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Materialistic Monism
Keith Ward, God and the Philosophers (Augsburg Fortress: 2009), Excerpt, pp. 143-147.
The clear facts of consciously valued experience and of freely chosen purpose, the intelligibility and elegance of the deep structure of the physical world, the visions of transcendent value in art, the categorical demands of duty and of the search for truth, and the testimony of so many to a felt power making for goodness and uniting the mind to a higher selfless reality of wisdom and bliss - all these things the materialist has to consign to illusion. May it not be that is is the materialist who is refusing to see what is there?
From Richard's Website: Richard Carrier is a nationally-renowned author and speaker. As a professional historian, published philosopher, and prominent defender of the American freethought movement, Dr. Carrier has appeared across the country and on national television defending sound historical methods and the ethical worldview of secular naturalism. He holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University in ancient history, specializing in the intellectual history of Greece and Rome, particularly ancient philosophy, religion, and science, with emphasis on the origins of Christianity and the use and progress of science under the Roman empire. He is best known as the author of Sense and Goodness without God and a major contributor to The Empty Tomb, as well as writer and editor-in-chief (now emeritus) for the Secular Web, and for his copious work in history and philosophy online and in print.
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Luke Muehlhauser ("lukeprog") is an atheist and naturalist who arrived there via a journey as a devout pastor's kid. His story is moving. The tone and discussion here is sympathetic and friendly, and the writing almost always thought provoking. The site includes some impressive resources, like an evaluation of all of William Lane Craig's debates and a voluminous list of debates about God. Luke's site is a beacon of thoughtful and respectful dialogue. Highly Recommended. About itself: "See, believers have two ways of thinking. In most situations, they think with the same logic as most people do: this is our 'common sense.' Tell a believer that the bank stole his money, or that an ancient book says you can heal disease by dancing around a fire, and he will ask for evidence. That is common sense. ... The whole point of my website is this: If a believer applies his special thinking to any other area of life, it becomes clear how irrational that special thinking is. And if he applies common sense to his religion, it becomes clear how irrational that religion is."
Is God a Delusion? A Reply to Religion's Cultured Despisers (Wiley-Blackwell: Dec. 3, 2008), p. 49.
Everything we care about — and, more significantly, everything we should care about — is something the universe of "blind physical forces" just doesn't care about. A materialist view of reality turns morality and goodness into the idiosyncratic concerns of a single species that might never have existed (and if we hadn't, the universe wouldn't have cared a whit). When we are gone (as we will be), the universe will once again just be a world of meaningless facts and events. The world of things without life, without personality, without a capacity to care — this, according to the scientific picture endorsed by Dawkins and Stenger and others, is the ultimate reality. ¶ Juxtaposed against this picture, there is the hope that the essence of the universe is characterized by something else — what Martin Luther King called "a loving purpose." It is the hope that there is something fundamental that eludes empirical investigation and which is essentially on the side of goodness. In such a universe, the moral agent who cares about the good is in tune with the fundamental truth about the universe in a way that the sociopath is not.
"Science's Alternative to an Intelligent Creator: the Multiverse Theory", in Discover (Nov. 10, 2008).
A sublime cosmic mystery unfolds on a mild summer
afternoon in Palo Alto, California... The day seems ordinary enough.
Cyclists maneuver through traffic, and orange poppies bloom on dry
brown hills near Linde’s office on the Stanford University campus. But
everything here, right down to the photons lighting the scene after an
eight-minute jaunt from the sun, bears witness to an extraordinary fact
about the universe: Its basic properties are uncannily suited for life.
Tweak the laws of physics in just about any way and — in this universe,
anyway — life as we know it would not exist. ¶ Consider just two
possible changes. Atoms consist of protons, neutrons, and electrons. If
those protons were just 0.2 percent more massive than they actually
are, they would be unstable and would decay into simpler particles.
Atoms wouldn’t exist; neither would we. If gravity were slightly more
powerful, the consequences would be nearly as grave. A beefed-up
gravitational force would compress stars more tightly, making them
smaller, hotter, and denser. Rather than surviving for billions of
years, stars would burn through their fuel in a few million years,
sputtering out long before life had a chance to evolve. There are many
such examples of the universe’s life-friendly properties—so many, in
fact, that physicists can’t dismiss them all as mere accidents. ¶ Physicists don’t like coincidences. They like even less the notion that
life is somehow central to the universe, and yet recent discoveries are
forcing them to confront that very idea. Life, it seems, is not an
incidental component of the universe, burped up out of a random
chemical brew on a lonely planet to endure for a few fleeting ticks of
the cosmic clock. In some strange sense, it appears that we are not
adapted to the universe; the universe is adapted to us. ¶
Call it a fluke, a mystery, a miracle. Or call it the biggest problem
in physics. Short of invoking a benevolent creator, many physicists see
only one possible explanation: Our universe may be but one of perhaps
infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast multi verse. Most of
those universes are barren, but some, like ours, have conditions
suitable for life.
Michael Egnor on Behaviorism said...
"The Battle for Your Mind" at Evolution News and Views (Oct 29 2008).
Having convinced only a small fraction of Americans that chance and tautology — i.e. Darwinism — adequately explains life (despite a court-ordered monopoly on public education for the last half-century), materialists are moving on to your mind. Materialism posits that your mind is meat. No soul, no spirit, just chemicals, congealed by natural selection to dupe you into believing that you’re more than an evanescent meat-robot. It’s a hard sell, but that’s not to say that materialists haven’t tried. In the first half of the 20th century, behaviorists proposed that internal mental states were irrelevant or didn’t exist at all. All that mattered in the study of the mind was stimulus and response. Behaviorism turned out, unsurprisingly, to be a sterile avenue of research, as one might guess about a theory of the mind that denied or ignored mental states. As a theory of the mind, it is now largely regarded as insane, even by materialists. Behaviorism may be the only scientific theory to be finally extinguished by a joke: After a night of passion, one behaviorist rolls over in bed and says to the other: "that was good for you; how was it for me?"
In recent years, as our deepening understanding of the delicate
complexity of the universe continues unabated, Naturalists are
increasingly turning to "multiverse" hypotheses to blunt or dodge the
force of fine-tuning and teleological arguments for the existence of a Designer. Roughly, the idea is that, parallel to the universe we inhabit, there exists an infinite series of universes, each of which is
different from our own in at least one respect. In the multiverse,
every contingent possibility is instantiated in at least one universe.
If it helps, the concept has been used for dramatic effect on the TV
show, Sliders, and in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The multiverse is thought to undercut design arguments because while it is wildly improbable that our life-supporting universe should exist if there was only one shot at it, it is inevitable that our universe exist if every possible universe exists. (Yes, it begs the question of the necessary
conditions for this meta-universe, but we'll leave that to the side.)
There are mixed feelings about the multiverse hypothesis amongst
skeptics and Naturalists. While it may be a stopgap against the
implications of our apparently designed universe, it is an inescapably
ironic move for the Naturalist to postulate a deus ex machina that is
unobserved and, in principle, unobservable.
Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro (Eerdmans: May 23, 2008), 132 pages.
Most, if not all, other books on naturalism are written for
professional philosophers alone. Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro
offer a book that — without losing anything in the way of scholarly
standards — is primarily aimed at a college-educated audience
interested in learning about this pervasive worldview. Naturalism
groups the various terms of this philosophy into two general
categories: strict naturalism and broad naturalism. According to the
strict version, all that exists can be exhaustively described and
explained by the natural sciences. As Goetz and Taliaferro explain it,
broad naturalism allows that there may be some things beyond physics
and the natural sciences, but insists that there can be no reality
beyond nature — i.e., God — and explicitly rules out the possibility of
souls. The authors argue that both categories face substantial
objections in their failure to allow for consciousness, human free
will, and values. They offer sustained replies to the naturalist
critique of the soul and the existence of God and engage in critical
evaluations of works by scholarly and popular advocates of naturalism —
Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Thomas Nagel, Jaegwon Kim, and others.
David Berlinski (Crown Forum : April 1, 2008), 256 pages.
Militant atheism is on the rise. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens have dominated bestseller lists with books denigrating religious belief as dangerous foolishness. And these authors are merely the leading edge of a far larger movement–one that now includes much of the scientific community. “The attack on traditional religious thought,” writes David Berlinski in The Devil’s Delusion, “marks the consolidation in our time of science as the single system of belief in which rational men and women might place their faith, and if not their faith, then certainly their devotion.” A secular Jew, Berlinski nonetheless delivers a biting defense of religious thought. An acclaimed author who has spent his career writing about mathematics and the sciences, he turns the scientific community’s cherished skepticism back on itself, daring to ask and answer some rather embarrassing questions. ~ Product Description
Gary Marcus (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: Mar 2008), 224 pages.
Why are we subject to irrational beliefs, inaccurate memories, even war? We can thank evolution, Marcus says, which can only tinker with structures that already exist, rather than create new ones: "Natural selection... tends to favor genes that have immediate advantages" rather than long-term value. Marcus, director of NYU's Infant Language Learning Center, refers to this as "kluge," a term engineers use to refer to a clumsily designed solution to a problem. Thus, memory developed in our prehominid ancestry to respond with immediacy, rather than accuracy; one result is erroneous eyewitness testimony in courtrooms. In describing the results of studies of human perception, cognition and beliefs, Marcus encapsulates how the mind is "contaminated by emotions, moods, desires, goals, and simple self-interest...." The mind's fragility, he says, is demonstrated by mental illness, which seems to have no adaptive purpose. In a concluding chapter, Marcus offers a baker's dozen of suggestions for getting around the brain's flaws and achieving "true wisdom." While some are self-evident, others could be helpful, such as "Whenever possible, consider alternate hypotheses" and "Don't just set goals. Make contingency plans." Using evolutionary psychology, Marcus educates the reader about mental flaws in a succinct, often enjoyable way. ~ Publishers Weekly
Robert Burton (St. Martin's Press: Feb 5, 2008), 272 pages.
You recognize when you know something for certain, right? You "know" the sky is blue, or that the traffic light had turned green, or where you were on the morning of September 11, 2001 — you know these things, well, because you just do. In On Being Certain, neurologist Robert Burton challenges the notions of how we think about what we know. He shows that the feeling of certainty we have when we "know" something comes from sources beyond our control and knowledge. In fact, certainty is a mental sensation, rather than evidence of fact. Because this "feeling of knowing" seems like confirmation of knowledge, we tend to think of it as a product of reason. But an increasing body of evidence suggests that feelings such as certainty stem from primitive areas of the brain, and are independent of active, conscious reflection and reasoning. The feeling of knowing happens to us; we cannot make it happen. Bringing together cutting edge neuroscience, experimental data, and fascinating anecdotes, Robert Burton explores the inconsistent and sometimes paradoxical relationship between our thoughts and what we actually know. Provocative and groundbreaking, On Being Certain, will challenge what you know (or think you know) about the mind, knowledge, and reason. ~ Product Description
"A Moral Argument" in Passionate Conviction, eds. Paul Copan and William Lane Craig (B&H Publishing: Oct 1, 2007), p.85.
Yes, many naturalists deny that objective moral values exist — that our moral impulse is nothing more than the product of a blind evolutionary process that selects out traits that enhance survival and reproduction. I such a case, morality is merely subjective. However, non-theists can and do endorse objective moral values — that rape or child abuse is wrong. These nontheistic moral realists will tell us, "You don't need God to be good." Yet the deeper question is, how did we come to be morally responsible, rights-bearing beings? Since all human beings are God's image-bearers, they not surprisingly recognize the same sorts of moral values theist do. The basic issue, tough, is this: why think humans have rights and dignity if they're products of valueless, physical processes in a cause-and-effect series from the bing bang until now? The more plausible context or scenario is that human value and moral responsibility come from a good God who created us as intrinsically valuable, morally responsible creatures.
Daniel C. Dennett (Penguin : February 6, 2007), 464 pages.
In his characteristically provocative fashion, Dennett, author of Darwin's Dangerous Idea and director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, calls for a scientific, rational examination of religion that will lead us to understand what purpose religion serves in our culture. Much like E.O. Wilson (In Search of Nature), Robert Wright (The Moral Animal), and Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene), Dennett explores religion as a cultural phenomenon governed by the processes of evolution and natural selection. Religion survives because it has some kind of beneficial role in human life, yet Dennett argues that it has also played a maleficent role. He elegantly pleads for religions to engage in empirical self-examination to protect future generations from the ignorance so often fostered by religion hiding behind doctrinal smoke screens. Because Dennett offers a tentative proposal for exploring religion as a natural phenomenon, his book is sometimes plagued by generalizations that leave us wanting more ("Only when we can frame a comprehensive view of the many aspects of religion can we formulate defensible policies for how to respond to religions in the future"). Although much of the ground he covers has already been well trod, he clearly throws down a gauntlet to religion. ~ Publishers Weekly
William P. Alston, presented at Christian Scholarship: Knowledge, Reality, and Method (Oct. 1997).
What should we make of Naturalist's efforts to explain language and mental states in acceptably naturalistic ways? What does it mean to say that intentionality and conceptual content are perfectly natural? What is there to commend Naturalism to us in it own right? Alston begins by attempting to clarify just what it would mean for a given phenomenon to be described in strictly naturalistic terms, concluding that establishing such criteria is itself difficult. The problem in part is a tendency to allow naturalism to permit any phenomena whatsoever within its ken, a license that Alston characterizes as a kind of "blank check". Unable to find the necessary criteria, Alston settles on: nature is, "by definition, to include all and only what is discoverable by the 'scientific method', including the incipient beginnings of this in ordinary sensory observation, and reasoning from the results of observation." Given such a definition, Alston proceeds to ask the epistemological question of why we should think that science is the only purveyor of knowledge. ~ Afterall
Gary L. Drescher (MIT Press: May 2006), 363 pages.
In Good and Real, Gary Drescher examines a series of provocative paradoxes about consciousness, choice, ethics, quantum mechanics, and other topics, in an effort to reconcile a purely mechanical view of the universe with key aspects of our subjective impressions of our own existence. Many scientists suspect that the universe can ultimately be described by a simple (perhaps even deterministic) formalism; all that is real unfolds mechanically according to that formalism. But how, then, is it possible for us to be conscious, or to make genuine choices? And how can there be an ethical dimension to such choices? Drescher sketches computational models of consciousness, choice, and subjunctive reasoning—what would happen if this or that were to occur?—to show how such phenomena are compatible with a mechanical, even deterministic universe. Analyses of Newcomb's Problem (a paradox about choice) and the Prisoner's Dilemma (a paradox about self-interest vs. altruism, arguably reducible to Newcomb's Problem) help bring the problems and proposed solutions into focus. Regarding quantum mechanics, Drescher builds on Everett's relative-state formulation—but presenting a simplified formalism, accessible to laypersons—to argue that, contrary to some popular impressions, quantum mechanics is compatible with an objective, deterministic physical reality, and that there is no special connection between quantum phenomena and consciousness. In each of several disparate but intertwined topics ranging from physics to ethics, Drescher argues that a missing technical linchpin can make the quest for objectivity seem impossible, until the elusive technical fix is at hand. ~ Product Description
Kai Nielsen (Prometheus Books: September 2005), 245 pages.
The indeterminacy of the modern concept of God has made the distinction between belief and unbelief increasingly problematic. Both the complexity of the religious response and the variety of skeptical philosophies preclude simplistic definitions of what constitutes belief in God. Making the discussion even more difficult are assertions by fundamentalists who dismiss the philosophical perplexities of religious claims as unreal pseudo-problems. Atheism & Philosophy is a detailed study of these and other issues vital to our understanding of atheism, agnosticism, and religious belief. Philosopher Kai Nielsen develops a coherent and integrated approach to the discussion of what it means to be an atheist. In chapters such as "How is Atheism to be Characterized?", "Does God Exist?: Reflections on Disbelief," "Agnosticism," "Religion and Commitment," and "The Primacy of Philosophical Theology," Nielsen defends atheism in a way that answers to contemporary concerns. ~ Product Description
Daniel Dennett on the Self said...
In Susan J. Backmore, Conversations on Consciousness (Oxford University Press: 2005). p. 87.
There's a bi-modal distribution between people who think that any theory of consciousness that leaves out the first person is a hopeless theory, and those who think that any theory of consciousness that doesn't leave out the first person is a hopeless theory. You've got to leave the first person out of your final theory. You won't have a theory of consciousness if you still have the first person in there, because that was what it was your job to explain. All the paraphernalia that doesn't make any sense unless you've got a first person in there, has to be turned into something else. You've got to figure some way to break it up and distribute its powers and opportunities into the system in some other way.
Erik J. Wielenberg (Cambridge University Press: February 2005), 202 pages.
Suppose there is no God. This supposition implies that human life is meaningless, that there are no moral obligations and hence people can do whatever they want, and that the notions of virtue and vice, right and wrong, and good and evil have no place in the universe. Erik J. Wielenberg believes this view to be utterly erroneous and, in this thought-provoking book, he explains the reasons why. He argues that, even if God does not exist, human life can still have meaning, humans do have moral obligations, and human virtue is still possible. Wielenberg offers readers a cogent explanation of the ethical implications of naturalism — a view that denies the existence of the supernatural in human life. In his view virtue exists in a godless universe but it is significantly different from virtue in a Christian universe, and he develops naturalistic accounts of humility, charity, and hope. The overarching theme of Virtue and Value in a Godless Universe is what ethics might look like without God. Erik Wielenberg takes readers on an extraordinary tour of some of the central landmarks of this under-explored territory. ~ Product Description
Richard Carrier (AuthorHouse: Feb 23, 2005), 444 pages.
If God does not exist, then what does? Is there good and evil, and should we care? How do we know what’s true anyway? And can we make any sense of this universe, or our own lives? Sense and Goodness answers all these questions in lavish detail, without complex jargon. A complete worldview is presented and defended, covering every subject from knowledge to art, from metaphysics to morality, from theology to politics. Topics include free will, the nature of the universe, the meaning of life, and much more, arguing from scientific evidence that there is only a physical, natural world without gods or spirits, but that we can still live a life of love, meaning, and joy. ~ Product Description
Angus Menuge (Rowman & Littlefield: August, 2004)
Philosophical naturalism is frequently advocated as the only doctrine that a scientifically informed intellectual of our time can possibly consider. Angus Menuge has shown, however, that a wide range of powerful considerations can be brought forward against this philosophy. Menuge provides a close examination of leading naturalists such as Dawkins, Dennett and Churchland, and draws upon a wide range of critics from C. S. Lewis to Michael Behe, to provide what is arguably the most comprehensive critique of naturalism yet to appear. People who are interested in the Argument from Reason should be especially interested in Menuge's disucssion. A must read for naturalists and for their opponents. ~ Victor Reppert