Friday, November 26, 2010

Rationality and Scientific Naturalism

Is this a good argument for God? I'm not convinced, but would be interested in your thoughts:

The recalcitrant nature of human persons for scientific naturalism has been widely noticed. Thus, Berkeley philosopher John Searle recently observed, “There is exactly one overriding question in contemporary philosophy….How do we fit in?….How can we square this self-conception of ourselves as mindful, meaning-creating, free, rational, etc., agents with a universe that consists entirely of mindless, meaningless, unfree, nonrational, brute physical particles?” For the scientific naturalist, the answer is “not very well.”

The difficulty for scientific naturalism in accounting for these commonsense features of human beings has not been noticed simply by notable atheists. In fact, the nature of human persons has lead some to embrace theism.

...

But rationality is an odd entity in a scientific naturalist world. Christian philosopher Victor Reppert agrees: “…the necessary conditions for rationality cannot exist in a naturalistic universe.” And Reppert goes on to argue that the ontology of human rationality provides evidence for theism as its best explanation.

Naturalism, Human Persons and Rationality: Admitting the Problem



h/t Victor Reppert

11 comments:

  1. It is a fallacious argument, it is ignoring the biological components and gives no alternative outside of fantasy.

    I don’t know is a valid answer, to make up an answer based on irrational belief is delusional. This also does not take into consideration the current limitations and the possibility of expanded answers.

    The arguments from the intelligent but irrational and delusional are frightening as the tendency is to dive into strange versions of solipsism.

    Infidels has an interesting post on this.

    http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/reppert.html

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  2. mindless, meaningless, unfree, nonrational, brute

    Yeah, how would people fit into that...

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  3. "God exists because I said so.”

    That seems to be the basic argument.

    I am not sure where Bret is going with:

    "mindless, meaningless, unfree, nonrational, brute - Yeah, how would people fit into that...”

    But while possibly true in many cases it in no way indicates a “god” or the existence of the supernatural. I would also add “so what?” recognizing the limitations and weaknesses of the human is necessary for developing improvements (a process that starts with the self).

    If anything the limitations point out the biological nature of humans and point to a natural not a supernatural origin of mankind.

    Human sentience (or the start of the same) is no more impressive than sentience in whales or higher mammals that show signs of sentience.

    Humans were just lucky enough to have developed bipedal motion, self domestication, and dexterous fingers.

    Freak coincidence does happen! how hard is that to understand? It is the stupid argument about a million monkeys with typewriters cannot make Shakespeare - BS!

    Shakespeare (whoever that was) WAS a monkey as are the rest of us, what is so wrong with identifying as an ape or monkey? We are just a strange version developed by natural selection/selective breeding.

    "I don’t know" -IS- a valid answer.

    "I know because god told me" is -NOT- a valid answer without demonstrable evidence (and the religious have had thousands of years for this with constant failure).

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  4. Oh, I forgot...

    CS Lewis was a delusional religionist obsessed with the crazy minutiae of apologetics one the largest brain drains in the last 300 years.

    Smart (yet delusional) people trying to make religion logical is scary to watch.

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  5. I am not sure where Bret is going

    People try to separate humans from nature, often implying we are unique or particularly novle, and I disagree with all those assertions.

    God exists because I said so.

    It's like a reverse Genesis story: we spoke God into being and He was there... like love or math.

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  6. "People try to separate humans from nature, often implying we are unique or particularly novle, and I disagree with all those assertions.”

    You were at least partly serious and - shock - we agree.

    I will add that I don”t think humans are particularly noble, intuitive, or useful.

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  7. Bret, you wrote: People try to separate humans from nature, often implying we are unique or particularly novle, and I disagree with all those assertions.

    Yet in this comment you said: "Animals are nice and all... but they aren't people."

    Now, that's true that they aren't people, but you meant more than that a dog is not a cat and vice versa, you meant that humans are special in some way, as your next sentence indicated: "One of my bigger philosophical beefs with animal right activists is that we have people being treated horribly, so why are we spending so much time and energy on animals?"

    So, humans must be novel or unique in some way, else why would you have a "beef" with those who spend "time and energy" on animals in the midst of suffering humans? Or in other words, if there is nothing novel about human beings, why be more concerned with their being treated "horribly" than with animals being treated badly?

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  8. Now, that's true that they aren't people, but you meant more than that a dog is not a cat and vice versa, you meant that humans are special in some way

    No, actually it's my irrational human species prejudice. If I sit and think about it, I can realize that humans aren't particularly special (depending on your definition of special... some are quite "special").

    I can even acknowledge that eating meat is wrong on many levels: it rapes the earth, it tortures living, feeling beings... and it's fucking delicious, mmm mmmmm. Taste that mother's love.

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  9. And Bret accuses anarchists of not answering questions and being emotional.

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  10. And Bret accuses anarchists of not answering questions and being emotional.

    What was left unanswered, and how is my answer anything but unfeeling, uncaring and emotionless?

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