Worth watching

Agnostic theism?



Daniel Dennett on the tricks of consciousness

Where do we begin?

We have spoken often here about how the only indubitable certainty is "that I am experiencing existence". From there our epistemology exhibits a steady downhill trend. Even so, as finite men we have only one option in our search — and that is to begin with ourselves. And here I think is the dilemma that I've been trying to articulate. (with limited success.)

What justifies such a move?

What justification do we have to begin with our own experience? There is only one answer that holds any weight, and It's not atheism. Atheism destroys any justification to begin with ourself. Within atheism the foundation of all reality is an impersonal something. If you start with impersonal something, then man must be reducible to impersonal stuff. To argue otherwise is to say the stream rises above it's source.

My co-blogging friend Matt seems to realize this (at least the first bit) and thus, has accepted determinism. Man is simply part of the machine. But he can't live consistently within such a world view — none of us can. The implications are too destructive. As such, he clings to one last hope: "My life is meaningful because I find it to be meaningful". I empathize with his sentiment here – we all do – but it's an unjustified leap. It's unjustified because it destroys itself when it tries to answer the question I have asked above. "What gives us the right to start with ourselves?"

It all comes down to this word "personal". If, for the sake of argument, we presuppose atheism, then to avoid having the stream rise above it's source, "personhood" must be reducible the impersonal. Suddenly all the attributes that man has historically thought unique to himself (self-determination, the importance of love, the ability to act for 'better' or 'worse') have been destroyed by man's only option: The decent into behaviorism and determinism. Man is just a part of the machine.

One must watch closely at this juncture as all but the most hopeless of men employ some understandably slippery language in the hope of avoiding the implications. You will hear them say things like, "You are making this all sound much worse than it really is. You simply fail to comprehend the incredible potential of the material world!" and "There is no God needed, just look at all the world can do with out him!" Though I truly empathize with such statements, they are irreconcilably flawed. First off, they simply beg the question. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, they make an unjustified optimistic leap. The leap is to desire one's unique personhood in-spite of what must become a reductionist programme in the absence of God. Any attempts to argue otherwise once again have our stream rising above it's source.

I hope I have made the situation clear. It's a desperate place to come to, but if the foundation is impersonal something we are left with no alternative. Now I often have those who are of the atheist persuasion become angry with me at this point. They act as though I have tricked them. There has to be another way... and indeed there is, but before we can consider it we must feel the depth of our plight. If we begin with the impersonal, man is dead. There is no other alternative.

So what other option do we have? "What right do we have to begin with ourself?". There are only two options here an I am convinced that the presupposition of atheism has utterly failed. Let us now consider that which Christianity holds to be truth — that at the center of all reality lies personality. If this proposition obtains we don't have the dilemma of the stream rising above its source. In-fact, personality becomes irreducible altogether. There is an upward rather than downward movement. In atheism we think we know what material is and what it does, thus we are reduced to it. Under Christianity we are only experiencing diffused personality. We cannot fully grasp what it is to be personal. Our ultimate starting point is not blind matter, but a personal God. Our ultimate relationship to reality is not downward, but upward. The mistake of atheism is that it tries to get to know personality by studying corpses.

In the Christian system, beginning with ourself is justified as we are created in the image of God. Like God, we posses a measure of self-determination. Thus, our search is valid because we really CAN search. Also like God, our mind operates according to reason, thus validating our search for unity within the varity. However an important distinction between man and God is that man is finite (and fallen, but that's for another time). Our finite nature makes necessary the 'search' for truth. We don't arrive programmed. We need to look for it. And so, in these ways our most basic task of beginning with ourselves is justified.

One caveat I must add is this: We must here make the distinction between validating the "starting from one's self" and validating the claims of rationalism which stipulate we can achieve final answers using ONLY man, at the exclusion of any revealed religion. This has been the enlightenment project that has died a thousand deaths, but for some reason continues to resurface in the minds of men. If we choose to reject all forms of revelation the result is predictable as the rising of the sun. Unless an unjustified leap of faith is adopted, man is dead. All is arbitrary. We are lost.

As I continue to grapple with these questions I am increasingly confronted with the fact that Christianity, as a system, answers man's fundamental questions like no other philosophy or religion can. It's coherence and correspondence continue to amaze me. Though there are plenty of peripheral questions I continue to do battle with, I am able to live in the comfort of knowing the big ones have answers that satisfy the deepest yearnings of man.

- Insert cliched shakespeare quote here -

In the interview a couple of posts below, Denys Turner makes the claim that in order to be a “proper, card carrying, atheist” you need to find a way of avoiding a certain question: Why is there something, rather than nothing?

It’s an interesting, and extremely important question. However, I don’t think that it really poses a great difficulty for an atheist such as myself, as there’s an extremely simply, but perfectly valid answer:

I don’t know.

That’s it. In some of the discussions I’ve had, both here and elsewhere, the theism/naturalism debate is treated almost as if it’s a zero-sum game – if naturalism doesn’t have the answers, then theism must be onto something. But for me that just doesn’t flow. It’s quite possible to completely demolish the naturalistic conception of the universe without providing any validation of the ‘God Hypothesis’, as they’re merely two separate attempts to explain why things are the way they are.

The theistic argument can’t just be a case of: “If naturalism can’t explain it then there must be a God”. Like any theory, it has to be built up independently.

In the same way, dualism is quite distinct from theism. It's quite possible - though I don't personally believe it - that morality is dependent on an aspect of the universe that we've yet to discover. Saying this merely suggests that there's still something for us to learn about what we call reality. It says nothing about possible deities. To say that there is “something” more than the material universe out there is to say nothing about the nature of that something – it’s worth bearing in mind that the discoveries we make about the universe in the next millennia or so are more than likely to be beyond anything that we can currently conceive.

The universe is a mysterious place, and we’re far from having all the answers. But that in itself is absolutely no argument for God.

An agreement!!!

After months of essentially shooting past one another Matt and I have arrived at an agreement regarding the nature of meaning and purpose in the life of the Atheist. To arrive at this point we must first assume the NT emergence of CT. I would obviously disagree with this assumption, but I do it a priori. Similarly the atheist affirms this assumption and does so a priori. Now on to the agreement which can be seen evolving in this thread

The agreement as it now stands
We will call the following thesis the 'internal meaning thesis'

{IMT} =since we are conscious and self-aware (CT) we are able to perceive our own existence and have an emotional/intellectual reaction (MT) to our own state of existence.

The same formula can be used to establish the existence of an internally generated sense of purpose but I see no need to formalize another silly thesis statement to substantiate that.

We have also come to an agreement that if NT then IMT necessitates that Man is the only source from which meaning and purpose can spring. Having said that the atheist acknowledges that Man as a collective unit has no meaning, no purpose, no hope. The atheist then lives in a reality where he punctuates his existence with moments self-ordained meaning and purpose all the while realizing that in an ultimate sense life is purposeless and meaningless.

To me this sounds akin to fulfilling a life long dream to build an elaborate sand castle on a remote white sand beach. Then after applying the final touch you realize you built it within reach of the quickly rising tide... and you forgot your camera.

I'd guess if you wanted my analogy to be even more accurate you'd need to have the sand castle be conscious and you to have never existed at all, but then we are just using stupid talk. I'll just chalk that up to the weakness of analogies in general. =)

So at the end of the day we seem of have a much better handle on our terms, yet the more clearly we define the Atheist position the more I realize how unacceptable I find the implications. I'd imagine the implications will be discussed in the coming posts.

Deception loves to hide

I am about to undertake setting up "the problem of meaning" for the atheist. I am not here going to try and show how the theists are able to maintain their sense of meaning, but perhaps I will come back to it. Let's start with a few thesis definitions.

Let's call the first the 'meaning thesis':

{MT} = the emotional/intellectual reaction a conscious agent has to concepts, situations, surroundings or other conscious agents

It should be noted that MT is true for the theist and the atheist alike. However, my question is: Is this a valid argument if God does not exist?

The first assumption we must make is that one must be conscious to make such a claim. This may seem obvious, but it is an important subtlety to my argument. Let's devise a working definition for our purposes and call it the 'consciousness thesis':

{CT} = An agent that is aware of it's self and it's surroundings

Now if there is no God CT must be explainable by the 'naturalistic thesis'

{NT} = All existence is the product of mindless chance combined with the natural laws and time

The best atheist explanation I have yet heard on the reconciliation of CT & NT is the concept of emergence. Basically stating that our minds or what we call "us" or "I" should ultimately be explainable through emergent properties between the interactions of the elemental parts that form our whole. "We are more than the sum of our parts" the adherents of this philosophy will say.

Matt is also fond of saying that the experience of a situation is something more (or perhaps different) than the explanation of it.

But what exactly is meant by this? Surly it is not to be assumed that in light of NT there is an increase of some kind of substantial reality. All that can be allowed is that the result of situation or phenomenon X is inscrutable.

Therefore, if NT, then CT can not truly be 'more than' the summation of it's parts, it is then only inscrutable interactions of the lower essential parts.

So what then can be said of meaning? If NT, then MT is yet another emergent property of the system. The aurora borealis is also an emergent property of the system. Does it have meaning? The objection can then be made by the NT holders, "but we are different!" My response would be "well sure, but in what way?". If any fantastic occurrence can be explained purely in terms of emergence where does meaning come in?

The atheist will be tempted to reply that CT can preserve our sense of meaning, but if CT is purely an emergent property of NT where does meaning get smuggled in?

It would seem to me that though it is not disputed that you feel your life has meaning and that you find certain things to be meaningful, if one considers NT, you are forced to realize that you are simply a very small part of a fantastic, albeit meaningless, reaction. You may want to hold onto NT and MT in the worst way, but I do not see how one can allow the other.

One further point I'd like to make is that if NT I believe MT if fundamentally broken. If NT, then "I exist", in the strongest sense, cannot be upheld. "you" do not exist as a substantial reality. What you consider to be "you" is a temporary synthesis of sub atomic particles. "you" are but a phase in a reaction. Here again, the matter that you call "you" can only have as much meaning as the purpose you are meant to serve. Thus, according to NT your purpose and therefore meaning is null.

Let me be clear in my position that I do not believe this about you. I believe you are filled with meaning and your life has purpose to a degree that you cannot now even begin to realize. I am merely trying to help you see that the atheist position does not allow for the life you wish to live unless you feel comfortable living a life of fundamental self deception.

Meat robots

I'm turning off comments on this post, as the debate is currently taking place across about three different threads already (taking in morality, free will and the existence of God - boy, do we like to make life difficult for ourselves!). It's really no more than a look-this-is-quite-interesting post anyway.

The following is from an article about consciousness by Steven Pinker in Time magazine. His argument is that mind/body distinction is a fallacy, and that thought, feelings and experience are no more than physical processes. The whole thing is worth reading, but I thought I'd quote the end comments he makes:

"...the biology of consciousness offers a sounder basis for morality than the unprovable dogma of an immortal soul. It's not just that an understanding of the physiology of consciousness will reduce human suffering through new treatments for pain and depression. That understanding can also force us to recognize the interests of other beings--the core of morality.

As every student in Philosophy 101 learns, nothing can force me to believe that anyone except me is conscious. This power to deny that other people have feelings is not just an academic exercise but an all-too-common vice, as we see in the long history of human cruelty. Yet once we realize that our own consciousness is a product of our brains and that other people have brains like ours, a denial of other people's sentience becomes ludicrous. "Hath not a Jew eyes?" asked Shylock. Today the question is more pointed: Hath not a Jew--or an Arab, or an African, or a baby, or a dog--a cerebral cortex and a thalamus? The undeniable fact that we are all made of the same neural flesh makes it impossible to deny our common capacity to suffer.

And when you think about it, the doctrine of a life-to-come is not such an uplifting idea after all because it necessarily devalues life on earth. Just remember the most famous people in recent memory who acted in expectation of a reward in the hereafter: the conspirators who hijacked the airliners on 9/11.

Think, too, about why we sometimes remind ourselves that "life is short." It is an impetus to extend a gesture of affection to a loved one, to bury the hatchet in a pointless dispute, to use time productively rather than squander it. I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift."