Article <vl8mmf$3tgfi$1@dont-email.me>

Deutsch English Français Italiano
<vl8mmf$3tgfi$1@dont-email.me>

View for Bookmarking (what is this?)
Look up another Usenet article
Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!newsfeed.xs3.de!nntp-feed.chiark.greenend.org.uk!ewrotcd!news.eyrie.org!beagle.ediacara.org!.POSTED.beagle.ediacara.org!not-for-mail
From: MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Causal determinism and non-materialist atheism
Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2025 23:54:41 +1100
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 219
Sender: to%beagle.ediacara.org
Approved: moderator@beagle.ediacara.org
Message-ID: <vl8mmf$3tgfi$1@dont-email.me>
References: <vku1po$1k8rs$1@dont-email.me>
 <6137078335c65548999ebb8dd396ad80@www.novabbs.com>
 <vl3633$2o754$1@dont-email.me>
 <bad1b70b32114a2c02b968436a5cc81d@www.novabbs.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Injection-Info: beagle.ediacara.org; posting-host="beagle.ediacara.org:3.132.105.89";
	logging-data="95928"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@beagle.ediacara.org"
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird
To: talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
Cancel-Lock: sha1:3aSHTK5D0ryzRQMuJ3Y09ZJS9+c=
In-Reply-To: <bad1b70b32114a2c02b968436a5cc81d@www.novabbs.com>
Content-Language: en-US
	HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,NML_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED,
	RCVD_IN_DNSWL_BLOCKED,SPF_HELO_NONE,SPF_PASS,USER_IN_WELCOMELIST,
	USER_IN_WHITELIST autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.6
	smtp.eternal-september.org
Bytes: 12945

On 2/01/2025 11:20 pm, Burkhard wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 10:40:34 +0000, MarkE wrote:
> 
>> On 1/01/2025 6:31 am, Burkhard wrote:
>>> On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 11:56:48 +0000, MarkE wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm (tentatively) conceding some ground in this post against CS Lewis.
>>>> So no particular argument here; just for your end-of-year enjoyment.
>>>>
>>>> If causality holds universally, then the universe is deterministic (_in
>>>> principle_, and aside from quantum indeterminism).
>>>>
>>>> Different versions of compatibilism attempt to reconcile causal
>>>> determinism with free will to varying degrees. I'm not intending to go
>>>> down that rabbit hole here——I'm wondering instead about rationality,
>>>> reason, and materialism. Here's a one claimed problem (apologies if 
>>>> this
>>>> is old ground for you):
>>>>
>>>> "C.S. Lewis, in his work Miracles, builds an argument from the oddness
>>>> of reason, claiming that a materialist-atheist view of reality is
>>>> untenable. Imagine a purely materialist world: a world of only 
>>>> particles
>>>> and matter, with no purpose or normativity——only causal relationships.
>>>> In this world, reasoning becomes just a series of brain states 
>>>> caused by
>>>> non-rational processes. According to Lewis, this means the rationality
>>>> of thought processes is an illusion. If materialism is true, then there
>>>> are no reasons, only causes. Thus, materialism undermines reason
>>>> itself."
>>>>
>>>> The algorithm read my mind and gave me an answer at Joe Folley's 
>>>> YouTube
>>>> channel Unsolicited Advice (which I highly recommend). He describes
>>>> himself as an agnostic/atheist, and offers this response:
>>>>
>>>> "...Plantinga argues, there is no reason to think that survival and
>>>> having access to capital-T metaphysical truth are necessarily
>>>> connected..."
>>>>
>>>> However (and I find this fairly reasonable):
>>>>
>>>> "...For Fodor, sure, our ability to reason's overall job is to help us
>>>> survive, but it does this through letting us know what the state of the
>>>> world is—that is, what is true and what we can deduce from what we
>>>> already know is true. At the very least, he suggests it needs to be
>>>> shown how exactly a creature could have mostly or all false beliefs and
>>>> yet still somehow be well-suited for survival. After all, beliefs are a
>>>> big part of what guides behavior, and if we want to successfully
>>>> interact with the world—that is, to achieve our aims of survival and
>>>> reproduction—we had better have true beliefs about how the world will
>>>> respond when we perform certain actions. Or, to use an example, we need
>>>> to know where the tigers actually are, because if they are there, they
>>>> can hurt us."
>>>>
>>>> Interestingly, he then goes on to disagree that atheism implies
>>>> materialism, and discusses the possibility of non-materialistic atheism
>>>> with reference to Plato's forms and mathematical abstractions:
>>>>
>>>> "In a recent video by the underrated YouTube channel Emerson Green, he
>>>> points out that in modern popular discourse, we often use the terms
>>>> atheism and materialism as if they are totally interchangeable. Lewis
>>>> arguably falls into this trap as well when he suggests that if his
>>>> argument from reason succeeds, then this is good evidence for God’s
>>>> existence. In his video, Green largely talks about the examples of
>>>> non-materialist atheism from the philosophy of mind, but I want to
>>>> expand upon this point because there is a whole world of non- 
>>>> materialist
>>>> atheism to explore. And a lot of it is far less ridiculous than you
>>>> might first think."
>>>>
>>>> "The Hidden Problem with EVERY Atheist Argument"
>>>> https://youtu.be/Q1jQscSNtNU?feature=shared
>>>> (Don't be put off by the title)
>>>
>>> Two thoughts on this: equating materialism with atheism is
>>> indeed nonsense. Why should a specific opinion about the
>>> existence of deities prejudge one's view of the existence
>>> of numbers, minds, fictional objects, propositions,
>>> etc etc?
>>>
>>> For TO purposes Godfrey Harold Hardy comes to mind -
>>> an outspoken atheist who nonetheless (In "A mathematician's
>>> apology") embraces mathematical platonism. Bertrand Russell's
>>> neutral monism isn't materialism either. Schopenhauer was
>>> clearly an atheist, but also a key figure in the
>>> idealist movement etc etc.
>>
>> Definitions are critical here. If "non-materialist" means belief in the
>> existence of say numbers and propositions, then that
>> seems...inconsequential?
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean with "inconsequential" in this
> context. Materialism is the metaphysical position that
> everything that exists can ultimately be reduced to matter.
> There are lots of things some people claim exist that
> can't be reduced to matter, including numbers and
> prepositions, which means these people are not
> materialists, whatever else they might think exists.
> 
> 
> And on the other hand, there are people who claim
> nothing can be reduced to matter (all strong forms
> of idealism) and who nonetheless don't think a specific
> ideal entity - a god of one form or another - exists.
> 
> And that means the while many atheists may well be
> also materialists, the two concepts are neither
> synonymous nor co-extensional, they are separate issues
> 

There seems to be a useful distinction to made here between the "thin" 
nonmaterial notion that Folley describes, alongside what I'd call a 
"thick" version (at risk of handing a pun on a plate).

The thin version is unavoidable even for a strict materialist. For 
example, natural numbers (1, 2, 3, ...) unavoidably "exist" 
conceptually, as an abstraction of counting material objects. Does this 
mean a strict materialist must deny the abstraction of natural numbers 
to remain a materialist?

> 
>>
>> And how might we define "existence"? As (i) Platonic forms residing in a
>> realm outside of this spacetime continuum (which seems tantamount to
>> belief in the supernatural); or (ii) belief that these concepts,
>> whatever their existence may entail, do not imply or require anything
>> supernatural.
>>
>> It is left to reader to define _supernatural_. And _define_. And _and_.
> 
> Yes, I'd agree that "supernatural" is pretty much a
> meaningless "waste basket" category - typically used for
> things that current best theories can't explain but where
> some might intuitively feel an explanation is needed.
> 
> Whether minds, numbers, propositions etc are then
> labelled as supernatural is a bit of  a sema ntic question,
> I would say no, in normal word use, but nothing depends on
> it. They are however definitely not dependent on the
> acceptance of any deity, which was the issue.

Agree that numbers, propositions etc do not seem dependent on the 
acceptance of any deity.

> 
>>
>>>
>>> So most certainly not all atheists are materialists.
>>> I'm not even sure the converse is true, though that
>>> could be more debatable.
>>
========== REMAINDER OF ARTICLE TRUNCATED ==========