’s a little bit counter intutitve, a different way of doing things, but it helps us resist the lure of wishful thinking.

The other technique is empiricism. We realize that we are not smart enough to get to knowledge of the world just be thinking about it. We have to go out there and LOOK at the world. And what we done by looking at this for the past 400 years is to realize that human beings are not separate; that the world is one thing, the natural world, and that it can be understood.

It is all very counterintuitive; it is not very obvious, this Naturalism claim. When you talk to a person, they have thoughts and feelings and responses. When you talk to a dead person, a corpse – a bit morbid here – you don’t get those same responses, the same thoughts and feelings. It’s very natural, very commonsensical to think that a living person possesses something that a corpse does not, some sort of spirit, some sort of soul or animating life source.

[But science can’t detect it so it cannot exist]

"But this idea does not stand up to closer scrutiny. A big step toward realizing this was made back in the 1600’s by a remarkable woman named Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia. They made princesses differently back in the seventeenth century. Elisabeth carried on a year-long correspondence with Rene Descartes, the (unintelligible) theory of mind, body and dualism. And Elisabeth said, “I really don’t understand what you said, because if you really believe that my mind is a separate realm from the body, it’s my mind that makes a choice to lift my arm but it’s my body that does it. [4:09] How does an immaterial mind which you say doesn’t exist at a location in space, how does it act causally on the body? How does it interact with the stuff of which you are made? And Descartes never came up with a reliable, believable response to these objections.

[Why is this not “thinking without looking directly at it and measuring”?]

"Of course, these days the objections are enormously stronger. We say, “you are made of atoms. You’re made of molecules, you’re made of cells, you’re made of atoms, and as (unintelligible), WE KNOW HOW ATOMS BEHAVE. The laws of physics covering the behavior of atoms are COMPLETELY understood. You put an atom in a certain set of circumstances, and you tell me what those circumstances are, and as a physicist, I will tell you what the atom will do.

[pure devotion to determinism and his own ability to predict human behavior, based on determinism]

"If you believe that the atoms inside your brain and your body act differently because they are in your body as opposed to being in a rock or a crystal, then what you are saying is that the laws of physics are wrong…

[But, of course, no one is saying that]

"…that they need to be altered because of the influence of a spirit or soul or something like that. That may be true. We can’t DISPROVE that. But there is no evidence for it. [5:12]

[Of course not. Science has LIMITS, as anyone who has read Popper knows. Refusal to acknowledge the known limits of physical science is obtuse, especially for a scientist promoting metaphysical claims]

[Presupposition of the naturalist dichotomy:

"Either empirical proof for X,
Or X = superstition.

i.e.

Either there is “evidence” for X,
Or, X = superstition.

“Evidence” is defined as material/empirical, under Naturalism.
But Carroll does not apply this principle to his own belief set; only to metaphysics. That demonstrates the lack of actual "evidence" which exists for direct support of metaphysical Naturalism, and Carroll fails to reveal that to the audience.]
[5:12]

"You get a much stronger explanatory framework by assuming that it’s just the laws of physics.

[Where’s the empirical data when you need it? Must we "assume" without such data? Of course we must; there is no data.]

"That kind of reasoning is a big step toward Naturalism.

[Yes, it would be, if you actually believe it without proof].

"Another big step also happened in the 1600s, when Gallileo came across the idea of conservation of momentum. You might say, “Why does conservation of energy get in the way of (unintelligible) and God, but it does. Before Gallileo came along, physics was described by Aristotle, and Aristotle said something that, again, was very obvious and commonsensical – that if you want something to keep moving, you need to push it. Things naturally come to rest, left to their own devices. But if you look at the world, you realize that things are moving all over the place. So Aristotle very logically eventually concluded that you need to invoke the existence of an unmoved mover, which can be identified, of course, with God.

But then of course Gallileo comes along and says, “actually the natural behavior of matter is to keep moving at a constant velocity. Motion is perfectly natural. When things stop, it is because you are acting on them through friction or air resistance or dissipation.

And then Isaac Newton comes along with an elaborate edifice of mechanics which explains the world beautifully in purely material principles. And it’s very, very interesting; once that happened, you realize that the prime mover argument doesn’t work as well, and you can actually see a change in the theological literature of the time.

Before Newton and Gallileo, there was emphasis put on ideas of prime movers and first causes, arguments from cosmology, contingency and so forth; after Newton and Gallileo, the arguments emphasized something else, the argument from design. People would say, “sure you can explain all the planets moving, that’s easy, but all the life forms, the marvelous diversity of life here on earth, that had to be made by some guiding external intelligence. In fact, in the 1700’s Immanuel Kant said, “there will never be an Isaac Newton-made blade of grass”. Then of course in the 1800’s we GOT an Isaac Newton for a blade of grass, his name was Charles Darwin.

Darwin showed how material, matter, all by itself, without guidance, without purpose, without an aim, just by the natural motions of ordinary things can lead to the marvelous diversity of organic life that we see here on Earth. Another huge step in the direction of Naturalism.

[Darwin has been debunked 150 years later. Notice how the words imply that first life is solved without actually saying so.]

Now of course I could go on, we could talk about modern cosmology and the origin of the universe, we could talk about neuroscience and what consciousness is and so forth, but I don’t want to do that right now, we can maybe talk about that later. I don’t want to do it right now, basically because it’s kind of boring.

[actually these are unanswerable; he's wise to avoid them as he so easily dances around them].

"And the reason that it’s kind of boring is that the argument is finished. The debate is over. We’ve come to a conclusion. Naturalism has won. If you go to any university physics department, listen to the talks they give or the papers they write; go to any biology department; go to any neuroscience department; any philosophy department; people whose professional job it is to explain the world, to come up with explanatory framework that matches what we see, no one mentions God. There is never an appeal to a supernatural realm, by people whose job it is to explain what happens in the world. Everyone knows that the Naturalist explanations are the ones that work.

And yet! Here we are! We’re having a debate. Why are we having a debate? Because, clearly, religion speaks to people for reasons other than explaining what happens in the world.

Most people who turn to religious belief do not do so because they think it provides the best biology or cosmology. They turn to religious belief because it provides them with purpose and meaning in their lives. With a sense of Right and Wrong. With a community. With hope.

[He has the massive hubris to declare why theism is accepted by "most people", merely in Naturalistic terms, as if he actually knows that. He most emphatically does not. It has something to do with the resonant ringing of truth value on the one hand vs. personal attachment to a blank, void ideology being declared as empirical truth without empirical proof on the other hand.]

"So if we want to say that science has refuted religion, we need to say that science has something to say about those issues. And on that I have good news and bad news for you. The bad news is that the universe does not care about you. (laughter) Qua universe. The universe is made up of elementary particles that don’t have intelligence, don’t pass judgment, don’t have a sense of Right and Wrong. And the fear is, the existential anxiety is that if that purpose and meaningfulness is not given to me by the universe, then it cannot exist. The good news is that that fear is a mistake. That there is another option: that we create purpose and meaning in the world.

[Really? I thought we were deterministic, just a bunch of atoms ruled by physics with outcomes predictable by Carroll himself.]

"If you love somebody, it is not because that love is put into you by something outside, it is because you created that from inside yourself. If you act goodness (sic) to somebody, it’s not because you are given instructions to do so, it’s that it’s a choice that you made. In the very scary world, you should be affected at a very deep level [Should? Is that the empirical ‘should’?], by the thought that the universe doesn’t care, does not pass judgment on you, but it’s also challenging and liberating [Atheist freedom of the VOID] that we can create lives that are worth living.

I have never met God. I have never met any spirits or angels. But I have met human beings; many of them are amazing people. And I truly believe that if we accept the universe for what it is, if we approach reality with an open mind and an open heart, then we can create lives very much worth living.
Thank you.

An Analysis of the Content of the Speech:

Carroll is at least consistent. He presumes that science can, in fact, disprove the existence of non-physical reality. He said so up front, and in these words:

” Something we learned by doing science for 400 years is something called “Naturalism”, the idea that there is only one reality; that there are not separate planes of the natural and the supernatural;”

This is, of course, entirely false. Under Popper's falsifiability demarcation, science is limited to the pursuit of physical questions which can be disproven during the attempt to prove them. That eliminates metaphysical issues from the scientific mix. They cannot be tested, physically, experimentally, independently replicated for data comparison. To eliminate the falsification requirement eradicates the ability to declare any unfalsifiable principle to be "objective knowledge". Such unfalsifiable principles are subjective, and are suspect at best. What Carroll has presented is of two kinds: false association (metaphysics conflated with physical phenomenon), and circular (presupposing the conclusion in the premises).

Further, it is easily shown that theism does not address the physical realm, and when ecclesiasticism attempts to do so, it frequently but not always, fails, a point which Carroll attempts to bend into a refutation. But theism is not about the physical realm, and attacking it based on that premise will fail to address the essence of theism altogether. Carroll's case does not extend that far, because empiricism doesn't go there.

So how does he form his argument? What is the basis of his proof? His proof for that assertion is not empirical; it is an Appeal to Authority (famous scientists) and an associated False Association (conflating non-physical with physical, which is also a Category Error). So he compounds at least three logic errors into a support structure for his Scientism and Naturalism, right at the start, making the entire speech circular.

One must assume that Naturalism is the case if it is asserted that Science can disprove metaphysical existence. That’s because science can disprove X only if science can test for X. To say that science has the ability to test for and disprove X, is to say that science has X-abilities. To conclude that science has X abilities, but cannot find X, is a hazardous statement, because it does not prove that there is no X. To say that would be to commit the Inductive Fallacy.

And if science has X abilities, then X is presumed to be physical (because that’s what science is). So the redefinition is implicit: X is physical by definition, and if X is then designated as "metaphysical", then metaphysical is physical by the redefinition of science. By this circular reasoning, either physical existence is actually metaphysical (not what he believes), or metaphysical existence is actually physical (also not what he believes), or metaphysical existence does not exist due to the definitional problems encountered within Naturalism (this is what he believes, although without specifically tumbling to it). So metaphysics is defined not to exist, due to this logical morass.

The convolutions in this logical train wreck are painful to observe, and astounding to watch as they are proposed without critical analysis.

Carroll does not provide the science which proves his "scientific" convictions; that's because there is no experimental data on X. What he does instead of providing empirical scientific data for a disciplined direct experimental assault on metaphysics is to claim that the increased knowledge of the universe and its physical characteristics somehow proves conclusively that there is no existence which is not available for scientific, physical analysis. How does he justify this? He does not; he presupposes it. He slides his argument into a position of Scientism - I'll predict your behavior from your atoms - in order to support his metaphysical Naturalism, which he has already presupposed, a spectacular error of circular reasoning.

He invokes Gallileo and Newton and Darwin, and winds up using their observations of cosmos, forces, and finches to conclude that they had disproven metaphysical existence. But he does that by invoking changes in ecclesiastic theory, not basic theism. Basic theism is totally unaffected by the findings of these men, or by the natural laws governing the cosmos, forces, and finches.

None of these famous scientific findings bear on metaphysics in even the remotest empirical fashion. They all describe physical characteristics, not metaphysical existence, metaphysical truths, or origins – not even Darwin’s Origins discusses actual life origins and how life came to be, merely from inanimate and rather stupid minerals obeying the laws of physics. And of course, Darwin’s premises, all of them, are now discounted fully by evolutionists themselves, who are groping for hope in meta-meta-principles for the salvation of evolution.

What Carroll preaches is metaphysical Naturalism. But science uses only methodological naturalism and abjures metaphysical Naturalism because it is (a) a physically unprovable metaphysical claim, and (b) an ideology, not an empirical conclusion, not even contingently. The idea that physical science can disprove the existence of nonphysical reality is a Category Error, and is absurd in the logical sense.

Also, Carroll repeats his idea that humans are nothing but atoms, atoms are deterministic, we know the physics and laws that govern the behavior of atoms. And yet he also asserts that humans are agents, creative, intelligent and moral. His explanation for that internal contradiction is: none.

And as a finale, he dodges consciousness and other non-physical characteristics of actual life by declaring them trivial, and the war against metaphysics to have been won… by metaphysical Naturalism.

That is hardly the case. One cannot achieve a victory in war by ignoring the atomic bombs still in the adversary's rockets and merely declaring victory any way.

This entire speech is a metaphysical, philosophical and ideological statement in support for the presumption of the omniscience of science (Metaphysical Scientism), which presumptively disproves metaphysics, philosophy and ideologies (which are anti-science and are superstitions).

The self-refutation and non-coherence are obvious.

Phillip Kitcher: Same Argument, Different Words.

There is an ongoing intellectual scramble in the Atheist-Intellectualist community ever since the publication of Thomas Nagel’s book, ”Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False”. The title itself is a slap in the Atheist face, since monism is a necessary belief, and Darwinism is a sacred tenet within that belief.

The Atheist/Materialist response has been widespread and not at all happy with Nagel.

Nagel has been a long time philosopher of differentiation. There is a difference between fact and meaning, between observing and comprehending, between qualia and electron discharge. For the Materialist, there is little if any difference because everything is physical, and thus there is very little motion required to get from fact to meaning, or from observing to comprehending, and so on. In fact, pre-determination of those movements exists, just due to cause and effect of mental input (neurological electrical discharge) to mental output (meaning).

But Nagel says that there is both less and more than that; less certainty of Materialist constraints, and more to the mind than physical determinism.

The most interesting part though is the response of overt Philosophical Materialists. Rather than disprove or refute the allegations against Materialism, they take a different tack.

For example, In response to the attack on his ill-fated book “Universe From Nothing” in the New York Times by David Albert, Lawrence Krauss declared that such questions as cannot be answered by scientists are to be dismissed, because they are "“not interesting”. He was referring to the question of the source of quantum fields and the source of laws governing them, which Krauss insists constitute "nothing", and need no explanation of their source.

When Atheist icon Antony Flew wrote “There Is a God” based on the requirement of a source for the apparent intelligence contained in DNA, the idea was attacked as illegitimate because Flew was to be declared senile for suggesting it. His argument went unanswered, while the intellectuals attacked Flew personally and publically and loudly. The argument is declared illegitimate and the arguer incompetent.

And here, the idea of dualism and the failure of science to provide monist unifying theories as presented by Nagel is attacked by Philop Kitcher in the same vein:

”Dewey, a thinker who understood the philosophical significance of Darwin better than anyone else in the first century after “The Origin of Species,” appreciated two things that are crucial to the controversy in which Nagel is engaged.

First, philosophy and science don’t always answer the questions they pose — sometimes they get over them.”

Brilliant response to any question which might upset the Materialist applecart: just get over it. Forget it. It is not interesting.

”Second, instead of asking what life and mind and value are, think about what living things and minds do, and what is going on in the human practices of valuing.”

Your issue is devalued; therefore it has no value. Because: there is no way for empiricism to answer such issues, so the issues are without value, and we are the arbiters of that. "Get over it!"

”This shift of perspective has already occurred in the case of life. A Nagel analog who worried about the fact that we lack a physico-chemical account of life, would probably be rudely dismissed; a kinder approach would be to talk about the ways in which various aspects of living things have been illuminated.”

Rudely dismissed, yes; rationally, no.

The bottom line is always the same: Materialism is valid and true, because we Materialists declare all other questions to be illegitimate, and refuse to discuss them. At best, all non-material questions must be shown to have material solutions so that they can be addressed under Materialism; otherwise, "Get over it, because we won't answer with any reasoning for why they are false (which we can't prove)".

This frequently is restated as the Burden of Proof, where the material evidence must be presented (and even when it is) or the question is rejected without cause – other than it is illegitimate to ask such things. And as Kircher demonstrates above, even asking what life is and how it jumped into existence from minerals is an illegitimate question. So, "Get over it".

Stated in plain speaking: “I don’t have to tell you why you are wrong; you just are”.

So rather than discuss Nagel’s theory, Nagel is merely declared wrong and that it is illegitimate for him to even think such thoughts.

Fine argument from the Atheists, once again. It demonstrates fully the dogmatic religious nature of Philosophical Materialism and the emotional neediness of Atheism, and the paucity of its intellectual power.

Kircher winds up with the usual Scientism-as-faith recitation:

”Nagel is in the grip of a philosophical perspective on science, once very popular, that the work of the last four decades has shown to be inadequate to cope with large parts of the most successful contemporary sciences.

First delegitimize with the Appeal to Authority which is not even necessarily true of relevant “authorities”, a poisoning of the well. There is no question that science involving sources and fundamental connections has stalled. It’s not a philosophical question, it’s an empirical observation. Physicists admit it.

Because of that perspective, a crucial option disappears from his menu: the phenomena that concern him, mind and value, are not illusory, but it might nevertheless be an illusion that they constitute single topics for which unified explanations can be given.”

Here we go: the questions are illegitimate, “illusions” which empiricism might not be able to answer. So asking the questions is out of bounds and dealing with proposed answers is to be avoided, if it takes articles in the NYT to avoid it.

“The probable future of science in these domains is one of decomposition and the provision of an enormous and heterogeneous family of models. Much later in the day, it may fall to some neuroscientist to explain the illusion of unity, a last twist on successful accounts of many subspecies of mental processes and functions. Or, perhaps, it will be clear by then that the supposed unity of mind and of value were outgrowths of a philosophical mistake, understandable in the context of a particular stage of scientific development, but an error nonetheless.”

So there are categories and subcategories but no general category? That is mathematically impossible, since for every category [X] there is category [!X] and together they have a supercategory. [note 1] What Kircher is proposing (to merely ignore the question) is much less rational than what Nagel proposes (to at least acknowledge it honestly). But it is all that Kircher has left in his arsenal, since his arsenal is filled only with denial of intellectual responsibility to address issues which defeat his Philosophical Materialism.

Further, Kircher does not seem to understand the concept of decomposition which he promotes. Decomposition always goes to cause. And each cause has a prior cause, at least in the material realm and thus also in Materialism. So decomposing the prior causal chain toward a unifying or primary cause is perfectly empirical and scientific. That’s why scientists do it. So Kircher is not even consistent in his invocation of science; he deviates in order to cover for his Atheism, and invents a new definition of scientific pursuit, one which is senseless.

ADDENDUM:
William Carroll makes the following observations regarding Kircher’s assertion of illusion:

“Human beings are biologically one and psychologically one. The physical and chemical processes that are features of human life also possess characteristic unities. Unity does not mean homogeneity. Each of the various natural sciences studies the unity appropriate to its domain of inquiry. The different empirical sciences do function in the ways that Kitcher suggests. But it does not follow that any sense of a wider unity, for example, of a human being as a whole reality, is only an illusion. It is the function of a more general science of nature, traditionally referred to as the philosophy of nature, to describe this wider unity.”

Actually the sciences of chemistry and molecular biology and others have been rather subsumed under the necessities of physics, which is a unification of sorts. But it is empiricism as a limitation which caps the ability of actual knowledge under Materialism.

“Understanding unity in nature is not only a theoretical or speculative concern. If a human being is not one thing—that is, if he or she does not possess an intrinsic principle of unity, precisely as a human being—then no one can really be a cause of his or her own activity. Causal action flows from the nature of things. Human beings think and act; it is not the brain that thinks nor the body that acts. Without real human causal agency—agency that would not exist absent a human being’s being one thing—there could be no human responsibility for any action. In such a scenario, ethics becomes the real illusion.”

And in fact, the top-down sorts of ethics which are invented by Atheist philosophers are actually illusions of ethics, because they refer to a behavior set for the other guy. Atheists have entered the Atheist Void, been stripped of all absolutes, and exit ready to tell the Other what to do. Could it be that the hatred of absolutes, which goes clear back to adolescence, colors the fight against an absolute unity? Not for most, maybe just for the few.

Notes:
Note 1: Even a creating deity has a super category: [creating deity] & [not creating deity] = [existence]. Further, existence has a super category: [Existence] & [nonexistence] = [Existence] because non-existence is an empty set. So existence is tautological.

Deja Vu

Back in 2007, Alan Roebuck at the Conservative Intellectual posted a letter which he had written to the Center For Inquiry.

The Center For Inquiry is an organization based around Scientism and Philosophical Materialism (Naturalism), founded by Paul Kurtz (1). The center wishes to accomplish these objectives:

Fostering a secular society requires attention to many specific goals, but three goals in particular represent the focus of our activities:

1. an end to the influence that religion and pseudoscience have on public policy

2. an end to the privileged position that religion and pseudoscience continue to enjoy in many societies

3. an end to the stigma attached to being a nonbeliever, whether the nonbeliever describes her/himself as an atheist, agnostic, humanist, freethinker or skeptic.

Interestingly, the pursuit of truth and valid reasoning does not appear in their list. And the 3rd objective is not obtainable if the first two are forced onto the rest of us. There are rational reasons that the "atheist, agnostic, humanist, freethinker or skeptic" cannot be trusted; the agression against religions expressed in objectives 1 and 2 are examples. These folks are totally self-unaware in their statements of desired conquest vs their supposed "humanism", where they wish to enforce "empathy".


Roebuck put together a great many of the things which I have been saying here, although I said them well after Roebuck wrote the letter. His letter challenges the Naturalism and Scientism stance of the center, and uses clear logic in doing so. In fact he points to the non-coherent stance of making claims about evidence while having no evidence to support the claims.

To top off the article there is a comment thread in which a Naturalistic defender takes issue with the article, and other commenters try to discuss it with him. His retreat comes at 3:46 pm on 12/22/2007, where he demands evidence for supernatural things. And beyond that he goes completely relativistic: everything is mutable, even his own prior definitions of morality.

But this one issue trumps the rest. Says the Materialist:

"Society is the source of morality. What other possible source is there?"

The first extension of this would be that if society deems Atheists, etc to be outcasts, then it must be morally right to consider them outcasts. I had previously thought that it was merely logical; now I understand that it is also moral. It works for societies who say that human sacrifice is moral, slavery is moral, eliminating certain ethnic groups is moral, so many moral things to consider, if one is an Atheist!

The deja vu in reading all this was palpable.

(1) The center evolved in 2009, when Kurtz was kicked out of his own group. According to Kurtz, it ultimately became focused on "angry Atheism".

Schzophrenia and Physics

Attempting to discuss physical phenomena with Atheists leads to many issues which are based in ignorance of what science is capable of telling us, vs. what science is not capable of telling us.

The following video explains why science knows enough to know that it knows very little.



At a minimum, the idea that the existence within a singularity is physical, as defined by either physics, is wrong.

Naturalism and Agency

There is an interesting problem here. If the First Principles are the axioms that make logic, science, philosophy, rational thought, etc. possible, how were those principles known? They were originally known through observation of the universe and its workings, observations of certain traits that seem universal.

The problem here is the word seem, because the observations are of the inductive sort, and are subject to the inductive fallacy. In other words, the universal material traits could change tomorrow, and logic would no longer have a sound basis.

The validation of the axioms is a different story, though. If one asks, “how would the universe be if the axioms (or any individual axiom) were not universally valid?”, then the truth of the axioms becomes clear despite their inductive base.

This still requires faith, in the sense that we cannot know that the universe will not flip over into chaos tomorrow. So we continue to base our lives around logical axioms in the faith that the universe will continue in its consistent path. This faith is not addressed or even understood by those scurrying about the earth every moment. But it is faith, nonetheless, because it cannot be proved.

Now here comes the interesting part. Many, if not all, modern philosophers subscribe to some sort of attack on humans as uncaused causers, largely because that places humans outside the naturalist progression of cause and effect. Being separate from Cause and Effect is a transcendental, non-naturalistic state, and not to be allowed. Cause and Effect is a First Principle. These same philosophers deny that there is any foundational principle, period. Yet they insist on using Cause and Effect as if it were inviolable, even holy premise.

Cause and Effect is seen to be valid only through observation of a non-living universe. It is clearly seen to be not valid when observing humans acting as independent agents.

This is why these philosophers must insist that free will is a delusion, that electric discharge in the cranial neurons is the cause, not the effect, of thought; otherwise they must admit that there is something at play that is outside of naturalist explanatory power.

Yet the products of free will and agency are everywhere to be seen and used daily, even by philosophers, who (hopefully) use toilets and other products of human agency. So these dogmaticians must deny their own observations in order to preserve their dogmatic attachment to an unsustainable principle. That principle is essential for their underlying faith statement: there is no God.

The Non-Intentional Life

There are some constants in the Atheist / Naturalist [1] worldview, some givens that resemble absolute truths at least within the limits of their worldview. One of these is that the only valid path to knowledge, at least reliable knowledge of any value, is through the empirical scientific process. For them, knowledge from any other source is suspect or worse. This position leads directly to another level, which is the reverence for the principle of Cause and Effect as a universal truth, and as the basis for science, which, in turn, somehow leads them to Atheism. If there exists no supernatural ontology, then everything that exists is just as we see it in the universe – that is the basis of Naturalism and Atheism. It is a big “if”.

As a consequence of the dependence of Naturalism and Atheism on the universal validity of principle of Cause and Effect, certain corollaries become necessarily true, in order to support that conclusion. That these corollaries are true cannot be in doubt under this thought process, because the conclusion which they support has been declared true, an exercise in rationalization. Some of these corollaries follow.

First, life is not a definable substance, and is not different in any way from the individual components that comprise the thing that is said to live. “There is no essence of life, unless it is [the existence of ] DNA”: Massimo Pigliucci. Life is not exceptional to purely material existence, and is fully defined by material causality.

Next, in humans as in all material substance based constructs there is no exceptionality from other material substances. Cause and effect applies to all substances, including humans. This means that every aspect of human functioning is a material effect which has a material cause.

This in turn means that the human does not exhibit any action that is not pre-determined by a chain of causes that go back to the Big Bang. So there is no human ability to decide anything, because every action is determinate beyond the ability of any self-agency to modify. And self does not exist either, because for one thing, there is no reason for a non-agent to be an independent entity, a self. A rock is not a self any more than the boulder from which it split was a self. Self is not a material substance; it cannot exist under the materialist decree.

So humans are without self, without agency, and without intentionality in their actions. If humans think that they have – or are – these things, then they are harboring an illusion or delusion. (Delusion occurs if one believes an illusion). If you doubt that this is a consequence of Atheism / Naturalism, then read the sources at the end of this article.

The typical Atheist response to this state of non-Agency is that the delusion of self and agency works just fine, and is a fine way to live, believing that we have agency in the face of being saddled with Fully Causal Determinism. Some Atheists and Naturalists even claim that there is a small bubble of non-determinism which is available to us, even though Causal Determinism is a universal principle; this allows us a small degree of agency within the constraints of our environmental and genetic histories.

If these ideas are valid, what would be the consequences? Are our actions fully predetermined and without recourse for modification? Or conversely, do the laws of Cause and Effect stop at some short-field locus that actually allows us to have some very limited agency?

Living Fully Causal and Without Self, Except for Self-Delusion.

How can we be self-deluded if there is no self to delude? To self-delude a self, requires a self, and the idea is therefore non-coherent. So that can’t be.

But maybe we are deluded, not by ourselves which do not exist, but by circumstances. What is it that gets deluded? There is no self; the conscious mind merely gets informed of the predetermined, fully caused actions of the neural electrochemical discharges. If the conscious mind is only a register of what has already happened deterministically, yet the conscious mind thinks that it performed those actions, then the conscious mind is, in fact, delusional. And that is necessarily true of all conscious minds. Every mind is delusional regarding its self and agency. And by necessary extension, all the products of the self and agency.

But then the question of self arises again. Something has happened that causes non-entopic activities to occur in the wake of the activities of human mental faculties. If there is no core being that causes those non-entropic activities for which living things are known, then how are they caused (or are they delusions too)? And can I not think, consciously, in a manner to design, to create, to cause things to happen that could not otherwise happen without an agent’s causal force? And things which would not have happened without intentionality? Is the existence of these agent-caused intentional products not real (because there is no agency)? Exactly how delusional are we? And why would we be expected to share the same delusions with countless others, say when we board a plane or ride an escalator, or engage with communication devices? How are universally common delusions implemented - what is their cause? Is it more parsimonious to consider that we share a common, universal delusion, or that we share a common, universal reality?

Consider the other claims of Atheists and Naturalists, specifically the claim to be rational. If they claim universal delusion on the one hand, how can they claim rationality on the other? If they have no self, if they have no intentionality or agency, if their actions are fully causal with their conscious minds merely informed post hoc, how can they be rational? Even if the neural electrochemical discharge is declared the source of rationality, that also is fully caused, deterministic, and without any agency or intentionality, and moreover, why should a material mass of molecules have any non-deterministic capability, much less rationality and self-hood? The Atheist / Naturalist argument must apply to the neurons as well as to consciousness.

So unless the Atheists / Naturalists can produce an argument that provides an exception to their primary argument which universalizes determinism, an argument for a non-deterministic haven which endows themselves with agency even while surrounded with a fully caused and deterministic universe, then their argument fails. And paradoxically, if they do provide an argument for excepting themselves from determinism in order to allow their own rationality, then universal determinism cannot be a valid principle. Either way, full causal determinism fails.

Moreover, if we are merely deluded into the belief that any non-deterministic agency exists, then the reality that we think we have created is also a delusion. Therefore, if the principle of delusion of agency is valid, then delusion becomes a constant and consistent necessity, a state which we cannot differentiate from actual reality if there is any actual reality. Once again the Atheist / Naturalist claim of rationality cannot be valid if we all are deluded. The argument from delusion prohibits rationality.

Empiricism and the Question of Self, Agency and Delusion
Empiricism is an intentional activity; it is the sole source of valid knowledge according to the proponents of universal determinism, the Atheists and Naturalists. Yet that pairing of concepts self-contradicts. Again, without agency to design and perform the experimental analysis which characterizes empirical activity, there could be no meaningful knowledge product issuing from empirical activity. Once again there must be an exception to the principle of universal determinism in order for meaningful information or knowledge to come out of empirical activity. And once again, the principle of universal determinism cannot be valid if knowledge or meaning exists due to the exceptionalism of agent driven empirical activity. Unless of course, empiricism and its products are delusions. So either determinism does not apply to empiricism, or empiricism and knowledge are delusions. Either way, Atheism and Naturalism fail as rational worldviews, since they require both fully causal determinism AND empirical knowledge both to be valid simultaneously.

Why is delusion a part of the Atheist / Naturalist worldview? What are the rational (or non-rational) logic steps that produce the necessity of delusion?

The conclusion comes first by decree: There can be no non-material existence. The support for this conclusion is winnowed and selected for those items which do not contradict the conclusion.

For example the basic conclusion, full materiality of existence is decreed, not observed. Under the decree, certain things cannot exist, things which would invalidate the decree. So when those certain things are seen to exist after having been denied, they must be declared to be delusions.

This process is both non-rational and non-empirical. It is the product of a belief system, one that specifically denies parts of reality that conflict with the basic tenet of the belief. Any invalidating observations are thus delusions, especially if they cannot be defeated empirically.

So in this sense, both Atheism and Naturalism are religious-types of non-empirical belief systems, which actually deny certain aspects of observable reality as delusions, and which are based on faith in concepts derived by rationalization rather than valid logical processes. The fundamental concept – all existence is material only - is decreed rather than observed and it is not even observable, yet it is declared both true and the basis for what is called a rational worldview.

The belief in Atheism / Naturalism is not based in empiricism or rational analysis, it is based in something else: a desire for it to be true.

[Note 1] I use the term "naturalism" here, despite its confusing meanings. While I prefer "philosophical materialism", naturalism is commonly used in some of the "mind" literature, so I will use it here, too.

Sources For Further Reading:

Pinker, Steven; “How the Mind Works”; 1997, WW Norton & Co.

Schwartz, Jeffrey and Sharon Begley; “The Mind and The Brain”; 2002, Harper.

Clark, Thos; “Encountering Naturalism”; Center For Naturalism, 2007.

Huemer, Michael; “Skepticism and the Veil of Perception”; Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.

Martin, Michael; Atheism, A Philosophical Justification; Temple University Press, 1990.

“The Cambridge Companion to Atheism”; Michael Martin Ed.; Cambridge University Press, 2007.

“British Philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment”; Stuart Brown, Ed.; Routledge History of Philosophy Volume 5; Routledge, 1996.

Reason & Analysis; Bland Blanshard; Paul Carus Lectures Series 12; 1962; Open Court Publishing.

Neuroscience and Dogmatic Reductionism

The term “neuroscience” is possibly one of the most abused terms in the lexicon of the Atheist philosophic community. The term might well refer to the discovery of new capabilities of individual neurons, or to the constant rewiring of the ever plastic brain. But it does not. The term neuroscience, as used in virtually all of the literature produced by Atheists, Naturalists, Philosophical Materialists and such, refers to the practice of using an MRI to track blood flow in the brain under cognitive stimulation.

This practice of tracking blood flow in the brain is used to declare that certain cerebral functions are located in certain areas of the brain. Then other things which are NOT known are inferred and extrapolated, and come be part of a false knowledge base, one that is perpetuated by worldviews that require such. Some of the false knowledge is based on the idea that the blood flow increase is the only activity in the brain that is involved in the processing of that particular input function, and another is that a certain area of the brain does only one function – that which is being investigated. Another is that all brains are materially the same, wired alike and ready for fully caused, predetermined responses based on their history of causation.

None of this is proven or even suggested by the blood flow in the brain under cognitive stimulation. Every stitch of the determinist conclusion is extrapolation beyond existing facts, extending toward dogmatic conclusions.

There is an article in the NewHumanist of the UK site by a neuroscientist, Raymond Tallis [1], who attacks this practice of iconifying neuroscience with false extrapolations into dogmatic philosophy.

”There is a huge gap between the community of minds and animal quasi-societies. The vast landscape that is the human world has been shaped by the activity of explicit individuals who do things deliberately. Uniquely, the denizens of that world entertain theories about their own nature and about the world; systematically inquire into the order of things and the patterns of causation and physical laws that seem to underpin that order; create cities, laws, institutions; frame their individual lives within a shared history that is recorded and debated over; narrate their individual and shared lives; and guide, justify and excuse their behaviour according to general and abstract principles. Neuro-evolutionary theorists try to ignore all this evidence of difference and have even requisitioned the pseudo-scientific notion of the meme, the unit of cultural transmission, analogous to the gene that ensures its own survival by passing from brain to brain, to capture human society for quasi-Darwinian thought. Just how desperate is this endeavour to conceal the Great Ditch separating humans from other animals is evident from the kind of items that are listed as memes: “the SALT agreement”, “styles of cathedral architecture”, “faith”, “tolerance for free speech” and so on.”

If we were not at a great distance from the kind of activity revealed in our brains and, indeed, from the kinds of aggregations seen in the natural world, then the voluntary adoption of social policies, influenced or not by the latest whizz-bang neuroscience, would be impossible; for there would be no outside from which policies could be dreamed up, judged and tested. Indeed, there would be no outside of the organic world. This is illustrated by the pseudo-science of neuro-law. Supposing, for example, we really could assimilate jurisprudence into brain science, on the grounds that it is our brains that make us criminals or law-abiding, then, since our brains are causally wired into the remainder of the material universe, we would have to look beyond the brain for the ultimate source of our actions. They are objects, not subjects. The plea “My brain made me do it” would essentially be that of “the Big Bang made me do it”.

There are attempts by the Atheist/Philosophical Materialist community to present free will as somehow bimodal, that all brain activity is fully caused by our genetics coupled with our environments on the one hand, yet that we still do obviously have the apparent capability of decision making even though it has to be an illusion. (Never mind that the illusion has created complex societies with complex accoutrements which do not seem to be illusions or delusions.)

Yet the arguments against free will, even when claimed to be against “contracausal” free will, devolve into arguments against free will of any type. If the mind is a physical thing, if physical things are subject to cause and effect, then every action of the (physical) mind has prior causes, going back to the Big Bang, just as Tallis demonstrates above. This premise, the physical, fully caused mind, requires this. There is no room in the “physical mind” concept for the mind to do something that is not caused by prior chains of causation. If it does something like that, then it must be an illusion. (What, we might ask, causes such illusions, especially those that are held by everyone at the same time? Are we fully caused to entertain common delusions? If so, why think at all?)

This leads us to understand that every contra-natural artifact which we think has been thought up by human minds, is also an illusion. Under such a series of premises, then, every physical improvement from the beginnings of agriculture to computers – every bit of culture, from the invention of clothing and language to the internet – it is all an illusion, created by the illusion of mental free will and the illusion of the freedom to invent something new. In fact, there can be no contra-natural existence, when viewed through the glass of Naturalism / Philosophical Materialism / Atheism. Every automobile, skyscraper, computer, newspaper, book, gun, everything is part of a natural progression of cause and effect, starting with the Big Bang. Thinking is an illusion, and so is consciousness and self; in fact, is there any reason to think that reality is not an illusion? We wind up at the brain-in-a-vat sort of denial of absolutely everything, despite our experience (empirical) to the contrary.

This requires an entire revamping of the concept of cause and effect. The old principle of cause and effect included the idea that the cause must be necessary and sufficient to produce the effect, meaning among other things that the cause must be more inclusive than the effect: in producing the effect there will be a loss, an entropic effect which moves toward disorder. So the cause is always bigger, more powerful, more of anything than is the effect; the effect is always less than the cause.

This idea, universal entropy, must be dumped or at least circumvented somehow, if full causation of mental activity is to be believed. It generally is ignored; the philosophers of "neuroscience" don't seem to be inclined toward science that contradicts the dogma.

The self-appellated “Skeptics” who cluster into skeptical societies are in no way skeptical of any of the extrapolations of “neuroscience”; these non-skeptical skeptics are all devout believers in the dogma of Atheism / Naturalism / Philosophical Materialism. So, are we non-believers in those dogmas entitled to be skeptical of Neuroscience, as presented under these dogmas?

Tallis concludes his essay,

”If you come across a new discipline with the prefix “neuro” and it is not to do with the nervous system itself, switch on your bullshit detector. If it has society in its sights, reach for your gun. Bring on the neurosceptics.

Notes:
[1] Tallis’ research was mainly in the area of geriatric and rehabilitative neurology. He is listed as an author, philosopher, and “polymath”, as well as a retired MD and researcher.

Addendum:
For another wonderful article by Tallis on this subject, go here. Would that I could write like that...

Free Will, Naturalism and Social Justice

I have been reading two books, one on Naturalism and one on Free Will. The Naturalism book is by Thomas W. Clark of the Center for Naturalism, “Encountering Naturalism; A Worldview and Its Uses”. The book on Free Will is by Cris Evatt, “The Myth of Free Will”, a book that is largely quote-mined, including from Clark’s book. Both books are very short, barely a hundred pages. Neither uses footnotes nor gives full references for the quotations which are used. I will footnote here. Clark’s book gives a broader view than Evatt’s, so I will mostly refer to his book.

First let’s discuss Naturalism. Naturalism is a philosophy, a worldview, which consists of a primary concept: all that exists is material; and a secondary concept: all knowledge must be evidence based, with science and empiricism being the source of all knowledge.

Clark’s introduction to Naturalism is this:

“It’s important to acknowledge upfront that naturalism depends on taking rational, evidence-based empiricism, epitomized by science, as our way of knowing about what ultimately exists. This is the basic commitment naturalists make about knowledge, and it explains why the see the world as of a piece, not split into the natural vs. the supernatural.” [note 1]

Naturalism is accepted, then, because of science; supernatural existence is not disproved, it is locked out by definition, a definition made by Naturalism, not by science. Science merely admits that it is restricted by its abilities to observe and measure, which are material limits; it does not, cannot, say that nothing exists beyond those limits. So Naturalism goes beyond the bounds of science (and logic) in its claims.

An example of Naturalism is Bertrand Russell’s famous statement:

“While it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know. “
Bertrand Russell; Religion and Science (1935), ch. IX: Science of Ethics.

Ignoring Russell’s faulty understanding of truth and falsehood [note 2], both of his statements first concerning knowledge and then concerning what mankind cannot know are not scientific statements. So if his statements are true, then they also are false, classic failures of coherence. Both statements are self-refuting, paradoxes, logical failures.

Returning to the first two concepts of Naturalism: the first observation we can make is this: what is the evidence for either of those positions? Is there material, empirical evidence that “all existence is material”? Is there material, empirical evidence that there is no knowledge outside of the knowledge of material existence provided by empirical science? Of course not. But not to be deterred, Naturalists both make the claim and then later rescind it in order to preserve it.

The claim for full causality is fundamental to Naturalism; however, Naturalists are quick to admit that some things – although fully caused – are too complex to submit to causal analysis, so we will never understand them. This covers a lot of ground with faux determinism, things like the mind, and even portions of the free will argument. The free will denial appears to encompass the main issues of Naturalism, so I will focus on that for the remainder of this article.

Naturalists like to present a dichotomy, which they then dismantle in favor of determinism over free will, or what they present as free will.

Hume's Fork

"Either our actions are determined,
in which case we are not responsible for them,
or they are the result of random events,
in which case we are not responsible for them."
Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, quoted in "The Myth of Free Will".

The Free Will Dichotomy
The dichotomy seems to be this: fully causal (determinate) human actions, v.s. radical contra-causal freewill.

Fully causal, determinate human action is the Naturalist position, predicated on the unproven proposition that there is nothing within the universe that is not material and therefore subject to cause and effect, which in turn is a first principle and an axiomatic proposition of empirical science. Thus, nothing can exist (materially) that is not a material effect produced by a prior material cause. So, in an all-material universe, all human actions are material effects which require material causes, and therefore, all human actions are completely pre-determined by those material causes. These material causes are said to be genetic and environmental, and are inescapable since at birth we enter into an ongoing series of caused events. We are born into an unfolding pre-determined narrative, sporting a pre-determined set of causes for our behavior. A fully materially caused human action leaves no room for individual freedom to determine the action, hence free will is an illusion.

Clark says,

“There’s no causally privileged agent who could have done otherwise in the circumstances of your life as it unfolded; all your decisions, food and bad, arose without the benefit of a supernatural self that made things happen as they did. This rather startling realization, so contrary to the Western assumption that individuals can (and should) transcend their circumstances, releases us from the regret, protest, shame and guilt wrapped up in the supposition that we could have done otherwise as a situation develops”. [Note 3]

As we shall see, Naturalists dither around the issue of agency within the narrative. Clark’s earlier assertion was this:

“Human persons don’t disappear under Naturalism, even though we can explain how they originate and develop. Without contra-causal freedom, we remain complex, autonomous creatures, who act for reasons and motives that are legitimately ours, not anyone else’s. You don’t stop being a locus of rational, effective behavior just because you were caused to be that way. Your will –expressed in your passions, plans, and actions – is just as strong as ever. And your thoughts and actions feed back into the further development of your character and motives, giving you a significant (but of course not contra-causal) role in shaping yourself.” [Note 4].

but then again, Clark emphasizes:

”Naturalism denies that we have this sort of leverage [contra-causal] since it holds that everything about us, including our capacities for memory, enticipation, thought, deliberation and planning, ultimately comes from somewhere else via our genes or our environment or both. The moment-to-moment expression of these capacities, including our conscious thoughts and actions, and indeed our very selves in every respect, are fully caused phenomena”. [Note 5]

And later he quotes B.F.Skinner:

”Nothing about the position taken in this book [‘About Behaviorism’] questions the uniqueness of each member of the human species, but the uniqueness is in the sources [genetics/environmental history]. There is no place in the scientific position for a self as a true generator or initiator of action” [Note 6]

But Clark then takes this tack in order to salvage human agency despite lacking any free will:

”Even thought our actions are caused, that doesn’t mean they don’t have effects. It simply is not the case that no matter what we did, the future would have happened as it did. Without making efforts we don’t get what we want, therefore the future depends on us to a great extent. So Naturalism does not entail fatalism.” [Note 7]

These quotes should be sufficient to illuminate the logic shuffling that goes on in the anti-free will world. Again, the fight against free will is couched in terms of contra-causal free will, a position no one takes. The concept of radical contra-causal freewill seems to presume that such a decision environment requires an existence where there is no intellect, no discernment, no judgment, as well as no sensory inputs, because all those things are fully materially caused, and could not be part of contra-causal free will. So an exercise of contra-causal free will would be to make a choice without either a mind or a concept of existence.

So is radical contra-causal freewill as Naturalists define it truly the thesis which is being defeated by the antithesis, which is fully causal human action? Who, exactly, has proposed such a thing? It appears that radical contra-causal free will is a straw man, irrational in its conception in order to be easily destroyed. The dichotomy as presented, is false.

The actual thesis proposal of dualism is not contra-causal free will at all. The proposal is that free will is another aspect of life, and life is not caused by the deterministic assembly of molecules, but is caused by an undetectable or at least undetected source. It is clear that assembling molecules into the exact form of a human being will not produce life in that assembly; it is for this reason that the term “life” is bent into ambiguity by those defending Naturalism, Philosophical Materialism and Atheism. Life is observable, but not material. And that cannot be, because “Naturalism is True”, remember? For the Naturalist, Naturalism is a first principle upon which everything else must depend. It’s true because it is defined as Truth. Yet even the most rabid evolutionist will agree that all life “comes only from prior life”, and is not assembled from deterministic elements, ad hoc. (Otherwise evolution is out the window).

Evolution, in fact, requires a First Life in order to maintain its position of common descent. The cause of First Life, if the cause is necessarily material, fails the empirical criteria of the principle of Cause and Effect. The failure consists of creating something deterministically that is outside and beyond the capacities and limitations of the cause. A cause is not seen, ever, to create an effect that is greater than the cause itself. But under Naturalism, a purposeful cooperative of molecules and cells is created (caused) from deterministic, non-cooperative individual molecules. This failure is a fatal failure of Naturalism. But there is more.

The naturalist approach for dealing with the Common Sense issues of free will is another logical fatality. If the individual empirical finding is that he, the individual, has the capacity to choose, has the capacity to change himself and become something beyond his genetics and environment, this Common Sense empirical understanding comes to have logical standing if it is universally held or nearly so. Thus Naturalism needs to find a way to cope with this Common Sense empirical understanding of personal agency, and resulting “personhood”. So the Naturalist claims that the illusion of free will works, but it is still an illusion under the determinism required by Naturalism, which is presumed True. So while we appear to have it, and we use it to our benefit, it does not exist. Another failure of logic.

But still another logical failure mode is this: the distinction between the fully deterministic atom and molecule, and the human “person” is made circularly: the human is a person because we can see that the human is a person. Thus there is no need to think that determinism at the molecular level necessarily forces determinism at the person level. Why not? Because we can see that it is not so; humans do make plans and accomplish goals. This is a major failure of Naturalism; the Naturalist belief system refuses to acknowledge simple empirical observations of a universal faculty which is inherent in all humans. Instead Naturalists insist that it is an illusion. Why? Because Naturalism is declared true, and free will violates Naturalism. There is no thought of rejecting Naturalism in the face of empirical facts which contradict it.

And that destroys the logic of full determinism and fully caused actions of humans. We easily can see that it is not valid.

Next, let’s examine Clark’s position on spirituality, which he attempts to co-op for Naturalism. He presents several quotes, including these:

“To understand that we are structurally no different from the rest of the cosmos is let ourselves expand into infinity”.
Chet Raymo, ”Skeptics and True Believers” [Note 8]

“The realization that I needn’t have answers to the Big Questions has served as an epiphany. I lie on my back under the stars and the unseen galaxies and I let their enormity wash over me. I assimilate the vastness of the distances, the impermanence, the fact of it all. I go all the way and then I go all the way down, to the fact of photons without mass and gauge bosons that become massless at high temperatures. I take in the abstractions about forces and symmetries and thy caress me like Gregorian chants, the meaning of the words not mattering because the words are so haunting”
Ursula Goodenough, ”The Sacred Depths of Nature”[Note 9]

It is clear that Naturalism is a religion, one that is to be believed despite any contradictory evidence, one that inspires awe in its believers, one that has “sacred depths” where words are meaningless yet haunting.

And now for Progressivism as emergent from Naturalism. Clark devotes an entire chapter to Progressivism, and begins to justify it in the first paragraph of that chapter:

”Appreciating that persons are not self-made, but completely a function of environmental and genetic circumstances, lends support to humanistic, progressive and effective policies”. [Note 10]

It will be no surprise then, that criminals are not responsible for their actions, because we are responsible for their defective environments. But then, on to Social Justice, wherein he remarks,

”There are no literally self-made men or women that deeply deserve their fortunes”. [Note 11]

He quotes John Rawls, “A Theory of Justice”:

”It seems to be one of the fixed points of our considered judgments that no one deserves his place in the distribution of native endowments, any more than one deserves one’s initial starting place in society. The assertion that a man deserves the superior character that enables him to make the effort to cultivate his abilities is equally problematic; for his character depends in large part on the fortunate family and social circumstances for which he can claim no credit.” [Note 12]

Clark summarizes thus:

”A naturalism that accepts causality will help shift the justification for having a reasonable standard of living from getting what you deserve on the basis of self-caused merit, to getting what you need to live a fulfilled, satisfying life.” [Note 13]

Is there any remaining question about either the attachment of Naturalism, Philosophical Materialism, and Atheism to Progressivism and Leftism, or the siren song of classist, redistributionist, communism? And consider who it would be that would decide exactly what you deserve, and what sort of life you should lead in order to be fulfilled. Because you have no free will, it won’t be you. Naturalism is not merely misguided; it is logically wrong and if taken to its conclusion, it is dangerous.

Coming soon:
Naturalism and Personhood - who is and who is not a person; also, Morality under Naturalism, and the exceptionalism of Naturalists.

Notes:
Note 1: Clark; Encountering Naturalism; Center for Naturalism; 2007; pg 6.

Note 2: Science does not produce truth, it produces contingent factoids that are
subject to further findings to establish their degree of validity or non-validity.

Note 3: Clark: EN, pg 31.

Note 4. Clark: EN, pg 19.

Note 5. Clark: EN, pg 78.

Note 6. Clark: EN, pg 87.

Note 7. Clark: EN, pg 78/79.

Note 8. Clark: EN, pg 56.

Note 9. Clark: EN, pg 57.

Note 10. Clark: EN, pg 39.

Note 11. Clark: EN, pg 42.

Note 12. Clark: EN, pg 43.

Note 13. Clark: EN, pg 43

Richard Carrier: Advice to Everyone on Becoming a Philosopher.

Richard Carrier, PhD., is a philosopher, lecturer, blogger and contributor to several naturalist websites.

On a recent blog post, he gives instructions on being a philosopher, and rightly suggests that everyone should perform self-examination. And one can’t help but agree with Carrier’s conclusion:

”Everything that's important follows from this process: what's right and wrong, what's important and unimportant, beautiful and ugly, true and false, better and worse, worthwhile or a waste of time. You will thus be able to make yourself a better person, and enjoy a better life, a life of less error and ignorance and greater wisdom and contentment--all at least within the limits set upon you that you can't escape.”

Carrier gives what he calls his four pillars of philosophy, written as tasks:

”Task Number 1. Spend an hour every day asking yourself questions and researching the answers.

Task Number 2. Read one good philosophy book a month.

Task Number 3. Politely argue with lots of different kinds of people who disagree with you on any of the answers you come to above.

Task Number 4. Learn how to think.”

But he immediately goes awry by insisting on three fundamental questions of philosophy, or at least to be answered first by the philosophically inclined, followed by three analytical examination questions:

"Who am I?"
"What do I really want in life? "
"How do I safely obtain it?"

…and to every answer to any of these questions then ask …

"Why is that the case?" and
"How do I know that's true?" and
"Are there other, better ways to answer that question?"

And to any of those answers, ask those same three questions, and so on, all the way down the line.”

First I suggest that his tasks are not in a proper order. “Learn how to think” should be first, and the task should be well established before any other philosophical tasks are attempted. While this seems obvious, apparently it is not. So here is the rather obvious reason why: If you still don’t know the proper process for analytical thinking, then you shouldn’t be doing analytical projects. Certainly not projects of enough import to direct the formation of your worldview. Learn the proper process first and thoroughly, and only then proceed into analytical philosophical projects.

Next I suggest that the original questions posited by Carrier are not the fundamental questions of philosophy. The questions posed by him are not basic to anything but narcissism in the seeker. Those question should be answered only after a solid grounding in deeper questions, such as these in the two lists below. The first list is mine, and is based on Russell’s list, below, and on “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, by John Locke, and “the Laws of Thought”, by George Boole”, and ”An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,” by David Hume.

1. What is universal, and underlies valid thinking? (ontology)
2. What is truth? (epistemology)
3. What is knowledge? (epistemology)
4. What is life? (idealism vs. metaphysics)
5. What is a mind? (idealism vs. metaphysics)
6. What are origins and purpose? (teleology)

Bertrand Russell discusses the remaining philosophical questions to be answered by modern philosophers in his book, ”The Problems of Philosophy”. These can roughly be listed as,

a) Perception, reality, matter and idealism;
b) Knowledge, induction, general principles, universals and intuitive knowledge;
c) Truth, Falsehood and error;
d) The limits of philosophical knowledge.

Russell outlines and critiques the three basic first principles [1]:

”For no very good reason, three of these principles have been singled out by tradition under the name of ‘Laws of Thought’. They are as follows:

(1) The law of identity: ‘whatever is, is’.
(2) The law of contradiction: ‘nothing can both be and not be.’
(3) The law of excluded middle: ‘Everything must either be or not be’.

These three laws are samples of self-evident logical principles, but are not really more fundamental or more self-evident than various other similar principles: for instance, the one we considered just now, which states that what follows from a true premiss is true. The name ‘laws of thought’ is also misleading, for what is important is not the fact that we think in accordance with these laws, but the fact that things behave in accordance with them; in other words the fact that when we think in accordance with them we think truly”

Russell also attacks issues of the metaphysics of the self and mind as uncaused causers and non-empirical “substances” in his ”Fifteen Lectures on the Mind”. Ultimately he declares that mind must be of some non-material substance, as elemental and fundamental as matter, but not the same as matter, because the mind, as an uncaused causer, does not behave according to the laws of matter and is not therefore material. Russell was not a materialist.

Carrier offers no guidance toward the objective of validity in thinking. This is, in my opinion, a severe flaw in any recommendation to beginning seekers of validity and truth. Moreover, he has an a priori bias toward idealism, which is a generally discredited thought process, even amongst modern public intellectuals.

[1] Russell, "The Problems of Philosophy"; Oxford Univ Press; 1912 / 1997; pg. 72.

Richard Carrier on Naturalism aka Philosophical Materialism

In an article written for the Council of Secular Humanism, Richard Carrier attempts to define naturalism:

”I've encountered many formulations in this direction, but I believe, on careful analysis, they all reduce to the same definition, the one with which I began, now formally stated: naturalism is true if everything that exists is causally reducible to the nonmental.

“Why do I believe that? Let me briefly outline my position. A mental object is anything that exists that is distinctive of the contents or activity of a mind. The most obvious examples are thoughts, perceptions, and emotions. By contrast, the most obvious examples of the nonmental are anything that is simply matter or energy or space or time (and any arrangement of those or anything categorically similar to them). So, for example, if everything that exists, including thoughts, perceptions, and emotions, is causally reducible to different arrangements of matter-energy in space-time, then naturalism is clearly true. That all leaves open the possibility of ambiguous cases, which would have to be worked out case by case. Otherwise, when all the causes sufficient to produce a mental effect are themselves nonmental, the mental is causally reducible to the nonmental. This definition allows the possibility of irreducibly mental things (like epiphenomena), so long as those things are fully and completely caused to exist by nonmental things (like brains).

“I propose that anyone who believes the above is a naturalist and that any claim to the contrary is a claim to the supernatural. The supernatural thus always involves some sort of mind over matter.”

Testability

”Supernaturalists now make every effort to place their beliefs beyond meaningful test precisely because their beliefs have failed countless tests—indeed, most have been decisively refuted. This is evidence of the desperation of their position but not of the untestability of more honest supernatural claims. As an obvious example, young Earth creationism is not only abundantly testable, it has decisively failed every test. Science has conclusively, and empirically, ruled out this supernatural claim. So believers retreated by constructing a new supernatural claim, old Earth creationism, which is harder to test. We should not forget where this debate began: they proposed a supernatural claim, that claim was testable, we tested it, our tests refuted it. Only then did they dig around for another supernatural claim that was harder to rule out empirically. Thus, insofar as Old Earth creationism is untestable (even if you grant that it is—I don't), it's not untestable because it's supernatural. It's untestable because believers specifically made it that way in order to avoid the risk of being trounced by the evidence.”

Exactly none of this argument addresses the existence of a First Cause for a rational universe. These types of arguments abound amongst materialists, but they are strictly strawman arguments, easily defeated within the home turf of materialist, idealist dogma; what they do not address is the issue that is most basic, a rational First Cause, because that falls well outside the ability of naturalism / materialism to resolve: an idealist philosophy of matter is helpless in realms where matter does not exist. There is no material, empirical testability possible in the metaphysical realm, an eventuality that Carrier does not address, even in the least.

Differentiating Natural from Supernatural

”Hence, I propose a general rule that covers all and thus distinguishes naturalism from supernaturalism: If naturalism is true, everything mental is caused by the nonmental, whereas if supernaturalism is true, at least one thing is not.”

Carrier apparently presumes that this definition will be supported ultimately by empirically locating a physical “thought lump” or “intent chunk” somewhere within the material brain. If there is no thought lump or intent chunk, then there would at least be thought energy or intent energy, since matter and energy are all there is in a materialist universe. Or perhaps the ionic energy which has been already identified is actually sentient, intelligent and intentional on its own. At any rate, it will have to be one of these, because there is nothing else from which to choose, as is determined by the premise of exclusive materialism, not by the accumulation of experience or data.

This is scientism, idealism, and mysticism all rolled into one. It is mystical because the belief relies on something that is unknown and possibly unknowable as the basis and fundament of the belief system. It is unjustified, empirically; it is therefore anti-idealist, showing the idealist philosophy to be non-coherent and false: the idealist philosophy is founded upon an anti-idealist principle. This internal contradiction is fatal to the philosophy.

Uncaused causers: the human effect.

Humans cause things to happen that are not preordained by natural laws, things that in fact use certain natural laws to counter-act other natural laws. For example, gravity is overcome by applying energy to blades designed using the Bernoulli principle – wings. While birds do this naturally, humans do this on purpose, consciously and intentionally designing and manufacturing devices to accomplish the goal of heavier-than-air flight. These intentions are produced in the mind.

It is the premise of Naturalism / Materialism that the mind is totally a function of the material brain. Carrier says,

” when all the causes sufficient to produce a mental effect are themselves nonmental, the mental is causally reducible to the nonmental.”

Since the brain is composed of organic structures that implement electrochemical discharges, which are merely directional flow of ionic charges, then thoughts and the cause of thoughts must necessarily be found within those boundaries, if Carrier is correct in reducing mental to material.

The premise seems to be that without ionic discharge, there is no mind, as is seen materially at death. At death, the ionic discharge ceases, and even though the organic structure is still there, the mind stops as far as other minds can determine. Since the mind stops when the ionic discharge stops, then the mind either is dependent upon the ionic discharge, or it IS the ionic discharge.

But if the mind is only dependent upon the ionic discharge, then the mind is something other than the discharge, and something other than the organic structure of neurons (the brain). That cannot be, if naturalism / materialism is correct: a non-material causer is ruled out a priori. Therefore, for materialism, the ionic discharge necessarily is the mind, since that is what ceases at death, correlating with the cessation of the mind.

What is there about ionic charge flow that leads to the prediction of sentience, consciousness, intentionality, and purposeful invention and creation of devices to defeat natural laws? Actually there is nothing in an extra electron, much less a missing electron in an ion which predicts such things. Nor are such predictions forthcoming from swarms of ions, or batteries and power stations would be highly intelligent.

Further, what would cause us to think that an electron or ion flow would cause itself? If the cause of intellect is charge flow, then what causes the charge flow? Are ions uncaused causers, and if so, what evidence is there that would lead us to think that is so? This goes directly in the face of known behaviors of electrons and electrically charged particles.

In fact, thinking that ions are intellects or mini-intellects at work has no basis in science or in logic. There is no empirical evidence to support the claim, and the idea itself is no solution to the uncaused causer issue. It seems more parsimonious to claim that the unattached mind is the uncaused causer rather than electrical currents, and that the mind commands the flow of the electrical charge, just as it commands the direction of sentience and intentionality in the rational thought process.

Parsimony aside, it is known that the mind can intentionally force a rewiring of the brain to occur. This is, in fact, mind over matter in an intentional causation process. It is no breech of logic to presume that if the mind can change the electrical pathway, it might be able to initiate the electrical discharge as well. In fact, being challenged to solve a mathematical problem results in the mind focusing itself in a certain analytical mode, presumably resulting in electrochemical discharges caused in that pursuit, and – as MRI buffs know – increased blood flow caused to certain areas of the brain; i.e. the mind - whatever it is - is the cause of this material activity. The challenge comes first; then comes the resulting mental activity that is seen to be physical. The mind apprehends, then comprehends, then sets the work into motion, causing the activity.

If consciousness were not required, then math problems would be solved at the electron level, and the conscious mind notified later, if at all. Moreover, since the conscious mind would be only “notified” of what the real mind is doing, then it could have no control in directing the information flow or thought process being carried on below or before the conscious level. A math problem could be solved and communicated electronically without any need for a conscious mind.

In other words, consciousness, intellect and purposeful abstract thought is not required if mental activity is only ionic discharge through parallel networks. But In fact, consciousness, intellect and purposeful abstract thought require controlling the ionic discharge with an outside force, because the thoughts occur and are controlled by conscious processing. Thus consciousness, intellect and purposeful abstract thought are not explained by a naturalist / materialist mind, self-contained at the material level.

Materialism contains no explanation for the uncaused causer of non-entropic human behavior short of denial of that behavior and the associated mental processes. Neither electrical charge flow nor mass of any type give cause to predict sentience, free will, abstract thought, intentionality or other characteristics of behavior that are unique to humans and certain other living things – but never found in raw mass or raw energy taken in isolation or together in any combination. So basing a philosophy around such a premise is not a rational approach.

This is a more in-depth analysis than will likely be encountered from any naturalist or philosophical materialist proponent. When this is challenged, it will not be with empirical data, experimentally gathered and replicated. And that is yet another defect in naturalist / materialist thought.

Naturalism and Scientism Summarized

The following is an apologetic for Naturalism, written by the founder of the Center For Naturalism and naturalism.org, Thomas W. Clark:

”For a philosophical and scientific naturalist such as myself, the traditional Christian god is ruled out simply because the existence of the supernatural in general is ruled out. If you stick with science as your guide to what’s ultimately real, and critique your assumptions in open philosophical inquiry, there are no good reasons to believe that reality is split between two categorically different realms, the natural and the supernatural. Instead, science reveals that the world is of a piece, what we call the natural world. Disbelief in God, therefore, is a corollary of the rationally defensible claim that nature is all there is, the basis for the worldview known as naturalism.

Naturalists are driven by the immodest desire to plumb the depths of reality, to know what objectively exists, to understand how things fundamentally work, and to have maximally transparent explanations of phenomena. In this project our primary commitment is epistemic, to a philo-scientific way of knowing that we justifiably believe gets us reliable beliefs about the world. I call this a philo-scientific epistemology because it combines openness to philosophical critique with a reliance on scientific criteria of explanatory adequacy as vetted by that critique and the actual practice of science. Naturalism holds that science and philosophy are continuous, interpenetrating and collaborative in our investigation of reality; neither is foundational to the other. The naturalist mainly wants not to be deceived, not to make errors of logic or method or assumptions when understanding the world. Science, kept presuppositionally and methodologically honest by philosophy and real-world experience, has given us increasingly reliable explanations of how things work as judged by our growing capacity to predict and control phenomena. Such is the naturalist’s pragmatic test of knowledge: we are not deceived because we successfully predict.”

Because naturalists are driven by the quest for reliable knowledge, we are not in the business of defending a particular picture of what finally exists, a particular ontology. If the best, most transparent explanations of a phenomenon, for instance consciousness, should end up in some sort of mental-physical dualism, so be it. If, in our astrophysical explorations, we discover that a race of super-beings created the observable universe, so be it. We are ontological non-dogmatists, letting the ontological chips fall where they may just so long as the theory specifying the ontology is the best one going. We jealously reserve the right to be mistaken in our view of what exists, given that theories often change under pressure from further investigation.”

Thomas W. Clark; Founder of Center For Naturalism; Intro toToo Good to Be True, Too Obscure to Explain: Cognitive Shortcomings of Belief in God

I have noticed several inverted uses of the words “epistemic” and “ontological” amongst the writings of the materialist illuminati. Traditionally, epistemic means reference to knowledge, while ontologic means reference to existence. If we take those definitions as valid, then Clark has certainly braided the two together in his fundamentals. And I think that it does appear to be the case that Clark and the naturalists are interested in the truth statements which they think science can give them, not in the actual outcomes of the exploration of material existence.

As with all Scientism-ists, Clark seems blissfully unaware of the necessary compact that science has with itself: Don’t experiment on that which you cannot measure. In other words, voluntary materialism. Clark believes that science can determine, scientifically, that there is no non-material existence, despite the inability of materialist science to explore that question, or at least that if science cannot do that, then it is not important. Non-scientific, non-empirical knowledge is not "transparent" and cannot be real knowledge. This opens up a number of philosophical issues pointing to logical errors, such as the insufficiency of induction and deduction as approaches to Truth, which is the implied objective of Naturalism.

Is this ignorance due to incomplete knowledge of the philosophical roots of science, or is it willful ignorance? Clark makes a claim for possession of what he calls philo-scientific knowledge, which underpins his naturalism. But the philosophy of science stops when the actual work of science starts: the philosophy being the First Principles of Rational Thought, and Voluntary Materialism, while the work of science is the pursuit of material causes for material effects.

Science is, in fact, preceded by and founded upon philosophical statements, statements which cannot be proven by scientific methodology, yet which are taken as true – axiomatic – in order for science to be considered a valid pursuit. If the principle of cause and effect is not valid, then science could not make claims about valid causes for valid effects (and philosophers could not whine about uncaused causers). The validity of cause and effect is questionable as a “law”, as Hume demonstrated, as are both induction and its progeny, deduction. Yet all these are philosophical presuppositions which underlie science without any hope of proving them true using science as the vehicle of proof.

The unfettered belief in science as the mediator of all knowledge is a contemporary statement of A. J. Ayer’s Positivist Idealism at its worst, and is in fact extremely close to Phyrronian skepticism, if one realizes that science can tell us nothing that is not contingent. Given that, then we can actually know nothing for certain, except as a poor shadow of true knowledge, a contingent vapor that can evaporate overnight as new scientific findings replace it. So Naturalism is a belief in, well, nothing, really. Certainly not certainty.

And this is confirmed in Clark’s paper on death, where he argues with other Atheists over the nothingness that comes after death. Nothingness, Clark argues is too generous. We don’t positively fall into nothingness, what happens to us is: nothing. This is not too fine a point for a Naturalist to argue, apparently, and still the scientific studies that support this argument are somehow missing and not referenced at all.

It becomes apparent that Naturalism is not science-related at all, then. Naturalists use a ghost of an idea of what science should be, at least in their Naturalist minds, and then claim that as a basis, not for their individual ideas, but for the general existence of Naturalism.

” From the point of view of this project, the existence of the supernatural is simply unmotivated, an explanatory non-starter or superfluity. The supernatural, after all, is just that which cannot find a place in an empirically well-supported theory. If it did, it would cease to be supernatural – it would be immediately naturalized by its observational and theoretical connections to other natural phenomena, those entities and processes that do have a place in the theory. The project of gaining secure empirical knowledge therefore undermines the plausibility of and need for supernatural explanations. Indeed, the single most salient point (perhaps the only point!) of agreement among philo-scientific naturalists – an argumentative, fractious crew – is about the non-reality of the supernatural”

The “project of gaining secure empirical knowledge” is another statement of Positivist Idealism. This objective is not just paramount for the Positivist, Naturalist, Atheist, it is the only objective that is allowed under their concept of reality. The need for solely materialist explanens is demonstrated in Clark’s assessment of the Naturalist approach to God:

” The traditional Abrahamic god, a prime exemplar of the supernatural, is a patently unexplained explainer and thus necessarily absent from an ontology driven by the demand for explanatory transparency. Whether God is brought in to explain the creation of the universe or the design of life, in neither case can the supernaturalist provide an account of God’s nature or how he operates. But good explanations don’t simply posit the existence of some entity or process to fill a purported explanatory gap, in this case a creative, designing intelligence; they must supply considerable additional information to achieve explanatory adequacy. A good theistic explanation would have to, for example, supply concrete specifications for God – his motives, characteristics, powers and modes of operation – to shed light on how and why he created certain species and not others, for instance. It would also have to show his relationship to antecedent and surrounding conditions: his historical provenance, his ontological status (mental, physical, or what?), and, not to put too fine a point on it, his current location. Further, an adequate theistic explanation would have to provide independent intersubjective evidence for God’s existence beyond his posited role as creator-designer. Without such evidence, in principle available to any impartial observer, there are no reliable grounds to suppose he exists.

Again Clark asserts without proof that there can be no supernatural, or it would be explainable naturally. This is more than an uncomfortable dichotomy, it is a direct contradiction of defined terminology, a confusion of non-comparables. It is both a self-contradiction (paradox), and a category fallacy. These logic errors are standards in the scientism philosophy; Clark merely decorates the fallacies with ever more outrageous, egregious demands. The illogic, again, goes either unnoticed or purposefully ignored, either of which is inexcusable.

Contrary to his initial claim, Clark does derive his philosophy from his concept of science and its limitless abilities to explain. Scientism thus derived is fatally flawed by its own logical failures. But possibly the Naturalist, Scientism-ist, Atheist like Clark does not recognize logic or rational thought as valid, because they do not derive directly from, nor can they be verified by, Science. Logic and rationality are both… non-material, non-measurable, have no mass/energy or length/width/height. Under the aegis of clark’s scientism, logic and rationality do not exist because they cannot be proven.

” If, as the naturalist contends, the most reliable grounds for believing in something’s existence is that it plays a role in our best, most predictive explanations, then there’s no good reason to believe in the supernatural, since nothing supernatural plays such a role.”

But then he denies that:

” Of course the naturalist doesn’t claim to be able to disprove the existence of the supernatural, but lack of disproof is not proof of existence. If it were, one’s ontology would necessarily expand to include all logically conceivable entities, however scant the evidence for them – an unwieldy universe indeed.”

A strange pair of statements, especially considering that Clark had originally taken the position that ontology doesn’t matter to him.

” Belief in God, a cognitive cul-de-sac, is ruled out by the naturalist’s desire for explanatory transparency, a transparency exemplified by science.”

If by transparency Clark means a clear view of Truth according to his need for a philo-scientific epistemology, then science certainly does NOT provide such a thing, and actual scientists will attest to that. Even PZ and sometimes Massimo claim that truth is not found in science.

Clark is out on a limb of his own creation here. A. J. Ayer, the proponent of Positivism a half century ago in his book, "Language, Truth and Logic", issued this statement:

"For the admission that there were some facts about the world which could be known independently from experience would be incompatible with our fundamental contention that a sentence says nothing unless it is empirically verifiable."

This contention is untenable. First, experience is not exclusive to sensory input as the Naturalists would have us believe; in fact, more experience is subjective than objective. Second, language contains a vast store of meanings that are not empirically verifiable. Third, knowledge is not necessarily restricted to language restraints. Moreover, the Positivism of Ayer has long since been demoted in philosophical circles, and it is doubtful that he reached much acceptance in the scientific realm either.

A definitive book that logically dismantles Positivism was written by Brand Blanshard: ”Reason and Analysis”. This marvelous work systematically dismantles the rationalizations that form Scientism and Naturalism. The necessity of understanding logic and rational thought processes before trying to create a philosophy (or worldview) remains an absolute must, if one cares enough to be rational first, philosophical second.

Clark fails this.

As a summary statement of Clark’s "philo-scientific epistemology" hypothesis, the following statement serves:

”If you’re interested in objectivity, the choice between the relatively rigorous epistemic demands of naturalism and the more relaxed demands of theism is obvious. If you want a picture of the world more or less as it is, insulated as much as possible from the distorting effects of your own all-too-human psychology, you will stick with science. Not that science is infallible, but it fully recognizes and tries to reduce the influence of wishful thinking when representing reality.”

The demands of Naturalism cut short the availability of reality that is observable. This defect is not recognized, because it is a presupposition that is unstated, being an axiom. The axioms that the undetectable cannot exist, that uncaused causers cannot exist, that science is the only valid way of knowing, these are not provable using science. So these axioms to Scientism are not adequate knowledge under the arbitrary restrictions placed on reality by Scientism itself and its faithful adherents, such as Clark. The result is an epistemology that has strangled itself in logical defects a priori.

The logical failures of Scientism are seen everywhere within the myopic boundaries imposed by Scientistic Naturalism. Here’s one last example: logic itself is not validatable or provable using science. What is apparent is the lack of knowledge within Scientistic Naturalism of both science and its logical foundations, and the limitations of science due to the epistemological failures of induction and deduction as sources of absolute knowledge. While this ignorance is correctable, the Truth assertions made under the influence of this ignorance render Scientistic Naturalism to be a form of faith, a religious cult of science worship.