There is an objection that theism is a monistic system - which it arguably is not- and so what I said about materialism isn't any worse than the logical consequence of theism. But the fact is, materialism puts all of its bets on a very limited, reductionist program confined by the most limited of physical phenomena that requires the most limited of possibilities, theism does the opposite of that. That difference not only defines the range of the possible under them, it has the most consequential of results in real life.
Putting all of your bets on not only the material universe but the material universe as treated by the very human invention, science, which is a method of excluding things from consideration in order to discover a limited range of general aspects of material phenomena, ideologically imposes limits on what is allowed as possible for consideration.* For example; consciousness is only a "hard problem" if you:
a. insist that it must be a material phenomenon because your ideological commitment to materialism (even under the euphemism "naturalism" or the even more dishonest "physicalism") can't account for the human experience of consciousness,
b. insist, on the basis of ideology and not the practice of logic, that anything that can't be discovered through science can't be real,
c. insist, instead of on defining it as something that matches the human experience of consciousness insist on defining it a something with doesn't match that experience or account for its efficacy.
d. even worse, proposing some physical origin for the experience of consciousness which physically can't match that experience (one of the most popular of those is to magically chant "natural selection" or "DNA" based on a total misunderstanding that natural selection has nothing to do with the range of human consciousness - especially the range of logical and mathematical activities that comprise, among other things, science and ideological assertion - and the action of DNA couldn't possibly account for the speed with which new thoughts - many of them arising for the first time in human and certainly animal history - arise and become effective.
e. Given that such proposed mechanisms can't even account for how the brain, which is supposed to generate the physical structures, could recognize the need to even begin to make such an idea-structure or what it was supposed to make in order to be the right idea-structure and to know that it has made the right, instead of the myriad possible "wrong" idea-structures BECAUSE THE IDEA IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MAKING WASN'T THERE TO INSTRUCT IT, the whole thing couldn't be more irrational, superstitious, generative of pseudo-scientific assertions and, lacking any foundation, could only be imposed on the basis of authoritative dictat not logical persuasion.
All of that and other huge ranges of materialist-atheist assertions in science** has to be resorted to because the materialism it really has as its first commitment is limited by the most banal characteristics of materialist reductionism.
Thinking that starts out without having to insist on those self-imposed shackles on thought isn't bound in the same way, it doesn't have to believe that all reality has the characteristic limits that define physical causation as discerned by science. The belief that God created the universe and sustains it already allows for a far wider range of what is real than materialism does. And the idea that God is free to maintain aspects of reality that aren't covered within the limits that human choice defines as scientific method can account for the existence of minds which are capable of freedom of thought, something which materialism never can. The fact is that something which exists but which is non-physical might be expected to have qualities and abilities that transcend what we perceive and define as physical causation. Such a "ghost" could not only run the machine, it could be the only reason for the machine to exist (though the metaphor comparing animal bodies to machines is obviously a ridiculous and inadequate limiting of what our bodies are in service to ideology).
The Bible, actually, contains all kinds of clues and outright statements that conscious living beings are not merely physical objects. As early as Genesis 9 God talks about making covenants, not only with the representatives of the human species, Noah and his family, but with all of the animal kingdom.
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
God doesn't say he's making a covenant with atoms and subatomic particles and forces such as gravity, or rocks, or mountains, the implication of making a covenant is that God acknowledges that animal life doesn't have the same status because it is capable of coming into something apart from physical causation, that it has qualities that inanimate physical objects don't have, it has a mind capable of entering into a covenant. And as the rest of the Bible shows, people are quite free to violate that covenant but when they do, by their actions, not God breaking that covenant, they'll reap the consequences, in our time up to and including destroying ourselves with global warming because we choose to drive and allow evil incarnate to drill for oil off shore to do that with impunity.
All of the full range of human thought and action based in that thought is entirely compatible and an easy fit into a belief that God created the universe and us and administers to its regular order and can transcend that regular physical order if so chosen. That is because a belief in the Creator and the universe the Creator made in God's freedom is not a monist system. God gave us freedom to disobey and an equal freedom to obey, to be foolish and weak or wise that is definitely not a claim of monism. The monist-materialist-atheist system must insist that minds are not free but entirely a product of regular physical law acting on physical objects (of the kind which modern physics has pretty much dissolved, anyway) which is why it can't account for the human experience of consciousness or even come up with a plausible physical mechanism for how that could be explained.
Materialism is the natural philosophy of fascism and the red-fascism of Marxism or the idiocy of anarchism which will naturally devolve into gangster fascism and the dystopian collapse of moral obligation. A belief in God is the natural philosophy of human freedom, of moral obligation as well as the equal endowment of rights and a right to justice. That's what my years of study of how liberalism went from its highpoint in mid-1960s when the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, Medicaid and Medicare were all passed to the point where it can't even prevent or remove Trump and the rest of the Republican fascists, the thuggish and vulgar putrescence of vulgar materialism comes down to. Vulgar materialism is no different from what the supposed high-brow versions of it bring, look at the Soviet and Maoist versions of that held up as shining examples by those who hijacked and wrecked American liberalism.
* That is the source of the idiotic positivist tactic of declaring questions "meaningless" when material causation can't deal with them but when the question and its possible answers are entirely meaningful and comprehensible. That blatantly dishonest tactic - it really isn't an argument but a means of shutting down uncomfortable questions that materialism-atheism can't deal with. It's also behind the even more childish tactic of the eliminativist-materialist fad of derision for such concepts as consciousness - the ultimate in intellectual and academic decadence because it discredits the very thing that its practitioners make their money and win their fame with the stupid from.
** Cosmology would seem to have been led out of science and into science fiction through it with no need for consensus, just a good story in line with materialist ideology with no physical evidence confirming it even looked for.
"God doesn't say he's making a covenant with atoms and subatomic particles and forces such as gravity, or rocks, or mountains"
ReplyDeleteSo what? God also doesn't say who would win in a battle between Superman and the Hulk.
Where does science determine that?
DeleteGod would allow anyone who is stupid enough to pend their time writing or fantasizing about something like that to make up the story, or stories, if there were one person other than you stupid enough to think about it. What I said would include that idea, a materialist would have to discern the answer to that through resort to science and science can't do that so, to pull one of your dumber tactics on you, your question "So what? God also doesn't say..." is meaningless. It certainly doesn't impinge on what I said.
I think the definition of a discredited ideological stance could be "when Steve Simels takes it to try to avoid an argument". Who knew the last nail in the coffin of logical positivism would be Simps pulling the "meaningless" joker out of the stacked deck.
Also, I wasn't making an argument. I was mocking you.
ReplyDeleteOh, Simpy, it takes a lot more than you're capable of to get to me. I'd tell you to not bother but you can't stand it when you're not getting attention. You're like a bratty 4-year-old who figures betting attention for being a brat is better than not getting attention.
DeleteMaybe I should go back to ignoring you, it's not as if you're getting anywhere
"It takes a lot more than you're capable of to get to me."
ReplyDeleteSure thing, pal. Like Trump declaring his genius, you've just demonstrated exactly the opposite of what you flatter yourself with.
Like I said, it takes more than you've got. I think I saw through that playground debating tactic by the time I was in third grade.
DeleteIt's not me claiming genius, it's pointing out your stupidity. That doesn't take genius, I've seen some of the gals at Eschaton do it and they're not geniuses.
"I've seen some of the gals at Eschaton do it and they're not geniuses."
ReplyDeleteSays the guy who claims he never lurks over there.
A. spending time at Eschaton isn't called "lurking" it's called "being bored", B. I've got a few friends who are in contact with me who still, occasionally, waste time there (don't you remember me telling you that?) C. When I figure you've dumped something here I figure you've dumped over there, I go look to see what the response was. Apparently it's not uncommon for the women of Eschaton to tell you what a putz you are. I mean, Simps, even Tlaz knows it and she's not the brightest Skittle in the bowl. Same for her buddy, TV.
Delete