Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins’ worldview collided with a cart yesterday, Descartes that is.
Cogito ergo sum… I think therefore I am. We’ve all probably heard Descartes statement before, and can agree that it’s one way to affirm our existence. But is there anything else we may be able to conclude from it? I THINK so for at least three reasons!
1. The very fact that we are thinking means that thinking is going on, and therefore we are having thoughts. And right now I know what you’re thinking – really, is this a joke?
Slow down… this is deep for us New Yorkers.
Let me ask you a question: are your thoughts material or immaterial?
Can you weigh them? Touch them? Taste them? Smell them?
No is the answer to all of those questions, yet your thoughts do exist!
What senses did you use to determine that you had a thought? None that I know of . Ah wait you say, but I can see my thoughts in my head.
Yes, I can see them! It must be sight!
Hmmm… ok, can I cut your brain open and see them for myself, with my eyes?
Uh, no and please don’t do that.
2. The reason I can’t see your thoughts is because they’re immaterial, and that’s very important. You have private first hand knowledge of your thoughts, and I could never see them or know them using scientific means unless you told them to me.
Why does this matter? It matters because this means that immaterial entities, like your thoughts, exist. Therefore, naturalism materialism, the view that only material entities exist, is false.
3. If just one immaterial entity exists, then materialistic naturalism implodes – Boom! Even if no one can explain how the relationship between our material brain and immaterial thoughts work, materialism is still false! Even if we find out that it’s our physical brains that generate immaterial thoughts, materialism is still false. An immaterial realm must exist at the moment you generate just one thought.
Funny how the materialists pride themselves on reason which involves thought – something that renders their worldview null. We are the champions of reason! The real free thinkers! Lets have a reason rally!
But a reason rally would involve thinking and the ability to reason,
both of which mitigate against their naturalistic world view.
In fact, in a naturalistic materialist worldview, there is no reasoning happening at all – it’s all just human brain cells reacting.
If the neurons in your brain are just the result of a previous series of chemical reactions, like dominos falling, governed by the laws of physics, then there is no actual reasoning going on, just reactions. Therefore, there is no free will or free thinking either.
What do reason rally headliner Richard Dawkins and author Sam Harris have to say?
This conclusion is affirmed by atheists like Richard Dawkins. He says “In the universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, and other people are going to get lucky; and you won’t find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good – nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music.’”
If we’re just dancing to our own DNA, we’re not actually reasoning about anything.
So go ahead, get jiggy with it.
Another atheist, Sam Harris who wrote the book “Free Will”, says “Take a moment to think about the context in which your next decision will occur: You did not pick your parents or the time and place of your birth. You didn’t choose your gender or most of your life experiences. You had no control whatsoever over your genome or the development of your brain. And now your brain is making choices on the basis of preferences and beliefs that have been hammered into it over a lifetime — by your genes, your physical development since the moment you were conceived, and the interactions you have had with other people, events, and ideas. Where is the freedom in this? Yes, you are free to do what you want even now. But where did your desires come from?
In his book, Harris is clearly saying that we don’t have free will, and it’s our brain, not us, making the choices. Try telling that to your spouse!
This is akin to a car driving a passenger, rather than a passenger driving a car.
We are passive in the decision making process because our brains do the deciding – our choices are determined by past events and physical forces. In that situation, how can anyone be held responsible for their choices if they just can’t help it? Oh this sounds too familiar to me – my kids use this excuse all the time!
My brain reacts that way it reacts – I can’t control it, it controls me! No free will, no reasoning, no immaterial self says the naturalist. And we know this because our brains have determined it?! Sadly, if your thoughts are just reactions, you can’t truly know anything on that view. In a recent development, materialist determinism has been falsified by neuroscientist Jeffery Schwartz here: Naturalism Falsified
Summary:
Like Frank Turek says “any ultimate explanation for the universe must account for non-material realities like the mind”. Naturalism cannot bear this burden of proof and therefore renders itself false.
For me, I need an immaterial mind to reason and make rational choices while simultaneously generating immaterial thoughts to accomplish that. I need the ability to reason to write this blog, and you need the ability to reason to evaluate it.
As a naturalist materialist, you can’t do that and remain consistent in your world view.
So, I think, therefore I am… a theist.
My name is Anthony Uvenio and I’m one of the directors of New York Apologetics. Thanks for taking the time to visit our blog. I’m the husband of one, the father of two, and the eater of at least three meals a day – welcome to my table! Growing up in New York, I celebrated a weekly holiday known as Sunday. It was there that I learned how to eat and argue – my two favorite things! My clothes prove that I eat better than I argue, but that’s a topic for another Sunday and another sauce. During the week, I like to practice apologetics with an attitude. I’m not shy, so let’s dig in and discuss the best arguments for the existence of God which will usually end up with me including some mention of food.
The website is designed like our dinner table on Sunday – there is a lot to eat here! So enjoy the meal – pick and eat anything you want. Be sure to let me know what you like and what you don’t because I want to be a good host and have you leave full! It’s a commandment in New York ya’know.
Hey Antnee, good job! But this got me thinking. Maybe Harris is correct, you didn’t have a choice to write this article, but your brain made you do it. You were driven by your DNA and countless Sunday dinners arguing over who made the best meatballs. Poor guy. However, if you’re right – this is a well articulated refutation of less than adequate explanations of blind progress through natural selection. My brain is telling me to stop right now because it hurts to think this early in the day.
Blessings to you, my friend.
Keep up the good work.
Anthony,
I wanted to point out that this isn’t a recent development, its citing a book review from 2003 that doesn’t support the conclusion.
The link showing Naturalism to “fail” is a link to a small paragraph on this site:
https://www.newyorkapologetics.com/determinism-falsified/
Which is a small snippet and link to this site:
http://winteryknight.com/2015/08/29/studies-by-ucla-neuroscientist-jeffrey-schwartz-falsifies-materialist-determinism/
Which is referencing this site:
http://www.discovery.org/a/2161
Which is a book review of Jeffery Schwartz’s book written in 2003, and clearly states,
” If you want a knock-down argument against materialism and materialist accounts of mind, this won’t do it.”
in reference to Jeffery’s book and views.
It’s not a recent development and not supporting the conclusion.
Furthermore, because we don’t understand, or we have not yet discovered, the mechanism behind a thing such as thought, does not support the conclusion that this thing is immaterial.
Michael
Hi Mike. The reviewer of Schwartz’s book says that this isn’t a knock-down argument against materialism, however citing Schwartz himself, he says Schwartz’s explicit anti-materialism and embrace of dualism therefore places him very much at odds with the scientific and philosophical mainstream. My point is that Schwartz is a neuroscientist who sees that materialism is not the only option as most scientists would have us believe. As for your concluding statement, not understanding or discovering something does not prove immaterialism wrong either. In fact, if we don’t understand something, we should be open to all options.
Anthony,
I completely agree that Schwartz is not a friend to materialism from what I can read in the review. It’s not uncommon for scientists to having competing ideals to be fleshed out with the tools of science. In this respect the idea that we have 0 free will, still appears to be an hypothesis with interesting conclusions, however there is a great deal of work ahead to provide more proof.
Materialism is not falsified if one neuroscientist has a consenting opinion. He could be right, he could also be completely wrong. If one, or a few, consenting opinion(s) equals a falsified hypothesis, everything in science would be false. We would still be arguing about the earth being flat or being the center of the universe.
I do agree that we should be open to all options, but these options still require evidence. Extraordinary options, require extraordinary evidence, more extraordinary than simply showing a scientists who disagrees with a current proposed hypothesis.
Thoughts may not be experienced by the 5 physical senses, per se, but they are indeed material in that neural activity occurs in the physical matrix of the brain. While the process of thinking is still poorly understood, neuroimaging has determined that it involves interactions between signaling pathways which carry information, and neurons that are representing information in short term memory. Consciousness, on the other hand, is certainly not quantifiable and in my opinion, will never be associated with a ‘physical’ action. Not everything has to be measurable and quantifiable, whether you believe in hard science, a supreme being or a binding, non-temporal consciousness, as do I.
Thanks for the comment. You say: “Thoughts may not be experienced by the 5 physical senses, per se, but they are indeed material”. How are the thoughts themselves “indeed” material? What material properties do they possess that would make them physical? They may cause physical things to happen to the body, but that does not mean they are physical in and of themselves. I agree with your assessment of consciousness, but doesn’t it follow and make sense that an immaterial consciousness can produce immaterial thoughts? Excluding that as an option seems unsound.