Recently my friend JC (joined by a friend) and I (also joined by a friend) debated on a street corner regarding the nature of the law of contradiction. JC vehemently supports the notion that the law of contradiction is based on distinction. He failed to understand how my friend Jon and I could assert that the law of contradiction could apply in the absence of a physical world. I want to try to refine the argument and allow JC to respond (So that I can finish my long overdue rebuttal of his post regarding the mind-brain identity theory).

First the law of contradiction is thus:

~ (p & ~P)

In other words it would be a contradiction to say: Homer was blind if and only if Homer is not blind.

JC seems to think that the LOC is applicable in the physical world because he believes that the LOC is simply a convention of language to describe a distinction. His position was that without the physical world there would be no such thing as the LOC.

Let’s see if we can work this out logically:

P1: The world exists

P2: Laws of Logic exist

P3: Laws of Logic apply to the existence of the world, therefore laws of logic are predicated upon the existence of the world.

P4: The negation of P3 leads to a contradiction

Let’s boil this down. I am fairly certain that JC would agree to P1, P2, and P3 without hesitation. The argument seems to center around P4, to which JC would likely not agree. This is sadly an untenable position for my friend to hold. If he says that laws of logic only apply to the existence of the {physical} world then he has an issue with establishing the non-existence of anything. I am sure that after reading this sentence JC is crying foul, but digging deeper here is the situation:

By asserting that the physical world is necessary for the proper function of the LOC, JC is contradicting himself. The LOC must apply a priori to existence of the physical world or no distinction whatsoever is possible. If we pushed this even further back, it would be easy to establish that the law of contradiction is still necessary even in absolute nothingness. Logically if absolute nothingness was p then the negation of p (~p) demonstrates that the law is still true.

The law is not simply how the universe functions, because even if the universe did not exist the law would still be true because the law says that any sentence cannot be true and false at the same way in the same manner.

I would like to first start off by clearing up some points of possible confusion.

a. [SA] makes reference to several items such as thought, neural networks, mind, spirit, etc…; while there are differences between these terms, for the sake of this discussion, what we are really talking about is consciousness. For simplicity, I will sometimes refer to the simpler term “mind” which definition I will accept as; “the totality of conscious and unconscious mental processes and activities”.

b. The email quote [SA] gave of mine as “JC’s argument for physicalism” is not quite accurate. The email was in response to a question posed to me by [SA] and I would not consider it an argument for anything.

I. Actual argument for physicalism

The theory that I support can simply be summed up as “all that exists is ultimately physical”. Contrary to [SA’s] definition of this view, this does not imply a purely reductionist view of consciousness. This theory posits that the mind is caused by the physical brain but is not reducible to the physical brain. The reason for this distinction is in the nature of the existence of the mind; the mind does exist, but is ontologically subjective whereas the physical brain is ontologically objective.

II. Rebuttal to SA

a. [The substance dualist [or better yet Christian] bears no responsibility to provide the physical make up of thought ]

I think [SA] is the one missing the point here. I did not ask for the “physical make up of thought”, however the discussion is about understanding and accounting for consciousness. For him to merely assert that the mind is immaterial is a baseless jump in conclusions and does not get him any closer to a true understanding of the subject.

b. [The mechanics of the interaction between mind (spirit) and body is simply unknown to me]

We start to see here where [SA’s] theory begins to break down. [SA] is unable to give any evidence or even a theory as to how his “immaterial” mind is able to causally interact with the physical world. This poses a big problem for him that physicalism is already able to explain.

c. [In the physical world the body needs a spirit in order to be a personal being.]

I would ask [SA] to clarify his example because I don’t see how it supports his assertion that in order to be a personal being one must have an immaterial mind. He also appears to be jumping straight to the conclusion to try to prove his point; however, this is a circular argument that will get him nowhere.

d. [How does he account for differences of opinion?]

Differences of opinion are quite easy to account for. Since no two people have identical genetic makeup’s and/or experiences then it would make perfect sense that they could have different opinions.

e. [If his pattern of thought is based on empirical observation then conceptualizing non-existent entities such as unicorns would be impossible.]

The first thing I would like to point out here is that [SA] asserts that the proposition would be impossible but does not give us any reason that it is so. It is a Non Sequitur to say if “empirical observations effect patterns of thought; therefore, conceptualizing non-existent entities is impossible.”

It should also be noted that he is claiming that unicorns are non-existent and therefore conceptualizing a unicorn is conceptualizing a non-existent entity; however, we only need to look closer to see this is not quite true. It is a function of the brain to take elements that are experienced externally, take them apart, and “collage” them back together to create imaginary creatures such as unicorns. A unicorn is essentially a horse with a horn on its head, so for one to conceptualize a unicorn is really only to imagine two existing entities (horn and horse) in a particular arrangement. Concepts such as these pose no issues for my position since there is nothing non-physical required for a physical pattern matching machine such as ours to also be able to rearrange those patterns to create new ones. We see this all the time with much simpler machines such as computers. I challenge [SA] to be able to conceive anything that can not be reduced to patterns and properties already found in nature.

f. […for JC to be consistent he cannot claim to believe that his view is true. For once he has asserted that he believes his view to be true it is false. This is because his belief that his view is true has no physical mechanism attached to it.]

I think what [SA] is trying to saying here is that beliefs have no physical cause. Although his argument is circular, I will ignore this for the moment and address the underlying claim with the following example:

“Susan punches John in the nose; John now believes Susan is angry with him so he asks her what she is mad about; Susan then pushes John down and he hits his head on a rock; due to the blow to the head John forgets that Susan assaulted him and he asks her how he fell.”

Here we can see the physical cause of John’s belief that Susan is angry with him. We can also see how the blow to John’s head physically causes him to loose some of his memory so he no longer has the belief that Susan is angry with him. I think this demonstrates quite well how beliefs do in fact have a physical cause.

III. Conclusion

From what I can tell so far, [SA’s] only given evidence for his position is that “minds are immaterial because processes of the mind are immaterial”. This is a circular argument, and does not present sufficient evidence to support his position It is not enough for [SA] to only show my position to be incorrect and claim victory by default since this would be yet another logical fallacy. He must also provide some evidence to support his assertions. So far he is unsuccessful in his attempt to do either.

There is a marked difference between a philosophy that requires certain ASSUMPTIONS to be true in order for the rest of its reality to make sense, and a philosophy that exists as a result of investigation and an adherence to evidence. We are now able to see that for every state of consciousness there is a physical cause and correlation. We need only to look at victims of brain damage to see how consciousness and cognitive functions are directly dependent on the physical brain. When certain areas of the brain are damaged or removed we see that certain cognitive functions such as memory or even facial recognition can be lost. [SA’s] position explains none of these observations. There is such an overwhelming body of evidence that the mind and its processes are produced by the physical brain that I cannot see how anyone can come to any other conclusion.

In a few days the man pictured above will be posting here as a contributor. He will likely try to deconvert us all (as if that were possible). He does have a pool of ill-tempered sea bass at his disposal so we should all proceed with caution.

Yeah baby..

Recently, or more precisely over the last year a friend who I will call JC and I have been discussing the question: Is thinking synonymous with a _physical_state_of_the_brain.

I hold to substance dualism that is similar to Descartes’ although it is different. I would hold to what might be known loosely as the Christian version of Substance Dualism.

I. Substance Dualism and Mind-Brain identity theory defined.
II. JC’s argument from physicalism
III. Introductory comments relative to JC assertions
IIIa.Brief argument against physicalism

Preface
I would say two things to my friend JC. One is a specific “criticism” aimed at his view that he has espoused in past conversations and the other is a more general remark aimed at anyone who holds to the physicalist/reductionist *worldview.

First a specific remark: [note: JC and I are personal friends who have discussed this at length, I am banking on the fact that JC will not read these criticism as a personal or ad hominem rather as directed toward his *view*] JC knew that this post was forthcoming and even pressed me on the delinquincy of the post.

Simply put this belies a few things:
1. A lack of understanding of the relative issues surrounding physicalism. In other words this is not *light weight* topic. Physicalism is correlative to other philosophical issues such as *behaviorism, *operationalism, *epiphenomenalism, *determinism, on and on ad infinitum

1a.JC underestimates the nature of physicalism. I approach this topic from the perspective that the complete repudiation of substance dualism [or the like] poses grave implications for the Christian position. Conversely a refutation of physicalism poses the same difficutly for the physicalist. [author's note: I will attempt to show that physicalism is not only false but reduces to absurdity by showing the impossibility of consciousness in a physicalist worldview]

While it is not possible to give exhaustive definitions at this point a brief one will at least establish the antithesis between the two positions.

A. Identity Theory of Mind: A materialist theory of consciousness which identifies being in such and such a state of consciousness with being in some corresponding neurophysiological state. (DOP)

B.Dualism: A theory concerning the fundamental types into which individual substances are to be divided. It asserts taht substances are either material or mental, neither being reducible to the other. (DOP)

II. JC’s argument for physicalism: In an email received recently JC wrote:

I would say that the neural net in my brain does control my pattern of thought although there are many factors outside of that net that influence its state. If we were to say that thoughts were not a function of the physical brain and that they were somehow “non-physical” we would still be left with needing to explain how these “non-physical” thoughts arise, what they are made of, how they causally interact with the physical, etc… By adding some “non-physical” entity to the equation, you make the problem way more complicated. [Ockham's razor]

III. Introductory remarks relative to JC’s statement

A. JC puts forth the question above, he says [paraphrased] that if thougths were non-physical we would have to give an account of “how they arise” and “what they are made of.”

I would hope that JC simply makes a slip up here and did not choose his words carefully. If not, he has committed the fallacy of petitio principii. The substance dualist [or better yet Christian] bears no responsibility to provide the physical make up of thought, as we do not believe that thought is a physical existent. By [our] definition thought is immaterial therefore asking the Christian to provide the material properties of thought is a non-sequitar.

B.JC asks me to consider applying Ockham’s razor to the proposition that thought is immaterial. [author's note: Ockham's supposed razor which is to not mulitiply entities beyond necessity is not actually extant in any of William of Ockham's writings, but I digress] Furthermore, he wants to know how the immaterial interacts casually with the material. Sadly, this criticism misses the mark in at least two ways.

1. JC is arguing against Descartes’ version of Substance Dualism, which I do not hold in its entirety. He has missed the fact that I hold that the two [material and immaterial] are inextricably linked. The question assumes that the two entities are distinct entities with individual ontology. I do not hold this view and therefore JC is not arguing against my view rather Descartes’ deus ex machina

1a.The mechanics of the interaction between mind (spirit) and body is simply unknown to me. In the physical world the body needs a spirit in order to be a personal being.
The fact that there is an additional property to human existence that transcends the purely physical can be seen below.

Let’s look at an example:
Suppose I ask you to tell me about a pet that belonged to you who is deceased. The language or descriptors selected would be purely physical. Assume that this pet was a dog, and you described him as a good dog. This simply means that the he did not bite people or did not pee on your carpet. Once again the descriptor reduces to a pure physical characteristic.

There are several objections to the above however they are easily overcome and for the sake of brevity I will not cover the objections until they are issued.

2.JC sets up a straw man. He posits that my form of substance dualism adds something to the equation. He assumes his reductionist view is the correct one, and that substance dualism unduly overcomplicates the problem.

2a. Ockham’s razor does not apply in this case. OR says do not multiply entities beyond necessity. It falls to JC to demonstrate that his view provides a solution to the problem and that the opposing view multiplies the simpler view beyond necessity.

In other words, JC must demonstrate the simplicity of his view over against the “unwarranted” complication of my view to apply OR to my view.

3. JC needs to provide positive justification for his view that patterns of thought reside in his neural net. Furthermore, JC has at least two issues that require his attention.

3a. How does he account for differences of opinion? If JC takes the position as I assume he does that patterns of thought are based on his empirical observations then his view must explain how conceptions of non-material entities are possible. In other words, JC claims to be a materialist however he is inconsistent. If his pattern of thought is based on empirical observation then conceptualizing non-existent entities such as unicorns would be impossible. This is contrary to the common notion of unicorns without corresponding physical entities.

3b. JC’s view is subject to all of the criticism that have been leveled at empiricism. Unless they are raised they will not be considered here

IIIa. Brief argument against physicalism

Physicalism posits a mechanistic world where causation is limited to physical existents. This poses a difficulty for JC. The assertion that mechanism is true is not self-contradictory. However as John DePeo points out [following Norman Malcom] the assertion that one believes mechanism to be true is self-contradictory.

In other words in order for JC to be consistent he cannot claim to believe that his view is true. For once he has asserted that he believes his view to be true it is false. This is because his belief that his view is true has no physical mechanism attached to it.

Perhaps the most important segment of the video is the end. This delightful Arminian brings all of his intellectual armaments to bear when he looks into the camera and says: Calvinism is horseshit. Bravo!