What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part Four--The Caveats

What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part Four

Examining the Caveats to the

Academy's Strong Definition of Naturalism

Given the divided nature of the many categories of "Naturalism," which include "strong" to "weak" definitions, it is necessary to state the position of this Academy as "strong."

This is the fourth part of a series in trying to understand the nature of metaphysical naturalism. In Part One it was noted that "not even the naturalists themselves all agree, using different terminology for exactly similar philosophical positions; or using precisely similar terminology for differences that may be subtle, or may be extremely and fundamentally different." What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part One

"Metaphysical" naturalism is called "ontological" naturalism in some quarters, and those who use the word "ontological" may make some clear distinction between the use of the two words. In the unofficially described "mission" of this blog immediately below the blog title I deliberately use the sentence, "Seeking ontological rationality in every aspect of conscious existence." So this Academy accepts them as identical.

In What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part Two, ontology was described from Wikipedia as "a branch of metaphysics that studies being, and so this is the view that the supernatural does not exist..." Yet, "scientific" naturalism takes this same view, and those naturalists who use the word scientific also vary in their overall differences with other's who use the word. It may be a small, minor difference; it may be a fundamental difference.

The Academy does not use the word scientific because other, better known naturalists who have fundamental differences with the Academy's definition call themselves scientific. One case in point is the website full of famous names who are asociates or contributors to the site, famous people who go along with the idea that, "...the epistemic theme of the [scientific reductivism, i.e., that scientific naturalism] is to 'drop the soul and free will [in order to be] rid of the fictional supernatural agency that blocks true explanations of phenomena.'" [italics added] What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part One continued

The Academy is not reductivist, which bring us to the first caveat of its strong [1] definition of naturalism. The caveats are used because I did not wish to disturb the original definition of naturalism accepted by the Academy, written by B.A.G. Fuller. It is true that I did amend Fuller's definition to the degree that I removed what was scientific in it, and replaced it with what is only ontological and acceptable without making it necessary to "drop the soul and free will."

Perhaps one day I shall be able to incorporate the caveats into Fuller's definition, but I will not do so until I can do it without making it incomprehensible. The caveats allow the Academy's distinct differences to be set apart, rather than lost in their incorporation. Fuller's definition is difficult enough for the beginner.

The libertarian, philosopher, lecturer, professor and contributor to the Cato Institute Tibor Machan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibor_R._Machan, wrote to me asking what Fuller meant by the word "tychistic." Machan said he had looked it up in every source he could think of and could not find the definition. Adding that definition was one of the amendments I made.

Machan also said he disagreed with Fuller's use of the word "deterministic" to describe the affairs of men. I agree with him, but Fuller was talking about the universe, not about men. Men are sui generis and while they must follow the laws of nature that govern material objects such as our bodies are, man's mind has its own laws of nature, those of the nature of life. Man is a creature of volition and of reason; together, these allow our species many exceptions to those laws which rule strictly empirical entities that have no volition, and those creatures with volition but without reason.

That is the reason I have today once again amended the Academy's Description, to include the clause "except in the affairs of mind."

Amended 11.16.08

"Naturalism, challenging the cogency of the cosmological,i mechanical,ii and moral argumentsiii, holds that the universe requires no supernatural cause and government, but is self-existent, self-explanatory, self-operating, and self-directing, that the world-process is neither mechanistic nor anthropocentric, but purposeless, deterministic (except for possible tychistic* events, and) except in the affairs of mind; and is only accidentally productive of man; that human life as physical, mental, moral and spiritual phenomena, are ordinary natural events attributable in all respects to the ordinary operations of the laws of nature; and that man's ethical values, compulsions, activities, and restraints can be justified by non-reductive monism, [http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/2008/09/non-reductive-monism.html] without recourse to supernatural sanctions, and his highest good pursued and attained under natural conditions, without expectation of a supernatural destiny"----(amended from B.A.G.Fuller http://www.ditext.com/runes/n.html see Naturalism)

* (Tychism: any theory which regards chance as an objective reality, operative in the cosmos; [ibid])

First Caveat:

--AND that

this description neither explicitly nor implicitly exlcudes the existence of the human soul, nor of free will, when:"'soul' is a "veridical perception"** of consciousness;" and "free will is the mind’s freedom to think or not;" (Ayn Rand)

With this, we must consider that the better known advocates of scientific naturalism say the "soul" and "free will" are illusions; not that they are not real as either concepts most people accept and act upon, nor as physiological forces that can be ostensibly identified with medical monitoring equipement. What scientific naturalism makes clear is that free will is not "free of the forces of environment, genes, memes, and other influences beyond the control of human to avoid having to deal with."

Epistemologically they are correct. Metaphysically they are wrong. Where they are correct is that all life exists in an environment, not in a vacuum. Within that environment forces exist which cause life to make choices where it can, or to make simple adaptations where it can. No one is denying that if you are driving down the highway and a deer jumps in front of you that you must a quick decision based on the total environment, such as the proximity of other cars, the proximity of the railing on the outside of the highway or of the concrete divider in the middle, whether or not you have passengers to think of, etc, and that all these considerations leave you no choice but to act.

However, scientism in naturalism declares that because you have no choice but to made a decision, your will is not free, when in truth it is free; it is free to hit the deer or not; to hit another car or not; to risk the lives of your passengers and hope they fare better than the deer--or not to risk their lives; to hit the deer--or not.

As Ayn Rand said, free will is the freedom "to think or not." Life does not live in a vacuum. Only in a total conceptual vacuum would life be free of memes, genes, environments, and other life and considerations that impose the absolute need to act when one would care not to act at all.

Scientific naturalism is wrong in declaring that this denies man the right to claim his will is "free." You are always free to answer the phone, or not; to scold your child for wrong doing, or not; to risk the lives of other passengers on the road by swerving to miss the deer and then lying afterward to say it was all you could think to do other than to hit the deer and damage your car. You always have the freedom to do the opposite, or to do something alternative which may be to do nothing at all. An angry man whose wife just asked him for a divorce may care nothing about the life of the deer, hit it, and continue driving; he might even laugh and think such irrational things as "God isn't going to slow me down by putting a frigging deer in my path. I'll show him."

It is a metaphysical difference between the Academy and scientific naturalism. "From a naturalistic perspective," states one scientific wesite, "there are no causally privileged agents, nothing that causes without being caused in turn. Human beings act the way they do because of the various influences that shape them, whether these be biological or social, genetic or environmental. We do not have the capacity to act outside the causal connections that link us in every respect to the rest of the world. This means we do not have what many people think of as free will, being able to cause our behavior without our being fully caused in turn." [italics added] http://www.naturalism.org/tenetsof.htm

The metaphysics of that website are those of determinists, believing in the doctrine that every fact in the universe is guided entirely by law, the law of the impenetrability, translation and impact of matter, allowing only for mechanical causation.

The Academy holds that man is not deterministic, is not therefor mechanical, meaning he is able to make choices even if the need is for choices he would rather not make. If a billiard ball strikes another ball at a certain speed and angle and with a certain amount of backward or forward spin or with no spin at all, each of those scenarios is mechanical and is predictable. But striking ball has no choices; the struck ball has no choices. But scientific naturalists wish to put man in this same basket of eggs.

"By understanding ourselves as fully caused, and by seeing just how we are caused (by our genetic endowment, upbringing, and social environments), we dramatically enhance our powers of prediction and control, [over ourselves,] reduc[ing] unwarranted self-righteousness, moral superiority, pride, shame, and guilt. People don't create themselves, so responsibility for their character and behavior isn't ultimately theirs, but is distributed over the many factors that created them. And after all, were we given their environmental and genetic conditions, we would have become what they are, and acted just as they did: there but for circumstances go I." [italics added]

Determinism means the doctrine that all the facts in the physical universe, and hence also in human history, are absolutely dependent upon and conditioned by their causes. In psychology, it means the doctrine that the will is not free but is determined by psychical or physical conditions. Determinism is synonomous with fatalism, necessitarianism, destiny. [Dictionary of Phil; Runes] "There but for the circumstances go I."

I know a woman who became a nurse, worked at a hospital long enough to gain her early retirement, then left for another job in the pharmacutical industry, where again she worked long enough to gain early retirement, and now is earning her Doctorate in Nursing. She has had her share of life-changing moments. Her husband has an incurable, debilitating disease which eventuall kills everyone who has it. Don't tell me people don't make themselves.

I took up a relationship with someone who had an infant and a toddler. I didn't have to do this. I could have chosen otherwise. I now have the infant and the toddler as two sons in their thirties, and I am very proud to have done the things that helped make them the men they are today. I didn't have to do everything I did. I did less than some parents do; much more than other parents would have done. I made myself into a proud father. Don't tell me I didn't create myself into that role.

My father was raised in a family with a background that might have caused others to lose hope in becoming better. There was depression, alcoholism, spousal abuse, horribly angry family arguments that included my mother, yet my father lifted himself out of that, built a home and raised three children very comfortably; managed his money well enough to be more than comfortable in retirement; and became known by many people around the world who shared his hobby of antique cars, which included his writing of the manual for judging certain model years at public showings where trophies and ribbons are awarded.

He married a woman with a severe medical condition that many in her generation experienced. But in my experience growing up with her, I don't remember seeing anyone as bad off as her who was not in a wheelchair. This did not hold her back from accompanying my father in his travels around the country with his cars, nor from giving her children all the attention, care and love they needed. Her condition could have held the entire family back as she had several major corrective surgeries while I was growing up. But I don't remember missing out on anything that I ever wanted, or ever wanted to do.

Don't tell me my parents did not "make themselves." Absolutely they had all the genetic, familial, memetic, medical and environmental situations to deal with that scientism says causes us to be "fully caused" in our beings, and which prevent us from being "the ultimate originators of ourselves or our behavior, [and whereby] we can’t take ultimate credit or blame for what we do."

But Free Will is Not All; There's the Soul

Don't forget, free will is not the only concern of the first caveat. The other concern is the soul when soul is a "veridical perception" of consciousness;" and where veridical perception is "a direct relation of awareness between a conscious subject and an object of empirical or abstract content."

This means that the soul, being either of empirical or abstract content, is simply an object of cognition. It is the meaning of that "direct relation of awareness" where the ideas of scientism differ from those of metaphysical naturalism. And this difference is metaphysical. They do not deny the relationship of your consciousness to your soul; they deny that the soul is anything more than physiological reactions that are measurable and which have nothing to do with our deepest emotional resources.

Both scientific and metaphysical naturalism deny that the soul is transcendental, from the supernatural god-realm, into the empirical world where it resides in our physical beings, and then back into the supernatural realm of the afterlife.

But scientism, regarding the soul as supernatural because people take it be of supernatural origin, makes no sense.

It is a cognoscentum, meaning it has validity as something of which we are conscious, and that as a veridical perception of consciousness it is something perceived which exists--as the next caveat states:

AND that

"consciousness" is "the faculty of awareness—the faculty of [veridically] perceiving that which exists;" (Ayn Rand)

AND that

"that which exists" is "an 'existent' be it a thing, an attribute or an action;" (AR)

AND FURTHER

that "an existent" is "veridical perception and memory, or abstract and ideal e.g. in conception and valuation;" (ibid Runes)

Naturalism, by its epistemology, presumes that humans have made a mistake by defining supernaturalism as that which has existence in the god-realm; that it is misidentified as belonging to a realm that is not of human, organic origins; and further, that accepting this misidentification is the negation of reason where reason is the opposite of the faith associated with the belief in the god-realm.

But scientism goes much further, turning it into a mechanical element of our existence. The website I have been quoting specifically states that they are not making it mechanical, that to the contrary, "the physical universe has produced, in us, marvelously complex and adaptive organisms, with the capacity for self-reflection, wonder, suffering, and joy. Far from mechanizing humanity, naturalism re-enchants the physical world by showing how consciousness and choice don’t involve supernatural processes."

Well, that's nice, but they can't have their cake and eat it, too. Either our "adaptiveness" gives us freedom of choice or it doesn't; either we have free will, or we don't. If we don't, we are not adaptive. If we don't have free will, nor the soul to be the mirror and the conscience of our consciousness existence, then it is true what the scientific naturalists say:

"Instead of supposing people can simply will themselves to be otherwise, we can no longer take or assign ultimate credit or blame for what we do; [and so] we see that there but for circumstances go I, the homeless person in front of us, the convict, or the addict, had we been given their genetic and environmental lot in life."

Accepting scientific naturalism means giving up the "freedom to think or not," because genes, memes, and environment, etc, cause us to be "fully caused," and "fully caused" allows for no free will.

[1] and just as necessary to add the caveats at the end in order to distinguish this Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism from other metaphysical schools and schools of naturalism. But I would add that the terms "strong" and "weak" are unnecessarily vague, and that the categorical names are better, names such as metaphysical; teleonatural; ontological; Christian; humanist; deterministic; non-deterministic; reductive; non-reductive; etc. However, as I have demonstrated, these categories are no more apt to be difinitive than are the words "strong" and "weak."

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Threaded with Austin Cline--Pop Culture vs. Ontology; and Saturday Quotes

A Threaded Conversation with the Deity of Atheism, Austin Cline

I am publishing this thread because Mr. Cline has either refused, or merely neglected, to publish the last comment I made to him [9.13.08; see below] in which I was able to refute his criticism of me as "fail[ing] to support your arguments," and of having written on the "basis of appalling misrepresentations." He said I was "long on unsupported claims, but short on credible arguments and facts."

If Mr. Cline refuses to admit my credibility as it comes to me from other sources better known and respected than he is, then I am forced to publish it myself.

As Mr. Cline himself alludes to, he is a writer of pop culture and must satisfy his readers and his employer. I must do neither, and if my readers find my credibility strained, they have only to refuse to read my blog.

Cline's column: 9.12.08

"Atheism is only the absence of belief in gods, so there is nothing self-contradictory if atheists believe in astrology, alien abductions, Bigfoot, psychic powers, and a host of other mystical, supernatural, and paranormal things. Being an atheist doesn't mean being a skeptic, and vice-versa. However, paranormal claims aren't very different from religious ones and a relevant atheism is one based upon a consistently and broadly applied skepticism, not one focused solely on religion or theism. Austin Cline http://atheism.about.com/b/2008/09/12/why-should-atheists-be-more-skeptical-why-is-skepticism-relevant-to-atheism.htm

Me: 9.12.08
"Atheism is NOT “only the absence of belief in gods.” As an atheist blogger, I can tell you it’s about “faith” versus “reason.” Atheists do not have faith, and rely on reason. An atheist who has supernatural beliefs like astrology is a contradiction in terms. My blog today http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/2008/09/non-reductive-monism.html is about “reductive monism” vs. “non-reductive” monism, and why “reductive monism” cannot win arguments with theists.

"If you go back in your archives beginning August 7, thread #41223 re: “strong” atheism vs. “weak” atheism, you will see the silly arguments made by atheists against my black-and-white statement that gods don’t exist. One person asked me if, since I didn’t believe gods exist, did I believe Alexander the Great had been real, since he had been deified?

OMG! The reductionists even argue with other atheists!
Curtis Edward Clark

Cline: 9.12.08
"'Atheism is NOT “only the absence of belief in gods.'”

"Yes, it is. That’s the definition.

"'As an atheist blogger, I can tell you it’s about “faith” versus “reason.'”

"You’re mistaken. There is nothing about atheism that prevents a person from having “faith” or believing in any manner of nonsense. Being an atheist doesn’t mean a person is necessarily rational, reasonable, intelligent, moral, civil, or anything else.

"'An atheist who has supernatural beliefs like astrology is a contradiction in terms.'"

"That would only be true if the definition of atheism were “absence of belief in the supernatural.” That, however, is not the definition of atheism. The definition of atheism is “absence of belief in gods.”

"It’s true that most atheist in the West today don’t believe in the supernatural and don’t have “faith” in things in a manner analogous to how theists have “faith” in gods, but that is simply a function of contemporary culture and environment. Not all atheists even in the West are like that, and not all atheists in all other places and at all other times are like that.

"You should be careful not to assume that every position you happen to hold is one that all atheists must therefore also hold. That would be arrogant.

"The definition of atheism is as simple and broad as theism. Defining atheism as you have is a bit like trying to define mere theism as the same as Christianity.

"'If you go back in your archives beginning August 7, thread #41223 re: “strong” atheism vs. “weak” atheism

"First, you’re talking about a forum thread.
"Second, I am quite familiar with that forum thread and I noticed that you fail to support your arguments. I’ve linked to that thread above so others can see. You have commented on things I have written here, but only on the basis of appalling misrepresentations. You are long on unsupported claims, but short on credible arguments and facts." [italics added by me, Clark, because they become relevant below.]

Me: 9/12/08
"I wrote a long reply, using “facts” garnered from Dr. Quentin Smith, Tom Clark, and Tibor Machan. I’ve met Smith, argued with Clark, and was informed by Machan about Clark’s reductionism, which led me to the subject of monism, which you did not address.
Then when I sent it, I was told my email address was incorrect, go back. In going back, I lost the entire reply. I hope it got through. If it did get through, I hope the “facts” I presented, including why theists ought to be made the skeptics to the naturalist position, rather than making us their skeptics, were acceptable to you.
If it didn’t get through, please fix your system so that in the future, such losses do not occur.
Sincerely,
Curtis Edward Clark

Cline: 9.13.08
"'the subject of monism, which you did not address. '"

"When it comes to the definition of atheism, it’s irrelevant. The subject of “consulting a dictionary” is usually quite sufficient. [italics added]

"If it didn’t get through, please fix your system so that in the future, such losses do not occur.'
"I’m not responsible for the software on this site any more than you are responsible for the blogging software you use."

Me: 9.13.08 [Cline has so far neglected to publish this last comment in his own blog.]

"Ok. So reductionism has nothing to do with the subject. I'll bite.

"But when you say I fail to support my arguments, and that I write on the 'basis of appalling misrepresentations [ ] long on unsupported claims, but short on credible arguments and facts,' did you notice that in each of my blogs I use other, more accomplished thinkers than myself and I attribute them all?

"No, of course not. You didn't bother looking. Are all my authorities incorrect, or are they merely authorities you find 'short on credible arguments and facts?'

"For example, in my piece about reductionism, http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/ I quoted Tom Clark (Naturalism.Org), Raul Corazzon, Ayn Rand, Boethius, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, B.A.G. Fuller, and Wikipedia.

"Please don't say I'm short on facts. I never write a word without excessively, compulsively, doing background on it. I rarely see you attribute anyone but yourself.

"And as I stated in the previous comment, I've argued with Tom Clark, who, frankly, was close-mouthed with any answer to my questions at all, let alone with a credible answer. I've discussed that discussion with Tibor Machan who agreed with me. (Talk about using authorities!)

"And Dr. Quentin Smith, whom I've met, wrote: "Naturalist philosophers need to rethink their goals. In part this involves clearly distinguishing between philosophical goals and cultural consequences of the attainment or pursuit of these goals.

"'One of the four goals of informed naturalists,' Smith writes, is to, 'Reclassify the philosophy of religion as a sub field of naturalism, viz. skepticism about naturalism, so that the position in the various fields of philosophy formerly occupied by 'the philosophy of religion' is replaced by the field 'the philosophy of naturalism.'

"'The fourth goal is to justifiably reformulate, and answer, the two basic ontological why-questions that medieval philosophers took over from the Greco-Roman naturalists, and which have (for the most part) remained ever since 'questions asked in the field of the philosophy of religion.' The successful accomplishments of these four tasks will restore academia to the mainstream secularization it possessed before the post-1967 breakdown in the field of philosophy.' http://www.philoonline.org/library/smith_4_2.htm

"This means overcoming theism with non-reductionism. This means not playing the skeptic, as opposed to 'a relevant atheism [ ] based upon a consistently and broadly applied skepticism.' We need to make the theists the skeptics, according to Smith.

"It would seem that in 'distinguishing between philosophical goals and cultural consequences,' you are the cultural expert, whereas I focus on the philosophy, backed by world renowned experts. [I should have stated "even if they back my argument against their position."]

"I was interested in your blog because I thought I could use it philosophically. [But] I seem to be arguing against you. We seem we have different goals, so please lets keep this civil between us:

"You say I wrote you on the 'basis of appalling misrepresentations. You are long on unsupported claims, but short on credible arguments and facts.'

"I think you cannot now claim I misrepresent all the people I attribute in my blog; nor can you say I am short on credibility, unless you wish to claim all of my attributions have no credibility.

"Let me apologize for making it sound as if the posting snafu was your fault. I meant for it to be applied to About.Com, and I can see how you would have taken my words. I am sorry. It was frustrating to click my email address from the drop-down, only to have About.Com claim it was not a valid email, and then to destroy my comment.

"You stick with your 'culture.' I'll stick with my ontology, metaphysics, and epistemic principles. You continue to write as the Deity of atheist culture your fans take you to be; I will continue to write like the expert I someday hope to be credibly accepted as.

"As I said in one of those older threads, this is why I hate getting into threads. I did not attack you personally in my first comment, only commenting on what you said.

"You on the other hand, attacked my credibility and facts, which I have now proven are not all my own opinion; and I've proved that I have authorities upon whom I can rely for straight answers and help when I need it. I guess you are not one of them.

"This is the last time I will reply. I hate threads.
Sincerely,
Curtis Edward Clark

Closing comments to this thread, not sent to Cline: In an attempt not to be "arrogant," which Cline alluded to, I referenced a dictionary, as he suggested I do:

"Atheism: (Gr. a, no; theos, god) Two uses of the term:

1. The belief that there is no God.
2. Some philosophers have been called "atheistic" because they have not held to a belief in a personal God. Atheism in this sense means "not theistic." [italics added, to prove that this particular dictionary proves Mr. Cline to be incorrect, not me.]
"The former meaning of the term is a literal rendering. The latter meaning is a less rigorous use of the term although widely current in the history of thought." "Dictionary of Philosophy"; Runes

Now, Mr. Cline, I interpret the belief that there is no god to be different from "the absence of belief in gods," because as you yourself stated, people who merely have an absence of belief in gods can still find themselves involved in all sorts of supernatural enterprises, like astrology, hand reading, tea reading, ghost hunting, etc. As the dictionary above states, these people are not atheist; they are "not-theist." You use a "less rigorous" definition that is "widely current"; but "widely current" does not mean "correct." It means "culturally popular," and you have already identified your definition as "cultural."

Someone with a belief that there is no god may be presumed to also believe there is nothing supernatural; or I would hope it could be presumed, otherwise there is not an iota of distinction in the definitions:

"[M]an's ethical values, compulsions, activities, and restraints can be justified by non-reductive monism, http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/2008/09/non-reductive-monism.html without recourse to supernatural sanctions, and his highest good pursued and attained under natural conditions, without expectation of a supernatural destiny."(amended from B.A.G.Fuller http://www.ditext.com/runes/n.html see Naturalism)

That, Mr. Cline, is my definition of "atheism," taken from two, not one, source. Have a good day, sir!

Quotes for Saturday

He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle. Edward R. Murrow; "I Can Hear It Now"; (said of Churchill)

"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb." Sir Winston Churchill, from the essay 'Painting as a Pastime', published at the end of Thoughts and Adventures.

When they start the game, they don't yell, "Work ball." They say, "Play ball." Willie Stargell

"Live Free Or Die; Death Is Not The Worst of Evils." General Stark sent this toast to be read at the reunion he was too ill to attend; "Live Free or Die" became the New Hampshire State Motto in 1945 General John Stark, a toast for the 32nd anniversary reunion of the 1777 Battle of Bennington in Vermont, July 31, 1809

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The Naturalistic Existence of Free Will, Soul, and Ego

In Tuesday's blog (8.26) I made a big deal of the concept of the actual existence of an actual human soul, and of free will as something actually available to men.

“Free Will,” according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), refers to "a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives [and] that the concept of free will is very closely connected to the concept of moral responsibility."


As I shall show, this "moral responsibility" is at the heart of most schools of naturalism--and there are many varieties, but almost all admit, "Brains and buffaloes exist (for instance), but minds and moral values must not, because they are invisible to the five senses and therefore invisible to scientific enquiry." J. P. Moreland [italics added] http://www.boundless.org/features/a0000872.html


In quoting Moreland, I understand I am open to the naturalist's defense that I am using religious claims to counter scientific claims. But the heart of this metaphysical and epistemological portrayal by science of "man without mind or moral responsibility" is what is wrong about naturalism, and what is right about religion--for the wrong reasons.


It is because of the correct view of moral responsibility by religion, and of the wrong view by science, that epistemological caveats were placed on the definition of naturalism by which this Academy operates. [See sidebar]
[Mirriam-Webster Online defines caveat as "an explanation to prevent misinterpretation; a modifying or cautionary detail to be considered when evaluating, interpreting, or doing something." B.A.G.Fuller's definition, standing alone, does not cover all the subjective, non-normative goals of an empirical science that can scan a brain in real time and watch its parts "lighting up" while the subject under scrutiny looks at pictures of porn or posies, listens to various types of music, eats most-favorite and least-favorite foods, or in general has his or her empirical sensory organs stimulated.]


The view of an active will that is free of coercion whether it is coercion by other men or by nature, satisfies "the metaphysical requirement on being responsible for one's action. [ ] But the significance of free will is not exhausted by its connection to moral responsibility" (as we shall see,) continues the SEP.


For the sake of the argument allow that "ego" is an agent of cause in the lives of men. Naturalists will deny the ego exists, and people unfamiliar with the complexities of naturalism will not know why the ego should be discounted at all, since they believe all men believe it exists. The ego seems to be self-evident, and we base our morals on restricting the ego as it attempts to become king of a hill. Most naturalists do not agree it exists, that what appears "self-evident" is fiction designed only to explain, before modern science "showed" otherwise, why we acted in such and such a way.


So for the sake of the argment, "ego" is accepted by most men as the reason for demanding and accepting recognition for one's accomplishments of time, effort, and creativity; accepted as the reason for the recognition of individual sovereignty and the dignity of persons to remain free of human coercion; and accepted as the reason for values we place on other people, places, things, attributes and actions.


But naturalists don't accept free will, the soul, or the ego as real objects, not even as objects that reflect the reality of the mind, because they don't accept "mind" as anything but a fiction designed to explain a phenomenon.


The moral argument for them is exactly "[a]s you'd expect in a culture wedded to mind-body dualism but inhabiting an age of science..." http://www.naturalism.org/choice.htm

That partial sentence says it all, if you know what is at stake. The mind-body dualism leaves us "at the mercy of two monsters whom man [can] not fathom or control: of a body moved by unaccountable instincts and of a soul moved by mystic revelations—" Ayn Rand For the New Intellectual, http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/soulbodydichotomy.html Men who believe in existence without a free consciousness want no part in moral responsibility, as the direct quotes below will show. That is why consciousness "inhabiting an age of science" is not a good thing for them.

The problem is that "they" have now declared that not only does the soul not exist either as "mystic revelation," nor as a natural element of the consciousness of man. They also now deny that consciousness is anything more than neurons firing, memes, genes, etc. and that what we think is consciousness--is not.

Modern science is philosophical materialism, "the metaphysical view that there is only one substance in the universe" and that that substance is empirical." http://www.skepdic.com/materialism.html The philosophical materialism of naturalists is the belief that spiritual substance does not exist.


In one sense only they are correct: that thing which they deny as "soul" cannot be objectively evaluated by any known scientific standards or methods. You can't make the "soul" light up like parts of the brain do. It is metaphysical, but metaphysical descriptions are descriptions of things that exist, in this case of what we sense as the effects we feel as emotional, or at least physical, within our bodies.


The difference between the materialist and the Objectivist position accepted by the majority of all humans who ever lived and who live now, is that "ego," and "free will" explain non-material objects that are not supernatural, and not of any substance except of knowledge of events in space-time that occur inside out bodies. As for "soul," Objectivists are on the side of the naturalists in declaring it to be the effect of empirical activities originating within the central nervous system, and which therefore die with the body.


Yet, it is disagreement as to the cause of these events that distinguishes the difference between materialistic science and objective epistemology; and it precisely the epistemology of both science and religion that is wrong.

A rational man will not harbor "the soul-body dichotomy. He will discard its irrational conflicts and contradictions, such as: mind versus heart, thought versus action, reality versus desire, the practical versus the moral. [ ] He will know that the [ ] volitional level of reason and thought—is the basic necessity of man’s survival and his greatest moral virtue. He will know that men need philosophy for the purpose of living on earth. Ayn Rand For the New Intellectual

[I take up Rand so much in this article because one of the staunchest supporters of scientific naturalism, denying the soul and individual responsibility for personal action, is Tom Clark, of Naturalism.Org, already quoted above and much quoted below.

In email between myself and Tibor Machan http://www.hoover.org/bios/machan.html http://www.cato.org/people/tibor-machan, who has argued against Clark in the past http://www.naturalism.org/libertar.htm#_ftn3, Machan said, "Clark is an avowed reductive materialist, which is a highly restricted version of naturalism (it begs the question as to what can be part of nature.)" Obviously, soul, ego, and free will are not "parts of nature," but are reduced to biological functions of the brain.


Science takes the fact that soul, ego, and free will cannot be objectively evaluated by any known scientific standards or methods to mean that no such ontological objects exist. When we insist they mean more than the identification of empirical effects on our nervous system, the effect that "feels" like what humans have always called our soul, our ego, our free will, science denies it. Once we give those objects the identity of a "moral existents" of consciousness, they cease to be scientifically useful. You can't put morals under a microscope. So soul, ego, and free will are denied, not as things we don't recognize and can not talk about, but as something with any scientific value. The only value to science of the soul and the ego is that they are the empirical effects of an empirical (chemical/electircal) cause, or of a conceptual, e.g., ideological, cause.

But conceptual causes are, themselves, attributed to empirical causes, thus eliminating them as ontological.


"In his book Consilience, E. O. Wilson took note that sociology has identified belief in a soul as one of the universal human cultural elements. Wilson suggested that biologists need to investigate how human genes predispose people to believe in a soul." [attribution unknown]

"Man is viewed as coordinate with other parts of nature, and naturalistic psychology emphasizes the physical basis of human behavior..." says the SEP. [ibid]

"Daniel Dennett has championed the idea that the human survival strategy depends heavily on adoption of the intentional stance. [This,] Dennett suggests, has proven so successful that people tend to apply it to all aspects of human experience, thus leading to [to] conceptualizations of soul." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul

Watching parts of the brain light up (with functional magnetic imaging resonance) demonstrates a causal relationship between sensory stimuli, and those parts of the brain responsible for registering something about the stimuli. Comparisons are made on the particular emotions the subject is feeling at the time this-or-that part of the brain shows activity.

For example, "when you're in love, your eyes light up, your face lights up -- and, apparently, so do four tiny bits of your brain, said Andreas Bartels, a doctoral student at University College London who presented his research at the Society for Neuroscience." http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/11/08/love.in.lights.ap/index.html

We know this. This kind of thing is not new news. We've all seen it on TV if not in our own lives. What those of us in the general population don't comprehend is that scientists reverse the cause and effect, enabling them to make claims such as that because a part of your brain lights up, it causes an emotion; therefore, emotions are caused by events that take place within the empirical brain; therefore, "an individual’s development and behavior are entirely the result of prior and surrounding conditions, both genetic and environmental;" [italics added]http://www.naturalism.org/center_for_naturalism.htm

Or this: "Our bodies and minds are shaped in their entirety by conditions that precede us and surround us...We see that there but for circumstances go I. We would have been the homeless person in front of us, the convict, or the addict, had we been given their genetic and environmental lot in life." [italics added] http://www.centerfornaturalism.org/descriptions.htm

But in order to humor us about our souls, and in an attempt to explain what it is that people are comtemplating when they meditate upon their mortal souls, we get explanations like this:

"It doesn't hurt...you know... to think about people playing harps sitting on clouds..." Daniel Dennett; The Atheism Tapes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v46Wd7qwq0

The soul is the seat of self-awareness as a metaphysical entity. The soul incorporates the inner "voice" of each living being. It is the basis for consciousness of consciousness, because it is that consciously "given" thing within us upon which we focus our consciousness. We focus our consciousness back inside ourselves, and there we find an entity with a specific identity; the self.

Consciousness of consciousness is found in our Latin name. We are Homo sapiens sapiens, not, as some mistakenly believe, just "plain old" Homo sapiens. "Plain old" Homo sapiens is called "Archaic Homo sapiens" and lived "300,000 to 30,000 B.P." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaic_Homo_sapiens

The soul is the basis for our seat of self-awareness, but not the cause. The cause is simply that when someone got around to looking, he saw. It had been there all the time, like math and oxygen. But someone had to be the first to see it.

Other animals have self awareness, but it is on the level of what naturalist and biologist Loren Eiseley called the eternal present. They are stuck in it. They can't think further than their next meal, or at least further than their next act. Chimps have been seen to take justice to the "eye for an eye" variety. Worse, they have been seen stomping other chimps to death just for having accidentally entered the other tribe's territory-- but they only stomped the other chimp to death after searching for it for hours, in apack like wolves. That is more than "eye for an eye," so it really means they have not given morality any consideration. They only live by their emotions, and if you are an invading chimp, friendly or not, you deserved to die.

A dog can think far enough ahead to know that when his master needs help, he must go seek that help. Dog's have a persistence to be admired. But after the rescue, they do not pat themselves on the back, and tell their friends, or their puppies, how they heroically ran up the hill, swam the creek, and ran two miles to get home to tell the Mrs. that the Mr. was injured. When the rescue is done, as far as the dog is concerned, its done. There may be residual pride. Who has not seen a proud pet. My cat's proudest moment was showing off her kittens, but after that it was the night she brought home an owl. She didn't egoistically act as if she even remembered it the next day.

So, after the event, everything is back to normal, and as for the chimps you wouldn't know in either tribe that anything out of the ordinary had happened. Because it was not out of the ordinary. And things were back to normal. Normal is living in the present with no thought to any means of bettering their relations with other tribes, or whether that is even necessary for their own survival as a species, as a tribe, or as an individual. They act as their species has acted since they popped up on the evolutionary scene, with a consciousness stuck in the moment.

Man's self-consciousness is on a different level. I like to think that psychologically man gained "sapient sapience" when the first Greek (or someone of another culture such as the Chinese,) made the first syllogism of philosophy and connected it to another and another. That was a feat no creature on earth had ever done before, and that none but man has done since.

So inner reflection, on an ontological entity, as a learned action, and the capability to make chains of syllogisms that are specifically philosophical, is the seat of the self consciousness, and what it is conscious of is its empirical sensory manifestations collectively called conscience.


But here is where I must repeat: science has the cause-and-effect backward. So what if the mechanism of the brain causes those empirical sensory manifestations? They relate to something, and that "thing" is value based. Science tests the lighting-up of the brain by using sensory stimuli, but then forgets to mention that all stimuli have value-based relationships to life; and that when it is man's brain lighting up to the smell of popcorn, or the picture of a national hero, or the sound of a melody that one danced to at his/her senior prom, that all those things have value-based relationships to a human life.

This forgetfullness should bother us--greatly. Man has the virtue of volition. Human beings are a volitional species, where "volition" means "[acting] without being compelled - by someone, or by external circumstances, or by mental illness," against one's rational considerations. http://www.naturalism.org/lexicon.htm The problem with this quote is that in the original it didn't end with "rational considerations." It ended with "to do it against one's wishes" which the materialist naturalist will tell you "are entirely the result of prior and surrounding conditions, both genetic and environmental." [italics added]

Volition and free will are synonymous, where free will means "the capacity unique to persons that allows them to control their actions," http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/freewill.htm No such virtue as volition can exist as freedom to think or not, when genes and the chair you sit in and the sandwich you had for lunch are the cause of your desire to talk to your mother, or vacation in Orlando instead of New Orleans.

Why does science get cause and effect confused? It is entirely purposeful and based on altrusim; and not just on altruism, but on altruistic bones that we somehow get from mother nature even when altruism is a moral choice.

"The capacity for such self-modifying choices [as come with what some call free will,] and their direction, for good or ill, can always be traced back to influences that were prior to both our character and our choice-making capacity. Such tracing is at the heart of empirical explanation; it’s what science does for a living, partially. This is to say that, on a scientific understanding of ourselves, our autonomy and its uses are fully natural and fully determined, ultimately arising out of conditions that were not within our control.

"[To suppose the existence of free will] is to suppose that in empirical fact we are merely self-interested creatures. But we aren’t; there are many altruistic bones in our body," writes Clark. [2] [italics added] http://www.naturalism.org/libertar.htm#_ftn4

Since he said this specifically in response to the "ruthless egoism" of Objectivism*, let me quote again from the originator of Objectivism: [*rational egoism is not ruthless. It is the justice one pays himself in recognition of his individual sovereignty and of the sovereignty of every other individual.]

"Do not hide behind such superficialities [in the argument about altruism] as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime." [italics added] Ayn Rand "Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World,” Philosophy: Who Needs It

Altruism, as I personally argued with Clark, was coined by Auguste Comte and adopted in Britain by H. Spencer. For Comte the word meant the eradication of self as found in ones "desire," and it meant a life devoted to the good of others, not just freely offered when one had a desire to do so, since desire was to be eradicated. More particularly, Comte meant by "altrusim" selfless love and devotion to Society. In brief, it involved self-abnegation conceived as an ideal. As thus understood, altruism involves a conscious opposition to egoism, understood as rational self-interest.

Altruism is not to be confused, as Clark does, with kindness, e.g., "altruistic bones," or with good will or respect for the rights of others, said Rand. Altruism makes kindness impossible, because Comte also meant that altruism was opposed to the formal or theological pursuit of charity.

"The irreducible primary of altruism," Rand wrote, "the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction—which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good." [ibid]

Clark responded, saying, "It would be nice if all Rand’s acolytes examined her philosophy as assiduously as do you..."

To which I would add, "It would be nicer if educated men do not misunderstand it, or the meaning of such words as "altruistic," as badly as you do."

I said that science willfully forgets to tell us about the value relationship that existents have on our consciousness, and that this ought to bother us greatly. Well, here is the reason why. It is as "faith based" as religion is, and I can say this because people who forget to tell us about the value relationship of our right to give or not to give to someone needy is what altruism is all about; and the people who forget to tell us that tell us the things they want us to believe.

"Our bodies and minds are shaped in their entirety by conditions that precede us and surround us...Seeing that we are fully caused creatures - not self-caused - we can no longer take or assign ultimate credit or blame for what we do. This leads to an ethics of compassion and understanding, both toward ourselves and others. We see that there but for circumstances go I. We would have been the homeless person in front of us, the convict, or the addict, had we been given their genetic and environmental lot in life." http://www.centerfornaturalism.org/descriptions.htm

We are all blameless. The astronaut who walks in space cannot take pride for having earned that position of responsibility as a crewmember: it was "entirely caused by conditions that preceded him/her and surrounded him/her." And it was genes that "predisposed" him or her to believe that all the hard work and years of waiting were the cause of his/her position of responsibility on the crew.

Thus, it was Hillary Rodham-Clinton's genetic and environmental "lot in life" that prevented her from winning the Democratic nomination; and Barrak Obama's charm, youth, good looks, and electrifying speeches were not the result of having worked hard to earn or to maintain those virtues, or to use them at the time in his life when he knew he could make them come true; it was his "lot in life."

Do you know what a "lot in life" is? When used as it is here, it is a predisposition, pre-set fate, that which one carries in his genes as given him by some long-ago primate ancestor; and in his mental makeup as caused by the size of the bedroom he grew up in, the condition of the mattress on his bed, and the lack of calcium, or the excess of caffeinated soda he drank, while growing up or just before deciding to run for President.

"Researchers [from the World Health Organization] are asking people throughout Britain to describe how happy they are with their lot in life to help improve the effect of the healthcare they receive." http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/16384.php

"[I]f we remain unconscious of [ ] predispositions we can only continue to run into inexplicable and irresolvable conflicts. These are the battles where logic and reason fly out of the window..." http://www.santafecoach.com/DRC/drcpp-test%20theory.htm

"...environmental factors [ ] and genetic predisposition for asthma..." http://www.onderzoekinformatie.nl/en/oi/nod/onderzoek/OND1289114/ Yes, I believe we do have such things as predispositions to diseases that may be environmentally or genetically caused. But there is no environmental or genetic predisposition to running for President or for losing the candidacy, nor for robbing a bank, nor for drive-by shootings, nor for cutting fetuses from living wombs, nor for strapping a bomb to one's body and blowing it up in the middle of a market, nor for anything else that science would like to attribute to "genetics and environment," which, but for the grace of god go I.

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