The Amazing Autonomous Material Mind?

When defending Christian theism via the presuppositional method, we many times visit the various byways and side-roads of all of human experience. These visitations are to show that the presuppositions of the unbeliever are not consistent with the facts of human experience -- that the unbeliever is a self-contradiction (Prov. 26:5, "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit."). Needless to say, it is, by the nature of the case, inefficient to explicate every implication of particular problems in the materialist worldview in every conversation.

In recent conversations the discussion became focused on the issue of the cogency and existence of immaterial entities in the purely materialistic and immanent reality of atheism. The discussion was focused on the example of the mind being not composed of material. This issue is THE big problem for modern materialist philosophers of "mind." These atheist philosophers have been thrashing about and stewing in their own juices for a century, at least.

The idea that the mind is no more than the brain has infected society to an alarming degree, of late, and seems to be an accepted article of faith by many. Many unsophisticated man-in-the-street atheists believe it is plausible -- in spite of the fact that such a view undermines much, if not all, of their other beliefs (and thereby secretly involving themselves in unacknowledged, hidden self-contradictions).

I have been asked: "Why couldn't the mind be material?" One would hope that sometimes people would "do their homework!" For one, the properties of a purely material "mind" are not the properties that most unbelievers ascribe to themselves -- as being free rational beings. Or, on the other hand, how immaterial entities such as abstractions, mathematics, laws of logic are intelligible and exist in a reality of pure matter. Another conundrum is how aggregates of matter become conscious and self-aware, the problem of personal identity and such -- all from determining physical causes. No materialist theory of consciousness -- what consciousness is and how it "emerges" from matter -- is forthcoming. Be that as it may, we have endeavored in the pages of this blog to delineate the concomitant conclusions of the atheist presuppositions. Typical assumptions of the atheist are:

(1) Only material exists within our "universe"¹;
(2) The uniformity of nature. Nature is uniform in time -- the regularity of the laws of nature, the same in the past, present and future²;
(3) All states of the material universe are governed by material laws;
(4) Humans are purely material systems produced by chance and the laws of matter (consequence of (1),(2) and (3));
(5) Therefore, humans are purely material;
(6) Consequently, the mind and the material brain must be the same, or, rather, "mental" states are no more than particular material configurations (states) of the brain;
(7) Therefore, all "mental" states are the results (effects) of material processes, and consequently, "thoughts" are effects and "epiphenomena" -- illusions with no causal agency;
(8) However, humans are autonomous!

It should be apparent to most that (8) is contrary to (1) through (7). However it is not apparent to those who are willing(!) adherents of the irrationality of "modern" thought, and nonetheless, believe in the existence of their amazing autonomous material mind!³

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1 I put universe in quotes since the modern (atheist) view is that our observable universe is a detached quantum bubble -- the result of a quantum fluctuation in a larger "bulk" spacetime. Our "universe" is just one among a huge number of universes (multiverse theory). For the atheist, this larger "bulk" is considered eternal, uncreated and a brute fact. Regardless, the issue of minds within our "universe" is independent of that theory, as to the atheist only matter exists within our "universe."^↩
2 The unifromity of nature (a phrase coined by Hume) is the principle that the laws of nature in operation today are the same as those in the past and also the future. The principle is basic to the notion of causation and the necessary presupposition for science "to work." It is foundational to the principle of scientific induction. An atheist that would deny the uniformity of nature would see his entire "scientific" worldview crash to the ground.^↩
3 When the self-avowed material monist secretly believes (8) he is, in fact, an inconsistent crypto-dualist, cf. Van Til on the antitheses and An Atheist's Miracle.^↩

The Swindle of Emergentism

The inaugural post for Scripta Scientificae pro Christiana Apologeticum is now available. You can read it here: "The Swindle of Emergentism".

Village Atheism and Magical Configurations of Matter.

A discussion on social media yielded this claim by a village atheist:

"...but when I die, just like you, I will be nothing more than space dust and all the molecules of matter..."

Such statements are wide-spread and betray the philosophical naivety and unexamined assumptions of the typical village atheist.

Do you see the incoherence of this claim of an atheist material monist? He says he "...will be nothing more." This atheist's language betrays his belief that he is currently something more than molecules.

However, on the material monist view and his assumption of the uniformity of nature he was, is and will always be nothing more than matter. To be perfectly clear, according to material monism, this atheist is at present nothing more than molecules. This is a matter of logical consistency. The atheist's faith commitment to the uniformity of nature requires this conclusion. Of course, it is true that his current configuration of molecules is different than those of a dispersed configuration of those molecules, and as such, they exhibit different properties than the dispersed molecules. This is no more puzzling than Hydrogen molecules and Oxygen molecules having different properties than water when they are combined chemically to produce H₂O. But such properties, sometimes termed "emergent," are not autonomous properties.¹ All of the properties of water are reducible to the underlying laws of matter by way of the equations of quantum mechanics. The behavior of water is determined by the underlying quantum mechanical properties of the ultimate material constituents (the quantum fields which we have discussed here). This is the case for all configurational properties of matter, they are all reducible to the underlying physics. In fact, according to material monism and the uniformity of nature they must be. This is the scientific ideal of atheistic science -- all of reality must ultimately come within the purview of physical causal laws. After all, it is called material monism, right? Reality is closed with respect to matter and its motions via physical causes. According to the myth of macro-evolution, the physical processes that produced the stars, galaxies, solar systems, planets then ultimately life, then conscious life along with the human intellect, are necessarily, by continuity, the same processes producing the present behaviors of particular molecular configurations called "man." Any "mental" properties of this particular configuration of molecules are determined by the dance of the quantum fields, not the other way around. So much for free rational thought. Ironically, these philosophies and theories are the products of self-styled atheist "free thinkers!"

This atheist, like all village atheists, maintains the mutually incoherent assumptions of human autonomy, uniformity of nature (their principle of necessity) and the ultimate chance character of reality. These are uncritically examined presuppositions of the typical unbeliever. To maintain human autonomy in the face of material monism is to believe that humans are magical configurations of matter. In a solely material universe human autonomy would not exist. Nonetheless, village atheist Richard Dawkins unabashedly believes in atheist miracles.² "Consistent" atheists like Provine, Rosenberg and Harris (as discussed here, here and here) can clearly see the logical conclusion of their faith in material monism and the uniformity of nature and thereby deny human rational autonomy -- even though it reduces their epistemology and ethics to absurdity. It follows from their presupposition that they know nothing, despite their claim to "scientific" knowledge, and they acknowledge the total amoral character of reality.

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1 Philosopher John Searle's favorite example of emergent properties is digestion. He correctly points out that digestion is not a property of elementary particles. However, it is obvious that such an emergent biological property is not autonomous and is reducible to bio-chemistry, then to physics and quantum mechanics. To deny that would be to destroy the continuity of nature and the entire atheist reductionist "scientific" enterprise. Reductionism is a necessary corollary of material monism. And bottom-up physical causation is the only causation in town.^↩
2 Discussed here. Dawkins, by maintaining human autonomy, is apparently unaware that he has implicitly thrown out the uniformity of nature. Hence, human autonomy to Dawkins is an irrational miracle.^↩