Mind, Purpose, and God

The First Great Theist/Atheist Debate (referred to in my last post) has been on mind: is it reducible to just a physical thing, or is there something else, something non-physical, working there? Since we've been debating that topic here recently, I feel a tantalizing wish that I could replay the whole thing here for us to discuss. There's no need for that: they are accepting questions there still from readers, so you can contribute to the next phase of the debate that way. Yet I'm also opening up this thread for any point of discussion you may want to bring up on their debate.

Their point at issue is strongly connected to questions of God. The physicalist author, Andrew Melnyk, believes that his view of mind is compatible with theism (I don't see it myself, but he does); and yet he acknowledges that if physicalism is demonstrated to be true, theism is less likely to be true than if it is not shown to be true, or if it is disproved altogether:

"Physicalism about the human mind is still evidentially relevant to theism. The hypothesis of theism, as typically understood by philosophers, says there exists a special, nonhuman kind of person--God--who enjoys unlimited versions of the capacities to know, to love, and to decide to act that human persons possess. But since these capacities are mental, and since God is supposed to have no physical body or brain, the hypothesis of theism must say there exists a nonphysical and nonphysically realized mind. Now, if we want to assess the probability of theism given the available evidence, we must first assess its prior probability, i.e., its probability given our background knowledge. However, given theism's commitment to a nonphysical and nonphysically realized mind, its prior probability will be raised if we already know of examples of nonphysical and nonphysically realized minds (even if those minds, unlike the hypothesized divine mind, are finite). Thus, if we learn that human minds are neither physical nor physically realized, the prior probability of theism will get a boost. By the same token, however, if we learn that human minds are physically realized, so that we don't already know of any examples of nonphysical and nonphysically realized minds, then the prior probability of theism will fail to get that boost."

The issue also intersects with Intelligent Design, as the non-physicalists, Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro say:

"[I]t is important to point out that people typically see the disagreement between naturalists and their opponents (whom we will call 'teleologists') about what is an acceptable explanation manifested in the public square in debates about creation versus evolution. The argument in the public square is about whether God should, in popular vernacular, be allowed into the biology class, or whether certain complex phenomena in our physical bodies (e.g., the complex arrangement of parts in organs such as our eyes or in our cells) are indications of purposeful design by a mind (here, one can think of the position advocated by members of the contemporary Intelligent Design movement). According to naturalists, the scientific method (causal closedness) requires that no matter how designed some complex biological organism or organ might appear[3], it is in principle impermissible to appeal to a teleological explanation of it. What a reader should be aware of, however, is that the argument from causal closure that is used by naturalists to exclude teleological explanations of biological phenomena is the very same argument they use to exclude teleological explanations of the movements of an essayist's fingers on a keyboard. If the argument from causal closedness against the teleologist in the public disputes about evolution versus creation is sound, then it is sound when used against the teleologist in debates about bodily and mental events in our everyday lives. If the argument is no good in the latter realm, then there is no reason to think that it is any good in the former."

As far as the issue at hand is concerned, both of these are asides, in a sense; taken out of context, as I have quoted them here, they don't help much with showing whether mind is more than just something physical. They do, however, help us to see and discuss how people with different dispositions on these controversies are likely to take different side on the current debate. And I'll be honest--there's an additional tang of controversy in these paragraphs that may help us take off in a new direction on the topic here.

Posted: Wed - August 8, 2007 at 11:01 PM |

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson getCategoryName("<$CategoryUUID$>");

Mind, Purpose, and God

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson