The Mindlessness of Materialism

The nature of the mind has been debated since mankind first arrived on the scene. In the last century or so, and increasingly in the last several decades, many in the scientific community have denied that there is such a thing as the mind. In this post I'll take a brief look at a recent skirmish in the ongoing debate.

Quotes and comments;
Oct 23, 2008 — There’s a battle brewing over who controls your brain: nature or your mind. Materialist scientists are recognizing that creationists are getting a foothold on this hill and “declaring war over the brain,” according to an article in New Scientist. [1.]

1. 'After giving adequate white space for proponents of the non-materialist view (including Angus Menuge, J. P. Moreland and the Discovery Institute), Amanda Gefter clearly wanted to throw her vote to the reigning materialist paradigm on this matter of mind. She commented on an experiment Schwartz used to support the independent existence of mind, saying, “these experiments are entirely consistent with mainstream neurology – the material brain is changing the material brain.”

- This is akin to her saying, ''a brain wrote my article'' or ''my brain wrote this article.'' (But even then we have to ask who is this self that owns the brain? if the brain is all there is, and there is no mind, then nothing exists to own the brain.) Materialism amounts to saying there is no self. Does anyone (even the most committed materialist) really believe they have no self? To deny the mind is to create a huge problem for rational discourse; it's basically a denial our language is rational, or that it corresponds to reality.

- The denial of mind is a kind of totalitarianism; materialism as totalitarianism.

- I wonder how the Materialist (and no one is a materialist in their daily lives, only when they write articles) would account for the fact certain people want to deny the mind. If there is no mind, and only the brain, how do we explain the fact the brain wants to deny the existence of the mind? (If you're not laughing, you should be; at least that's what my brain thinks.)
Is it a case of narcissism? (A matter of the brain admiring itself in a mirror?) Is it a case of egotism? (And what is causing the brain to feel superior to the mind? what is causing this exaggerated sense of self-importance?) Is it a claim of sovereignty? (Is the brain trying to escape any influence of the mind? Does it desire to implement some kind of new dictatorship?)
If this is the case what part of the brain is involved in this lusting after preeminence, and why? What is motivating the brain to want to exterminate the mind? (And how is the brain knows about this 'thing' called the mind? Is this some kind of malfunction?)

2. In the middle of her article, Gefter got really serious:
"Clearly, while there is a genuine attempt to appropriate neuroscience, it will not influence US laws or education in the way that anti-evolution campaigns can because neuroscience is not taught as part of the core curriculum in state-funded schools. But as Andy Clark, professor of logic and metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh, UK, emphasises: “This is real and dangerous and coming our way.”

- Is it his brain that knows this is a real danger?

3. 'He and others worry because scientists have yet to crack the great mystery of how consciousness could emerge from firing neurons. “Progress in science is slow on many fronts,” says John Searle, a philosopher at the University of California, Berkeley. “We don’t yet have a cure for cancer, but that doesn’t mean cancer has spiritual causes.”

- That's interesting John; do you also know that mental illness doesn't have spiritual causes? Do you know that murder doesn't have spiritual causes? Do you know that intellectual pride doesn't have spiritual causes? (Do you know what 'spiritual' causes are?)

- Who is this we? If all that exists are individual brains, where does this 'we' come from? The trouble here (as elsewhere) is that the materialists smuggle all the attributes of mind into their model of the brain... and do so without warrant. (As Searle admits.)

4. 'And for Patricia Churchland, a philosopher of neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego, “it is an argument from ignorance. The fact something isn’t currently explained doesn’t mean it will never be explained or that we need to completely change not only our neuroscience but our physics.”

- I find it comical that a person who admits they don't have a clue how consciousness 'emerges' accusing other people of using an argument from ignorance. The fact is that we don't know. What we do know is that we need the concept of mind to be able to think and speak rationally.

- The fact something can't be currently explained does not mean it one day will be; this is the faith and the fallacy of scientism.

- One wonders how a brain can speak about things like 'our' neuroscience. This makes no sense to me.

5. “At one time it looked like all physical causation was push/pull Newtonianism,” says Owen Flanagan, professor of philosophy and neurobiology at Duke University, North Carolina. “Now we have a new understanding of physics. What counts as material has changed. Some respectable philosophers think that we might have to posit sentience as a fundamental force of nature or use quantum gravity to understand consciousness. These stretch beyond the bounds of what we today call ‘material’, and we haven’t discovered everything about nature yet. But what we do discover will be natural, not supernatural.”

- One wonders how the brain we call Owen Flanagan know what 'we' will discover in the future. The brains of materialist science admit to adopting ever changing views of things, but somehow their synapses know what views they will adopt in the future. Is this some new evolutionary capacity of the mind perhaps :=)

- People like Flanagan mistake creation for the material world. What they imagine to be merely matter in motion, is in fact a divine creation. (This includes the mind/brain complex.) What they call nature (the product of random motion within the physical universe) is in reality a creation of God. Their descriptions of what happens in the physical world is in fact a description of the creation. Materialist science is merely a description of the world, not an account of its origin or constitutional nature.

6. 'Andy Clark continued his tone of alarm over this battle, calling the intelligent-design position “an especially nasty mind-virus” because it “piggybacks on some otherwise reasonable thoughts and worries.”

- Andy; if all that exists is matter, tell me what this phantasm called 'nasty' is. Is a 'mind-virus' (a seeming non-existent entity) a physical object as well? How does your brain know what 'reasonable' is? (Maybe your brain would like to define it for me.)

Notes;
1. Minding the Brain, or Braining the Mind? Creation/Evolution Headlines; 10/23/2008