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We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. —Jonathan Swift

Seeing Red - Understanding Consciousness February 25, 2007

Posted by Rastaban in : Naturalism , add a comment

An article by John Searle (“Minding the Brain”) in the Nov 2, 2006 edition of The New York Review of Books shows how confused most of us (including philosophers & scientists) are about something as everyday as vision. Searle reviewed Nicholas Humphrey’s book Seeing Red: a Study in Consciousness, with which he largely disagrees. In that book (based on lectures he gave at Harvard in 2004) Humphreys asks the reader to imaging they are looking at a large red screen upon which the color red is projected, and proceeds to argue that the normal interpretation of what happens when we view such a field of red is mistaken.

But what is the normal interpretation of seeing red? Searle explains it this way,

According to contemporary scientific common sense, when we look at the red screen the reflection of light waves sets up in us a series of neuronal events beginning at the retina and ending with a conscious visual experience of red. If we assume that there are no hallucinations or pathological conditions involved, the perceiver sees, and in that way perceives, the red object by having a visual experience. The perceiver sees the object, but he does not see the visual experience of the object. He consciously sees real things in the real world and not his experiences of those things. There are not two red things in the scene but just one, the red screen.

If Searle is correct that this is the standard viewpoint, then I’m with Humphrey right off the bat, for I almost don’t know where to begin with my objections. (more…)

Zeno & Infinity September 19, 2006

Posted by Rastaban in : Cosmological, Existence Arguments, Naturalism , add a comment

Pivotal moments in one’s intellectual development come unexpectedly. For me the key moment arrived in 9th grade English class when Miss Blumenstock gave a brief run-down of Zeno’s “theory of motion” [see footnote] and asked us to write a paper supporting or refuting him. Never could I have guessed it would lead to atheism.

That is exactly where it led, though it would take 5 1/2 years to get there.

Zeno’s “theory”, as she presented it, was that motion was not continuous but rather consisted of discrete segments. The path of an arrow shot across the horizon would actually, according to Zeno, not be smooth (although it might appear so to our eyes) but would in fact jump from segment to segment.

Why didn’t Zeno think motion was smooth and continuous? The answer is mathematics. Zeno realized there could not be an actual infinity of numbers between point a and point b on a numberline: numbers by their nature were inherently finite and countable, and therefore the path of an arrow across the sky had to consist of finite, countable steps.

If we think about it, we realize Zeno’s arrow was an early call for the Cosmological argument, which hinges on the assertion that there cannot be an actual infinity. There can’t be, per the Cosmological argument, an infinite regress of physical causes and there can’t be, per Zeno, an infinite number of steps in the motion of any object.

Just as there are two types of infinity — the macro infinity of going on and on to higher numbers and the micro infinity of more numbers between any two numbers on a number line — so there are two types of physical infinities which one can deny in the world. Zeno denied one, the Cosmological argument denies the other. (more…)

Intro to Thomas Aquinas July 29, 2006

Posted by Rastaban in : Existence Arguments, Naturalism, Non-Existence Arguments, Theologians , add a comment

Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274) sought to find a workable fusion of Aristotle and the Church; nonetheless he strongly objected to Plato’s formulation of man as strictly a thinker and the Platonic abandonment of matter. In particular, Plato’s program consisted of separating “being” from “becoming”. What exactly is meant by being as opposed to becoming — who knows?1

It is the kind of philosophical mumbo-jumbo that drives people away from philosophy. Whatever the distinction is supposed to be, it’s probably a poorly chosen one. But let’s see if we can figure it out. Being, one must suppose, refers to abstract Form or Ideas existing in our minds (Plato was enamored of mental talk like this) while becoming must refer, in the Platonic canon, to material things: always changing, growing, decaying and generally being messy (something Plato wanted nothing to do with).

Plato’s attitude toward bodily things strikes me more as the product of mental illness than of a rational thought process. Only a diseased mind, cut off from the rest of the self or warped by infection or chemical imbalance, concludes that mental imaginings alone are real, that the body is nothing. Indeed there is something very unreal about such an attitude, something pathological. Nor is the foolishness of the Platonic attitude difficult to show even relying strictly on reason — which brings us back from parenthesis to Aquinas.

Aquinas understood the distinction Plato was trying to make between being and becoming, and he strenuously objected to it. Plato had to try to wash matter — the material world of bodies — out of the picture as if it didn’t exist. But it does exist, Aquinas said, and Plato’s philosophy can’t account for why.

If I understand him correctly, Aquinas maintained that Plato’s abstract ideas (the abstract idea of a tree, for instance) have in themselves (whether held in our mind or in God’s) absolutely no power to bring real, material trees into existence. The particulars of the world can’t be thought into being by thinking universals, no matter who is doing the thinking. But not being able to explain how matter comes to exists is only part of the problem. In the Platonic system, Aquinas saw, there could never be a satisfactory explanation of why matter exists. (more…)

God’s Physical Problem

Posted by Rastaban in : Naturalism, Non-Existence Arguments , 2 comments

In the Warren-Flew Debate* on God’s existence, which took place in the North Texas State University Coliseum from Sept 20 to 23, 1976, Anthony Flew identified 4 ways in which the existence of a postulated being might be challenged.

The first way, he said, is to declare that the being in question is simply not to be found anywhere. This is how most questions of existence get addressed. Are there wolves in Manitoba? Is there a sea monster in Loch Ness? Well, let’s do an exhaustive search and find out.

This is not a useful approach, Flew observed, for settling the question of God’s existence. And the reasons are obvious. For one thing, God doesn’t have a specific locale that we can go to and search; for another, God lacks an observable body. Both those who believe God exists and those who disbelieve would expect the same result from any such search: nada.

The second way the existence of a being can be challenged, Flew explained, is by asserting that it not only can’t be found anywhere, but that it’s existence is biologically or physically impossible.

The third way which Flew presented involves a different kind of impossibility: asserting that the being in question is logically impossible: a round square or married bachelor, for example.

Flew’s forth way to challenge the existence of a being will also sound familiar. It is to claim that the being in question has been qualified to such an extent that it’s existence is untestable. By way of explanation, Flew presented the claim that prayers are always answered. Yet when presented with a situation in which a prayer does not seem to have been answered, the believer replies, “Oh the prayer was answered, but you know, sometimes the answer is ‘No’.” When all possible evidence (whether negative or positive) supports a proposition, that proposition has been rendered meaningless.

In his debate with Warren, Flew challenged God’s existence using the 3rd and 4th approaches above. But what I want to examine here is an argument based on the 2nd approach. (more…)

Beyond Atheism July 9, 2006

Posted by Rastaban in : Atheist Culture, Naturalism , 4 comments

Atheism is only the glitter on the surface of the sea of naturalism. Has the time come for atheists to dive below the surface and explore the depths?

Let’s face it, denying God’s existence draws the attention — negatively, of course — of those who are believers. Theists see atheists — with justification — as people who tear down the beliefs of others but don’t construct anything positive of their own. And most atheists agree that atheism is strictly a negative position.

As atheists, we see our job as throwing bombs at religion and God. “Think there’s a God, huh? Then what about this — ” and we toss the problem of evil at them. [Boom!] “Oh, you think the Bible is God’s word? Eat this –” [Blam!] It’s fun, and there are certainly plently of bombs to throw. More than that, we know we’re right and we’ve got a point - in fact lots of points — that religious people really ought to pay attention to. (more…)

Two Types of Knowing June 13, 2006

Posted by Rastaban in : Naturalism, Non-Existence Arguments , 1 comment so far

If the world outside of our thoughts was of the same essence as the world of our thoughts, there would be only one kind of knowing. Yet philosophers have long recognized that knowing comes in two distinct varieties. There is knowing which is innate, Plato’s forms, Kant’s analytical knowledge—and there is knowing which is acquired through the senses, empirical knowledge.

Why should there be two types of knowing? Why should that be a feature of our existence? Yet it is. This is the key, the giveaway clue, perhaps the single most important observation in all of philosophy.

If the world and our thoughts were of the same basic stuff, there would only be one type of knowing. Yet we have a different kind of knowing for the world—one which is approximate, inexact, provisional—than we have for our thoughts themselves, and that means that the world and thoughts are different in essence. The domain of our thoughts is mental in nature, with an innate conceptual/rational/analytic framework. The world outside lacks any such framework. It is non-mental, non-rational, non-knowable in its essence.

The consequences of this are simple and significant.

We expect our thoughts to be rational and meaningful because that is appropriate for thoughts; but outside of our thoughts the world is not rational or meaningful because the outside’s essence is non-mental. Consequently it makes no sense to expect the outside world (the world outside thoughts) to have characteristics that pertain to thoughts, such as meaningfulness or rationality.

It is only common sense that the world outside our thoughts must be irrational and meaningless — otherwise we would never have developed two types of knowing.

To expect or wish otherwise is to be confused.

Mind, Matter & Divine Creation

Posted by Rastaban in : Naturalism, Non-Existence Arguments , 1 comment so far

Perhaps the greatest challenge to a naturalistic worldview is explaining consciousness. This difficulty has several aspects. How did experiencing and consciousness evolve? For that matter why would it have evolved? But more troublesome than the evolutionary question is the basic biological one. How can the brain cause sensations and subjective experiences as well as — to put it bluntly - create the mind? Many theists consider this last to be an insurmountable problem for advocates of naturalism.

The Theist’s Own Difficulty

The theist, however, faces an equivalent task. The problem of how mind and matter can interact with each other — much less one cause the other — does not disappear by adopting a supernatural worldview. In fact the difficulty the theist faces may be greater than that faced by the atheist for the simple reason that the theist is committed to a class distinction between spirit & body, mind & matter, to which the advocate of naturalism is not.

The natural scientist adopts the assumption that consciousness is some kind of physical phenomena. If it is a physical phenomena, then it should not be impossible for another physical phenomena to cause it. Understanding how this happens may still be quite difficult, but at least the relationship — between biological brain and physical phenomena of experiencing — is not conceptually impossible. (Of course, understanding how our thoughts can be “merely physical” remains a difficulty, but not an inherently unexplainable one.)

The theist, on the other hand, is committed to a fundamental distinction between matter and mind (or body & soul) that seems to make interaction between the two impossible to conceive. (more…)

Am I an Atheist Whackjob? May 6, 2006

Posted by Rastaban in : Faith & Reason, Naturalism , 4 comments

In a column in The Raw Story, Melinda Barton argues that just as the right has a problem with “religious nutballs” on their extreme, so the left has a problem with “atheist whackjobs” on the extreme left. Sounds plausible to me, since every group and viewpoint has extremes. Plausible, that is, until I realize that her definition of “atheist whackjob” includes me. In fact, includes every atheist I ever met. The left needs to kick us out, she says. (All quotes of Barton are from her article, “The Left’s Own Religious Extremists”).

“Why face off with the atheist whackjobs? Because extremism is extremism is extremism. No rational movement dedicated to intellectual courage and honesty should maintain a relationship with those for whom intellectual laziness, dishonesty, and cowardice are a way of life. Doing what must be done to insure the integrity of the left will require identifying our extremists, countering their mythologies, and acknowledging the dangers they pose to a truly liberal society.”

“For whom intellectual laziness, dishonesty, and cowardice are a way of life” — ouch! Charitably, she goes on to explain that “not all atheists are atheist extremists,” though we will see presently that by her criteria it would appear that all atheists are.

Barton lists 5 “outrageous” claims made by atheist extremists. PZ Myers, a biologist who writes the blog Pharyngula, has already made an excellent point-by-point reply, however since my perspective is slightly different, I’m going to attempt to do the same. (more…)

Berkeley, Cohen & Materialism May 27, 2005

Posted by Rastaban in : Freethinkers, Naturalism , add a comment

I am a fan of Chapman Cohen, who about a century ago was a writer for Freethinker magazine and president of its parent organization in Great Britain, the National Secular Society. I have his Essays in Freethinking, Volume Two. I am not always in agreement with him, but his perspective is usually interesting.

His essay, The Ghost of Religion, is of particular interest — although in my opinion largely mistaken. (more…)

Intelligent Design Unveiled February 21, 2005

Posted by Rastaban in : Evolution & ID, Naturalism , add a comment

Natural History magazine (4/02) has a set of articles on intelligent design: three by intelligent design advocates Michael J. Behe, William A. Dembski, and Jonathan Wells, followed by three responses by Kenneth R. Miller, Robert T. Pennock, and Eugenie C. Scott. Then an interesting article about the history and strategy of intelligent design advocates by Barbara Forrest. And last, Ian Tattersall weighs in on science vs. religion and argues that they are not really in conflict!

At least, they would not be in conflict, he seems to say, if religionists would only stay in their place — which is to reveal timeless, absolute truths–and stay out of the scientific realm — which deals with knowledge that is provisional and anything but absolute. Tattersall writes:

“How can we make progress in science if what we believe today cannot be shown tomorrow to be somehow wrong or at least incomplete? Religious knowledge is in principle eternal, but scientific knowledge is by its very nature provisional.”

He goes on to say

“scientists are in pursuit of knowledge about mundane realities and are not in the business of revealing timeless truths.”

True enough. But has he succeeded in setting up “non-overlapping magisteria” (as I believe Stephen J. Gould described it) between science and religion?

He has not. The distinction between absolute and provisional truth is not a distinction of subject matter but rather a distinction of the nature of knowing. (more…)