Post by KenNiemann on Mar 25, 2005 4:02:54 GMT -5
Anyone who argues that something physical determines our thoughts paints themselves into a horrible indefensible corner. Norman Geisler explains:
"A determinist insists that both determinists and nondeterminists are determined to believe what they believe. However determinists believe nondeterminists are wrong and ought to change their view. But, "ought to change" implies they are free to change, which is contrary to determinism…. CS Lewis argued that naturalistic, complete determinism is irrational. For determinism to be true there would have to be a rational basis for their thought. But if determinism is true, then there is no rational basis for thought, since all is determined by nonrational forces. So, if determinism claims to be true then it must be false."
Hence, if persons do in fact have a free will (and it is self-refuting to argue otherwise) then it follows that a personal explanation cannot be reduced to a scientific explanation because scientific explanations cannot account for the real ability to choose, that is, act contrary to a given action. Science is the description of some sort of physical causal nexus and cannot accomodate the nonmaterial.
A statement, under the physicalist view, may be right but we could never know it to be so. For if molecules are determining what we think, then how can we reason or have a free will to choose what is true? Our thoughts and actions would really look like a system of falling dominoes rather than something under our control.
Let's first take a look at naturalism's answer as represented by Ruse (presented in Brown's Smoke and Mirrors: How Science reflects the Nature of Reality):
1) How do we acquire beliefs, attitudes, and practices?
2) How ought we acquire beliefs, attitudes and practices?
"Naturalists are those who think that only question 1) matters; or that 2) is a hopeless question since there is no such thing as a normative standard with which to judge; or that an answer to 1) will be, in fact, an answer to 2); that we cannot answer 2) until we know the answer to 1)."
Norms, under this view are reduced to the physical. And, just as evolution itself is aimless and devoid of teleology, so is our epistemology (the study of how we know what we know). There are two distinct approaches to evolutionary epistemology. One views the "development of science as importantly similar to the evolution of biological species" and the other is not concerned with the theory of change but is focused on the human cognitive capacity as the product of evolutionary change, that is, how we are hard wired to think in a certain way. Ruse identifies the first as "evolutionary epistemology" and the second as "Darwinian epistemology". Ruse rightly rejects evolutionary epistemology as we do not get random variation in new conjectures-theories are highly directed. Moreover, "a teleological account is needed to do justice to scientific theorizing." For this reason, Ruse opts for Darwinian epistemology. An important distinction to be made is that Ruse holds that it is the methodology of science not the theorizing that is genetically hardwired. The methodology includes, for instance, deductive and inductive reasoning. These are epigenetic rules; The argument may be constructed as:
1) Activity A has survival value
2) Characteristics which have survival value are genetically based
3) Hence, Activity A is genetically based
The Darwinian epistemologist holds that activity A is basically a modus ponens manner of thinking which is genetically based and increases our survival value. This, however, is self refuting. If reasoning is based on genes, reasoning about Darwinian epistemology itself is based on genes. Therefore, there is no justification for the Darwinian view other than that it is based on our genes which is circular reasoning. We do not believe things for reasons under this view, we believe things because our genes make us think in a certain way. But under this view, how would we know if the way we think is actually the case, if it is determined by something else, something physical? This view does not allow for the plasticity of mind that science and proper reasoning require. Brown says that merely: "citing modus ponens and consiliences of induction is not much to go on. Does Ruse want to include all the elementary rules of deductive and inductive inference? If the answer is yes, then why do people so often commit the fallacies of affirming the consequent or denying the antecedent? On the other hand if the answer is no, then what is the is the status of the nongenetically determined rules we regularly employ. If Ruse does not have a naturalistic account of these, then why have a naturalistic account of a limited few when a Platonistic account could do the whole job?"
Brown's point is powerful and to take it one step further, if we take the example of seeing colors rather than a continuous spectrum it is evident that true beliefs are often not those which survive anyway. There are many, many instances in nature whereby a false belief lead to survivability. This was also of concern to Darwin himself:
"With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the conviction's of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the conviction of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"
Ruse's Darwinian ethics ( to be distinguished from evolutionary ethics which Ruse rejects), is a progressivist social Darwinism. This view rejects the identification of the the good with that which survives- a variation of the naturalistic (is = ought) fallacy. Rather, according to Ruse, we hard wired for morality- our genes cause various feelings and sympathies. This view fails as well. It should be clear that some in the society of man do not have these genes. The examples are global but we may think of those who do not have these genes of sympathy such as Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot and their followers to name a few. We are now placed in the position of saying that someone who does not have the sympathy gene is somehow bad if we are to argue that what they did was wrong. But to do so, we have to go outside the physical world and appeal to a transcendent immaterial good which cannot be accommodated under Ruse's view. One cannot go from the language of molecular biology to make commentary about the good because it is insufficient to do so. Good is not a physical term; it cannot be measured; it has no dimensions and is therefor not an object for science. Again, we see that Ruse's views reduce to relativism and do not avoid the naturalistic fallacy in the end analysis. Morality to Ruse is an illusion that we all must trick ourselves into believing is objective; but if we have to trick ourselves then it really isn't objective, is it?
In what he claims is a novel move, Brown offers to us that set theory can be employed to demonstrate that Ruse's views are false: since "standard set theories can provide the representation of any possible way that reality might be, hence all possibilities within a given set, how is it that genes can be coding this knowledge?
Genes, then do not seem a likely candidate to ground our knowledge, explain mental events or account for moral reasoning. Given physicalism failure to adequately describe our nature then, it is not intellectually irresponsible for one to postulate an immaterial aspect to ourselves.
"A determinist insists that both determinists and nondeterminists are determined to believe what they believe. However determinists believe nondeterminists are wrong and ought to change their view. But, "ought to change" implies they are free to change, which is contrary to determinism…. CS Lewis argued that naturalistic, complete determinism is irrational. For determinism to be true there would have to be a rational basis for their thought. But if determinism is true, then there is no rational basis for thought, since all is determined by nonrational forces. So, if determinism claims to be true then it must be false."
Hence, if persons do in fact have a free will (and it is self-refuting to argue otherwise) then it follows that a personal explanation cannot be reduced to a scientific explanation because scientific explanations cannot account for the real ability to choose, that is, act contrary to a given action. Science is the description of some sort of physical causal nexus and cannot accomodate the nonmaterial.
A statement, under the physicalist view, may be right but we could never know it to be so. For if molecules are determining what we think, then how can we reason or have a free will to choose what is true? Our thoughts and actions would really look like a system of falling dominoes rather than something under our control.
Let's first take a look at naturalism's answer as represented by Ruse (presented in Brown's Smoke and Mirrors: How Science reflects the Nature of Reality):
1) How do we acquire beliefs, attitudes, and practices?
2) How ought we acquire beliefs, attitudes and practices?
"Naturalists are those who think that only question 1) matters; or that 2) is a hopeless question since there is no such thing as a normative standard with which to judge; or that an answer to 1) will be, in fact, an answer to 2); that we cannot answer 2) until we know the answer to 1)."
Norms, under this view are reduced to the physical. And, just as evolution itself is aimless and devoid of teleology, so is our epistemology (the study of how we know what we know). There are two distinct approaches to evolutionary epistemology. One views the "development of science as importantly similar to the evolution of biological species" and the other is not concerned with the theory of change but is focused on the human cognitive capacity as the product of evolutionary change, that is, how we are hard wired to think in a certain way. Ruse identifies the first as "evolutionary epistemology" and the second as "Darwinian epistemology". Ruse rightly rejects evolutionary epistemology as we do not get random variation in new conjectures-theories are highly directed. Moreover, "a teleological account is needed to do justice to scientific theorizing." For this reason, Ruse opts for Darwinian epistemology. An important distinction to be made is that Ruse holds that it is the methodology of science not the theorizing that is genetically hardwired. The methodology includes, for instance, deductive and inductive reasoning. These are epigenetic rules; The argument may be constructed as:
1) Activity A has survival value
2) Characteristics which have survival value are genetically based
3) Hence, Activity A is genetically based
The Darwinian epistemologist holds that activity A is basically a modus ponens manner of thinking which is genetically based and increases our survival value. This, however, is self refuting. If reasoning is based on genes, reasoning about Darwinian epistemology itself is based on genes. Therefore, there is no justification for the Darwinian view other than that it is based on our genes which is circular reasoning. We do not believe things for reasons under this view, we believe things because our genes make us think in a certain way. But under this view, how would we know if the way we think is actually the case, if it is determined by something else, something physical? This view does not allow for the plasticity of mind that science and proper reasoning require. Brown says that merely: "citing modus ponens and consiliences of induction is not much to go on. Does Ruse want to include all the elementary rules of deductive and inductive inference? If the answer is yes, then why do people so often commit the fallacies of affirming the consequent or denying the antecedent? On the other hand if the answer is no, then what is the is the status of the nongenetically determined rules we regularly employ. If Ruse does not have a naturalistic account of these, then why have a naturalistic account of a limited few when a Platonistic account could do the whole job?"
Brown's point is powerful and to take it one step further, if we take the example of seeing colors rather than a continuous spectrum it is evident that true beliefs are often not those which survive anyway. There are many, many instances in nature whereby a false belief lead to survivability. This was also of concern to Darwin himself:
"With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the conviction's of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the conviction of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"
Ruse's Darwinian ethics ( to be distinguished from evolutionary ethics which Ruse rejects), is a progressivist social Darwinism. This view rejects the identification of the the good with that which survives- a variation of the naturalistic (is = ought) fallacy. Rather, according to Ruse, we hard wired for morality- our genes cause various feelings and sympathies. This view fails as well. It should be clear that some in the society of man do not have these genes. The examples are global but we may think of those who do not have these genes of sympathy such as Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot and their followers to name a few. We are now placed in the position of saying that someone who does not have the sympathy gene is somehow bad if we are to argue that what they did was wrong. But to do so, we have to go outside the physical world and appeal to a transcendent immaterial good which cannot be accommodated under Ruse's view. One cannot go from the language of molecular biology to make commentary about the good because it is insufficient to do so. Good is not a physical term; it cannot be measured; it has no dimensions and is therefor not an object for science. Again, we see that Ruse's views reduce to relativism and do not avoid the naturalistic fallacy in the end analysis. Morality to Ruse is an illusion that we all must trick ourselves into believing is objective; but if we have to trick ourselves then it really isn't objective, is it?
In what he claims is a novel move, Brown offers to us that set theory can be employed to demonstrate that Ruse's views are false: since "standard set theories can provide the representation of any possible way that reality might be, hence all possibilities within a given set, how is it that genes can be coding this knowledge?
Genes, then do not seem a likely candidate to ground our knowledge, explain mental events or account for moral reasoning. Given physicalism failure to adequately describe our nature then, it is not intellectually irresponsible for one to postulate an immaterial aspect to ourselves.