Argument from Consciousness

[Robin]

My next, and I promise the last, in my series of Theism's best case. Again, this is from Blackwell's Companion to Natural Theology and it is called the "Argument from Consciousness", by JP Moreland.

For some reason I had expected to be more challenged by this argument. There are a lot of words there but not much being said. Like many theist arguments the premisses are not directly supported. Instead they take some person's criticisism of the premiss and criticise the criticism.

The principle seems to be that any premiss is true if there exists an unsound refutation of it. Anyway, here is the guts of the argument, quoted from the article:

1. Mental events are genuine nonphysical mental entities that exist.
2. Specific mental and physical event types are regularly correlated.
3. There is an explanation for these correlations.
4. Personal explanation is different from natural scientific explanation.
5.The explanation for these correlations is either a personal or natural scientific explanation.
6. The explanation is not a natural scientific one.
7. Therefore, the explanation is a personal one.
8. If the explanation is personal, then it is theistic.
9. Therefore, the explanation is theistic.​

Let me boil that down.

1. Assume dualism is true
2. Assume that the apparently causal relationship between mental and physical events could not possibly be causal
3. Assume that if it is not causal then there must be mental events keeping the mental events correlated with the physical events.
4. Those mental events are God
5. Ta Da!

Looking at the first premiss we find a world of problems:

1. Mental events are genuine nonphysical mental entities that exist.​

What does that even mean? Isn't saying that an event is an entity that exists kind of blurring the difference between "is" and "does"?

What definition of "mental" is being used here? What definition of "physical"?

After that it goes downhill. Premisses 4 and 5 you will recognise from the Gale-Pruss argument I cited earlier. They don't make any more sense in this context.

I will leave the rest to others, but before you dive in, here is a taste of the slightly rambling and very prolix style you can expect:

Three points of clarification are in order. First, minimally, the sort of modality involved may be taken as physical necessity, a form of necessity that runs throughout possible worlds relevantly physically similar to our actual world (e.g. in having the same physical particulars, properties, relations, and/or laws). Second, strong conceivability is the test that is used to judge causal necessitation (given the lattice structures and so forth of two macro-objects impenetrable with respect to each other, it is strongly inconceivable that one could penetrate the other)...​

A new and entirely unfamiliar usage of the word "clarification".

 

[Jeff Corey]

The link doesn't work for me at home.
Anyway, if he says, " 1. Mental events are genuine nonphysical mental entities that exist.", then that's a fail right there. No sense in proceeding further.

 

[arthwollipot]

1. Assume dualism is true

Fail.

 

[Bikewer]

And how about the "if it's personal, it's theistic" thing.... Sounds like a bit of a leap, to me.

Is my long-term mental affair with Shakira proof of God?

 

[HansMustermann]

TBH, the whole thing reads to me more like it says basically, "Some people ascribe some correlation between stuff in their head (wishes, prayers, belief in lucky numbers, whatever) and stuff happening in the real world (e.g., getting that wish.) Even though there is no scientific explanation for that, or at least their personal explanation is very different from the scientific one. That is a form of personal 'religion'." That seems to be a way to summarize it, at least.

I don't think it's even necessary to assume dualism there. However those wishes and beliefs may happen, and however that correlation may be processed, basically it still happens, right? I mean, I'm a big fan of functionalism (as a philosophy of the mind, not the architecture school) myself, but I still see no problem reconciling that with basically "some people believe in woowoo."

Really, I don't see many problems with it, as such.

The main nitpicking point would be with calling it "theistic", which implies a god, whereas it seems to me like "mystical" or "religious" would encompass a lot more such personal explanations. Heck, probably the best word would actually be "woowoo".

Another nitpick would be: exactly what is understood by that correlation. Is it meant a real provable correlation (in which case the burden of proof is on whoever claims it, before it can be used any further in a logic chain) or just that people like to notice spurious patterns and see correlations.

But either way, on the whole it's not even much of an argument as such, it reads more like an observation. Or a formalized version of one. Yes, people like to see correlations even when science assures them there is none, and form woowoo beliefs. Do we need to argue that?

The only problem is if that observation is used in a "therefore God" or really any kind of "therefore X", except as in "therefore woowoo happens." That's where the real fallacy happens, _if_ used as such.

And I don't even think it needs a new name. It is a simple "ignoratio elenchi", i.e., some argument that is actually fully irrelevant for the conclusion. If done intentionally to derail the debate, it may become a "red herring."

(Other fallacies may or may not be used to support the connection to the conclusion, but those are best addressed on a case by case basis IMHO.)

 

[bruto]

I hit the same obstacle as Jeff Corey. Defining an event as an entity loses me from the start.

 

[HansMustermann]

We use abstract entities all the time, though. Depends on how it's meant, though, I guess.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

In addition to what others pointed out, I have absolutely no idea what the argument is supposed to convince me about. The argument concludes with "the explanation is theistic" which ... uhmm ... means what? What is the explanation?

 

[Lord Muck oGentry]

Occasionalism? In the pike position with a backward somersault?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occasionalism

 

[Robin]

The link doesn't work for me at home.
Anyway, if he says, " 1. Mental events are genuine nonphysical mental entities that exist.", then that's a fail right there. No sense in proceeding further.

I got the link from a Google search and it works for me sometimes but not others.

There is a Google Book entry that has most of the text.

 

[Beerina]

My next, and I promise the last, in my series of Theism's best case. Again, this is from Blackwell's Companion to Natural Theology and it is called the "Argument from Consciousness", by JP Moreland.

For some reason I had expected to be more challenged by this argument. There are a lot of words there but not much being said. Like many theist arguments the premisses are not directly supported. Instead they take some person's criticisism of the premiss and criticise the criticism.

The principle seems to be that any premiss is true if there exists an unsound refutation of it. Anyway, here is the guts of the argument, quoted from the article:

1. Mental events are genuine nonphysical mental entities that exist.
2. Specific mental and physical event types are regularly correlated.
3. There is an explanation for these correlations.
4. Personal explanation is different from natural scientific explanation.
5.The explanation for these correlations is either a personal or natural scientific explanation.
6. The explanation is not a natural scientific one.
7. Therefore, the explanation is a personal one.
8. If the explanation is personal, then it is theistic.
9. Therefore, the explanation is theistic.​

Fail. The dividing line you place between "personal" and "scientific" is an artificial one of words. There's no reason you cannot look at what you experience through introspection and apply science to those observations.

 

[Robin]

Fail. The dividing line you place between "personal" and "scientific" is an artificial one of words. There's no reason you cannot look at what you experience through introspection and apply science to those observations.

Yes, as I pointed out before this particular kludge is used in the Gale Pruss argument I mentioned earlier.

 

[Robin]

I have just finished listening to William Lane Craig's podcasts on the Moral Argument.

I was right to stop here. Theism's greatest case doesn't get any greater.

Basically the podcast is a lesson to apologists about how to browbeat people into agreeing.

He encourages tactics of verbal bullying and trying to paint people as heartless monsters if they don't agree.

He even demonstrates the tactic on a participant who doesn't quite buy what he is saying.

He does well in stand up debates because he has a loud voice, forceful personality and thinks quick on his feet.

I think he would perish in an online debate using typed in arguments.

Towards the end he attributes to Quine a view that Quine was most famous for critiquing.

In fact the view he attributes to Quine and criticises is in fact one put by Descartes and Berkeley - that we have no reason for believing in the reality of physical objects.

I guess it does not sound so impressive if he was putting down the views of Descartes.

 

[Robin]

Occasionalism? In the pike position with a backward somersault?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occasionalism

Hmm.. yes.

I noticed something about the argument earlier.

The theory is that there are mental events and physical events

And God is busily correllating them of his own free will.

But by definition we can only observe the mental events.

So for who's benefit it God correlating the physical objects if they are not causally linked to the mental events?

If he stopped the correlation we wouldn't notice.