Hi all,
Interesting posts about materialism.
My co-autor of The Self Does Not Die, Titus Rivas, pointed me at a statement (somwhere....) by Arouet namely that there is much evidence for a materialistic world view. In contrast to that statement we think that there is no unequivocal evidence at all for such a world view. This is what we say in Chapter 10 of our book:
Michael Martin and Keith Augustine wrote in their book The Myth of an Afterlife:
Dualists are thus forced to make a difficult choice: either retain a belief in personal survival at the expense of ignoring or dismissing the implications of our best evidence, or accept those implications at the expense of acknowledging that the prospects for personal survival are extremely dim.
We find this claim to be untenable because there is absolutely no evidence that would unequivocally and convincingly confirm the materialistic worldview.
All the neurological and medical evidence that materialists such as Martin and Augustine have presented— demonstrating that the mind totally depends on the brain— can easily fit into a dualistic (or more broadly: nonmaterialistic) worldview. This point even applies to cases of extreme dysfunction in mental processes due to neurological disorders, diseases, or lesions (Beauregard, 2007; James, 1898). Within a dualistic- interactionistic worldview, mind and brain interact.
This dynamic means that the brain happens to exercise an undeniable influence on the mind and vice versa without meaning that the mind is suddenly reducible to the brain or the other way around. This inflluence can occasionally also have very negative consequences, as we see, for instance, in an illness like dementia.
Sometimes the influence of the brain on the mind is particularly bizarre, as demonstrated not only in experiments with so-called “split-brain” patients but also in the consequences of alcohol or narcotics use. Still, not a single case involving the influence of the brain on the mind “therefore,” necessarily, proves that that mind, as such, is the product of the brain or that that mind must be completely dependent on the brain (Rivas, 2004). Similarly, there is no proof that the influence of consciousness on brain processes means that no brain processes exist that are not paired with consciousness. Mutual interaction is just not the same
thing as complete dependence.
This representation of matters is not the ad hoc solution of desperate dualists who do not dare confront certain facts but, rather, is an integral component of the dualistic-interactionistic worldview. As philosopher of science and survivalist Neal Grossman stated in an excellent 2008 letter to the editor in the Journal of Near- Death Studies:
William James (1898) showed, more than a hundred years ago, that (1) the most that the facts of neurology can establish is a correlation between mental states and brain states and (2) correlation is not causation. The data of neuroscience will always be neutral with respect to the hypotheses of (1) causation or materialism and (2) what James called “transmission,” the hypothesis that the brain merely transmits an already existing consciousness.
Whereas the “proofs” of materialism can be excellently placed within dualistic interactionism, the evidence that we have presented in this book is without a doubt incompatible with a materialistic theory. For this reason, materialists rationalize away or negate this evidence as much as possible. Examples of this tendency can be seen in the recent arguments by Gerald Woerlee in his 2013 book, Illusory Souls, and in the 2013 article, “Occam’s Chainsaw” by Jason Braithwaite and Hayley Dewe.
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By the way, I fully agree with Gabriel's latest posts... Smithy
Interesting posts about materialism.
My co-autor of The Self Does Not Die, Titus Rivas, pointed me at a statement (somwhere....) by Arouet namely that there is much evidence for a materialistic world view. In contrast to that statement we think that there is no unequivocal evidence at all for such a world view. This is what we say in Chapter 10 of our book:
Michael Martin and Keith Augustine wrote in their book The Myth of an Afterlife:
Dualists are thus forced to make a difficult choice: either retain a belief in personal survival at the expense of ignoring or dismissing the implications of our best evidence, or accept those implications at the expense of acknowledging that the prospects for personal survival are extremely dim.
We find this claim to be untenable because there is absolutely no evidence that would unequivocally and convincingly confirm the materialistic worldview.
All the neurological and medical evidence that materialists such as Martin and Augustine have presented— demonstrating that the mind totally depends on the brain— can easily fit into a dualistic (or more broadly: nonmaterialistic) worldview. This point even applies to cases of extreme dysfunction in mental processes due to neurological disorders, diseases, or lesions (Beauregard, 2007; James, 1898). Within a dualistic- interactionistic worldview, mind and brain interact.
This dynamic means that the brain happens to exercise an undeniable influence on the mind and vice versa without meaning that the mind is suddenly reducible to the brain or the other way around. This inflluence can occasionally also have very negative consequences, as we see, for instance, in an illness like dementia.
Sometimes the influence of the brain on the mind is particularly bizarre, as demonstrated not only in experiments with so-called “split-brain” patients but also in the consequences of alcohol or narcotics use. Still, not a single case involving the influence of the brain on the mind “therefore,” necessarily, proves that that mind, as such, is the product of the brain or that that mind must be completely dependent on the brain (Rivas, 2004). Similarly, there is no proof that the influence of consciousness on brain processes means that no brain processes exist that are not paired with consciousness. Mutual interaction is just not the same
thing as complete dependence.
This representation of matters is not the ad hoc solution of desperate dualists who do not dare confront certain facts but, rather, is an integral component of the dualistic-interactionistic worldview. As philosopher of science and survivalist Neal Grossman stated in an excellent 2008 letter to the editor in the Journal of Near- Death Studies:
William James (1898) showed, more than a hundred years ago, that (1) the most that the facts of neurology can establish is a correlation between mental states and brain states and (2) correlation is not causation. The data of neuroscience will always be neutral with respect to the hypotheses of (1) causation or materialism and (2) what James called “transmission,” the hypothesis that the brain merely transmits an already existing consciousness.
Whereas the “proofs” of materialism can be excellently placed within dualistic interactionism, the evidence that we have presented in this book is without a doubt incompatible with a materialistic theory. For this reason, materialists rationalize away or negate this evidence as much as possible. Examples of this tendency can be seen in the recent arguments by Gerald Woerlee in his 2013 book, Illusory Souls, and in the 2013 article, “Occam’s Chainsaw” by Jason Braithwaite and Hayley Dewe.
------------
By the way, I fully agree with Gabriel's latest posts... Smithy