Determinism, Metaphysics, and Me, Myself, and I

I wonder if it is precisely this "internal experience," this "consciousness [of] certain existing relationships," that most naturalists fear?

Daniel Dennett is a leading author and teacher of scientific naturalism, a form that denies the existence of the soul and of free will. "He argues that the brain’s computational circuitry fools us into thinking we know more than we do, and that what we call consciousness — isn’t." TED.com

Mr. Dennett is an interesting figure because he does not argue that man is not by nature deterministic, but he certainly gives it new meaning, and his ideas appear alongside the names of others who may--or may not, there are so many of them--see the nature of man as more fatalistic (see below.) Some may even see us as less deterministic than Dennett; I couldn't begin to list the view of all the other people he appears beside if I had a year to do it. Which books, which lectures, which interviews did those others write or give in which their idea of man's determinism is defined?

These naturalists allow their names to appear together specifically because they deny anything supernatural. In one place alone appear the names of Susan Blackmore, Paul Bloom, Paul Broks, Daniel Dennett, Sheldon Drobny, Owen Flanagan, Ursula Goodenough, Joseph Hilbe, Nicholas Humphrey, Brian Leiter, Thomas Metzinger, Tamler Sommers, John Symons, and on another page of that site another list of other names. Surely, there is disagreement among them, somewhere, as described below in a website co-founded by Dennett.

The field of scientific naturalism leaves the door open to so many who "do not think alike on many action issues, and beyond the other principles [listed] below, it is not the movement’s desire to press for conformity." [emphasis added] The Brights

This lack of conformity is the reason that this Academy Blogger holds as a principle that free will and the soul exist, not as supernatural entities, but as a collection of Man's physiological actions which he then identifies as having a common "thread." This thread is a "unit" which is a "bridge between metaphysics and epistemology [and are] viewed by a consciousness in certain existing relationships." [emphasis in the original] Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology; Ayn Rand

Thus, man is able to naturalistically use his conscious powers to identify common elements between certain relationships of emotion and intellect, relationships which theists attribute to the supernatural, but which a metaphysical naturalist identifies as merely part of the process of the life of a man. He groups together these things into a relationship which he gives the name "soul."

Scientific naturalists refuse to identify these relationships as having the name "soul" because it is so tied through history with the theist notion of supernaturalism. But that is the theist's mistake; the scientific naturalist's mistake is in not recognizing the correct title of the relationship while denying the origins given to it by theists.

Properly identifying those relationships as "internal experience," someone mockingly wrote: "Pity us poor rational dualists. We have internal experience and yet no beliefs about God or Afterlife. We have more to lose. What I wonder: Are you absolutist non-dualists pretending not to have experience in order to soften the terror of your own deaths?"

I wonder if it is precisely this "internal experience," this "consciousness [of] certain existing relationships," that most naturalists fear?

Perhaps the "absolutist non-dualist" ideas he was considering were these:

• "More and more, biology and neuroscience show that the brain and body do everything that the soul was supposed to do."[1]
• "If you don’t believe in anything supernatural – gods, ghosts, immaterial souls and spirits – then you subscribe to naturalism, the idea that nature is all there is."[2]
• "...there’s no evidence for immaterial souls..."[3]
• "This means to see ourselves as completely physical, embodied, caused creatures, linked to the world in each and every respect, without souls..."
• And: " The death of God up there is now followed by death of the “little god” in here: the soul..."
• And: "...in dropping the soul and free will we get rid of the fictional supernatural agency that blocks true explanations of phenomena. This gives us power."[4]

The last bullet quote in [4] demonstrates how getting rid of the word "soul" itself somehow gives scientific naturalists their "power" to explain everything by physiology. But notice that while the author of all those quotations refuses to admit to a "non-material" soul, he is referring to something about "internal experience," identified as metaphysical. Metaphysics by definition is not material, so the author is denying the soul as "internal experiences" to which we give the metaphysical name "soul," even while metaphysical naturalism keeps supernaturalism out of it. To say something is "metaphysical" is not to say it is supernatural.

The author of those quotes, Tom Clark, runs a pair of websites devoted to debunking the metaphysics of the soul and of free will. Daniel Dennett's name appears on Clark's sites, alongside those many other names who may or may not agree with either Clark or Dennett, who here appear to be disagreeing each with the other.

Last week, I wrote, "...because the brain is specifically an animal organ, a determinist would think that his thoughts are actions caused by specific psychical or physical conditions." This is what Clark would have us believe.

And, in fact, this view is true, if you do not figure fatalism into the mix. "Fatalism is the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Clark would have us believe in this powerlessness. The argument runs that if you could go back in time and all other things remained the same, would a man have the free (libertarian) will to do differently than he did the first time? To answer no is fatalism, because it denies the ability to do something other than what one did do. To say "given that all other things remain the same," is to say "of course he could do nothing differently; nothing has changed." That is a not a fair test of free will, to change nothing, yet expect that free will would do something different anyway. Change one thing, then ask if free will would act differently, or if it would choose the same.

The difference between the determinism of scientific naturalism and the non-determinism of metaphysical naturalism is in this case metaphysics. The determinist has us believing that the brain is nothing but "conditioning," nothing but physiological actions of the "sensory cortex [ ] activated [ ] using corticocortical and corticothalamic fibers." Bernard J. Baars and Katherine McGovern

Such determinists do not deny that we have choices. In an interview in Reason magazine online, Daniel Dennett, appearing to contradict much of what his fellow authors say, said this:

"Determinism is the idea that what you do depends. What happens depends on what you do, what you do depends on what you know, what you know depends on what you're caused to know, and so forth -- but still, what you do matters. There's a big difference between that and fatalism. Fatalism is determinism with you left out."

Thank goodness someone sees the metaphysical relationships that determine the existence of "me, myself, and I." The way scientific naturalism is headed, someone, someday, is going to declare that those entities are also supernatural, and therefore do not exist.

Read this important report:
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Sci Naturalism's Goal of Liberal Humanism

SN's Humanism Part and Parcel
of Incivility Toward Man

Yesterday I wrote, "If the goal of scientific naturalism (SN) is humanism..." I should have written, "Since the goal of SN is humanism..."

Tom Clark, the author of the Guide to Naturalism, once wrote me and said the "Guide" and the Q&A "will be a start in understanding where the progressive, humanistic implications come from in this version of naturalism."

No where that I have been able to discover do any of the websites linked to Clark's "version of naturalism" state explicitly or implicitly that there is any other version of naturalism but the one in his "Guide." When writing about his version, he simply says "naturalism this" and "naturalism that." He conveniently forgets SN was not the norm when naturalism was the dominant doctrine of Greece and western Europe, before Augustine. On the Nature of Things

What Clark's version of "this and that" is, is a scientistic, politically liberal, "father-figure" when it comes to the role of law and the courts.

To quote from a website on the subject of law, punishment, and justice, is to understand this "progressiveness" better:

"I see two assumptions embedded in your question [about what to do with someone who breaks the law]:
1. Punishment is the appropriate response to actions not in agreement with laws
2. Punishment is justice
"My first impression is that those two assumptions are more consistent with a Strict Father view of justice than that of a Nurturant Parent. Progressive justice concerns itself with patiently nurturing responsible behavior towards the community. Laws consistent with that vision can be considered fair. Actions not in accordance with those fair laws should be sanctioned, as long as the sanctions do indeed benefit the whole community, including the sanctioned individuals and their loved ones."

So, progressive justice means turning the courts and the laws into "Nurturant Parents"! The idea of "patiently nurturing responsible behavior towards the community" used to be called "civics class"--before I was born. It is no longer taught. No one any longer understand that "Individual sovereignty was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson: It was the common assumption of the day..." Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. American Sphinx,The Character of Thomas Jefferson

No one remembers that whites are Citizens of the Several States, while blacks did not gain citizenship until the 14th Amendment with its "citizens of the United States Clause," which in effect made them wards of the Federal government. However, we all are now wards of the Federal government.

An important provision was the statement that “'nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.' The right to due process of law and equal protection of the law now applied to both the Federal and state governments." http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=43

This was the beginning of the government's power to nationalize legislation to give it undue power over the states, such as the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the FTC, the FCC, and the military draft provisions. It is difficult for people who's individual sovereignty is crafted and manipulated by governments to remain civil under certain conditions; we call such incidents by the name of "civil unrest," and deliberate actions taken to bring attention to such unlawful manipulation is often called "civil disobedience."

But psychologically, it is possible for millions of people who feel deprived of their birth right to fail to care about the birth right of others, and to become unjustly selfish in their actions toward others, thereby forgetting that civility is the best means of accomplishing one's own life, not to mention allowing others to accomplish their own lives.

Look at the state of many individuals' incivility toward others. And when incivility is allowed, as it is today because adults are afraid that opening their mouth might get them shot or beaten, then shootings and beatings occur anyway.

"[U]ndercutting belief in free will has the effect of leading people in a more liberal, compassionate direction, or so I believe," Clark continued. "Of course, naturalism isn’t the only source of humanistic values since there are many humanistic theists."

It is certainly no wonder to me that Christians and other theists decry this form of naturalism. What they fail to understand is that this version, though it is unarguably the prevailing form, is not the only form.

Metaphysical naturalism (MN) does not "undercut belief in free will." MN seeks to provide an understanding of why human will is free will.

What I find incredible is that Clark can openly admit that he welcomes my criticism, "since that can only correct or improve my very likely flawed thinking," he wrote. Yet I have not seen that my criticism has changed one word of his web sites.

Under the sub-heading Social Justice, Clark wrote this: "But there’s another, more fundamental question about poverty [Hurricane Katrina and others] raised: what’s the moral difference between needy victims of a hurricane and those needy to begin with? If the Red Cross funnels millions of dollars to feed, clothe and house those displaced by floods, why not do as much for the homeless already among us? Instead, under cover of deficit reduction, the Bush administration and Republican-controlled Congress are bent on cutting funding for food stamps, school loans, child support, Medicaid and other programs that address the causes and consequences of poverty."

This thinking demonstrates some of the "flaws" Clark in was talking about in his "thinking". The government is not the Red Cross. The Red Cross takes voluntary donations; the government takes "donations" at the point of a gun. Try not paying your taxes, if you think I'm wrong. Without a gun, the IRS has no power at all. Look at what it did to Nat Cole, Willie Nelson, James Brown and others both famous and obscure. The IRS sold Willie Nelson's gold records--after confiscating his house and all its possessions.

Like Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," progressive, humanistic thinking, whether backed by scientism, or by theist or collectivistic thinking, shows a disregard for comparing apples to apples. Before the Supreme Court reversed itself during a more liberal and progressive period in its makeup and gave its stamp of approval to the IRS and its gun, per capita charitable donations were at an all time high, but they dropped to a near record low within two years of the implementation of the IRS.

We now have a religious-humanist incoming President who intends to increase the amount of money that goes into the Bush-implemented policy of giving public money to faith-based organizations. This is obviously not SN, but it isn't MN either, nor is it Objective. It is collectivization for the purpose of redistributing wealth, and Obama is not the only elected official who makes this goal his policy.

But every penny spent for new programs, new bureaus, new agencies costs Americans' more of their sovereignty, and undercuts what little is left of our will to be free. Our free will is limited more by government interference than by any other form of encroachment on our liberty, certainly more than Clark talks about concerning genes, memes, environment, and nurturing.

Actually, redistributing wealth is more than a goal or a policy; it is the doctrine that the common good outweighs the right to individual sovereignty and its exercise of free will. It does not outweigh that sovereignty, not morally, but only in the fact that it has the power of the gun behind it.

Republican democracy, or democratic republicanism, the political system under which America is governed, is specifically charged with the task of writing laws that take as little from common sovereignty as possible, but when it does need to take that sovereignty, it is added to what is called, by Locke and Hobbes, Rousseau and others, as "common sovereignty."

Common sovereignty does not translate into "the common good." Individual sovereignty translates into "the general Welfare" and to securing "the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." Preamble to the Constitution of the United States (which, by the way, did not mean, until the 14th Amendment, a single entity called the United States; but instead means individual States United. That is no longer what it means, and Lincoln proved it by declaring that no states had the right to withdraw from the Union--and then kept them united.)

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Meta-Naturalism v. Sci-Naturalism

Sci-Naturalism's Strawman Argument

Against the Necessity of Contra-Causal Free Will

Yesterday, I quoted the Catholic Encyclopedia on the subject of soul. Catholics insist the soul is given to man by "Supernatural Order, by God, for the purpose of raising the rational creature above its native sphere to a God-like life and destiny."

Today, that same quote can be used against the scientific naturalists' strawman argument of "contra-causal-and-libertarian free will". http://www.centerfornaturalism.org/

"5. On her part, the Church cannot but set great value upon reason's drive to attain goals which render people's lives ever more worthy," wrote John Paul II. "Yet the positive results achieved must not obscure the fact that reason, in its one-sided concern to investigate human subjectivity, seems to have forgotten that men and women are always called to direct their steps towards a truth which transcends them." ENCYCLICAL LETTER FIDES ET RATIO OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF JOHN PAUL II

John Paul made an astute observation, that, "Abandoning the investigation of being, modern philosophical research has concentrated instead upon human knowing. Rather than make use of the human capacity to know the truth, modern philosophy has preferred to accentuate the ways in which this capacity is limited and conditioned."

This concentration is in scientific naturalism, which says that determinism is the fate of men but that if science someday proves otherwise, that which is proved otherwise will then be believed by science.

It is always correct to believe what science proclaims, but it is not science that proclaims determinism or the lack of it is; it is metaphysics--"the investigation of being"--that is denied by scientific naturalists, yet used by them, because all things are judged by metaphysics. And it is here that John Paul's criticism becomes important.

Scientific naturalism denies the existence of man’s volition, proclaiming the doctrine that man does not have contra-causal freedom. This is a straw-man argument. Neither the mystic Church nor any rational source ever claimed man had such powers. It is only supernaturalists on the order of those who claim such powers as sorcery who think contra-causal power exists or ought to exist.

Why, then, do the proponents of scientific determinism argue that free will and the soul do not exist based on the argument that contra-causal agency does not exist? It is because, having abandoned the investigation of "being" and concentrating instead on the physiological means of knowing, determinism is the only argument they have to support their arguments against the "supernatural."

Since the power of the soul is proclaimed by religion to be "supernaturally given to man by God to raise him up from the limitations of reason," then the only way to keep the millenial argument of the existence of God in play is to use science to prove the soul is nothing but the workings of physiology.

To support the argument that the soul is only physiology, the soul must be proclaimed to be "fully caused" by all things "natural," not "supernatural." Religion holds that the soul is supernatural; therefore, scientific naturalism must hold that it is not, and that because it is "fully caused" it cannot be "contra-causal", i.e., able to be the cause of itself.

Determinism is the doctrine of preferring to accentuate the ways in which man's will is limited and conditioned, for the purpose of denying supernaturalism.

But it is not supernaturalism that leaves metaphysical naturalists free to acknowledge that free will does not need to be contra-causal. As a matter of fact, to expect it to be contra-causal would be to defy the laws of nature, the very same laws used by the sci-naturalists.

This is the truth that transcends man's knowledge: that he is fully-caused by his actions and reactions to the reality of being, i.e., having life. It is the nature of man's being that empiricism is the cause of his consciousness. Let him conform to the things he cannot change, change the things he can, and unlike the sci-naturalists, comprehend the differences between what can and what cannot be changed.

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Ontology of the Soul Part 3

Identifying the Entity Called "Soul", Part 3

Ontology is the science of identifying fundamental principles, the doctrine of making distinctions between: 1) "entities", i.e., existents; 2) the qualitative attributes of entities; and 3) the relationships between 1) and 2).

Catholics, who believe human life is endowed at conception with a soul say it is the animating cause, the volition, of the zygote, (if not the sperm). The Catholic Encyclopedia (CE) says "'soul' denotes the source of our vegetative activities" [as much as it is the source of our minds]. [click, then scroll The Religious Identity of "Soul"]

The antithetic argument is that human volition begins with the first syllogism. All other determinations of when the soul begins falls between these two extremes.

These two extremes are the basis for this topic of making the identification of the entity we call the soul. This attempt must be made because it is the basis for the debate about abortion and the cloning of stem cells with their subsequent destruction, and whether it is murder to engage in either act.

We began with a comment by Jean Kazez in Abortion Sense and Nonsense (Talking Philosophy - The Philosophers' Magazine Blog), which brought up an ontological question about the human fetus: what is it? Religion deplores abortion for killing a soul.

Kazez wrote: "A 5-day old embryo composed out of undifferentiated, pluripotent cells is not a complete person like you and me. A 2-month-old fetus, even with its complete set of rudimentary organs, is not a complete person like you and me." The soul is the obvious deciding factor in answering what a fetus is, because a fetus without a soul would be the object of many more abortions, and abortion would not be the object of fierce debate.

Yesterday in Ontology of the Soul Part 2, I showed how the Catholic Church defines the animating volition of humans as a principle called the "substantiality of the soul."

I also showed how the Church defines substantiality as "a genus supremum [which]cannot strictly be defined by an analysis into genus and specific difference..." The CE could only define it this way by making the reader draw his/her own inferences in this matter since it gave no definition whatever of substantiality, but rather made it referential to all the other things it did say about soul and substance.

It thus was made clear that the most powerful and ancient Christian Church cannot define "genus supremum". As a matter of fact, that definition is an entry missing from its pages. It is left as a floating abstraction.

The Church obviously prefers not to ontologically identify the entity soul, while at the same time describing its volitional qualites as those which 'animate' even the vegetative parts of the human being. No wonder it defines the soul as a 'principle.'"

The Secular Identity of the Entity Called "Soul"

Qualities, when identified, will necessarily lead one to an ID of the genus of the entity that possess those qualities, unless the qualities are themselves not concretely identified. The definition given by the CE of soul is not concrete.

In the same sense that the CE says soul is both mind and non-mind (vegetative,) Naturalism.Org, a humanist/naturalist website that says it depends on science to determine the views of its adherents describes it this way:

"[H]uman minds and behavior are indeed explicable as physical, chemical, biological, psychological and social processes subject to law-like cause and effect relationships at various levels. [ ] [T]here’s no scientific evidence that we possess an immaterial soul or mental 'supervisor' that has a contra-causal, libertarian free will, that somehow intervenes in and trumps natural causality." http://www.naturalism.org/misrepresenting.htm

This is a secular view, based on determinism, and the website's contributors are well-known authors, speakers, philosophers, professors, etc. But the site's description of this "immaterial soul" that we do not possess is is defined as "physical, chemical, biological, psychological and social processes subject to law-like cause and effect relationships at various levels."

This sounds as though scientific naturalism is defining as "genus non-supremum" something we might call the "principle of the non-soul". After all, if these processes do not consist of contra-causal libertarian free will, it is certainly not sui-generis, which the religiously defined qualities of the soul would make it. Yet, they would at the same time appear to be made of "substance," made of "physical" processes.

But what if the soul is actually all the processes that scientific naturalism says it is, yet volitional, meaning dependent on one's own mental initiative irrespective of all the physical processes?

To define it as being within the genus of substance does not deny the theory of religious substantiality when the soul is housed in the physical body, that the naturalist description of the processes might actually be the physicalized nature of the soul.

Why should there be an insistence on my part, as a part of the law of Identity, i.e., "the aspect of existing as something in particular, with specific characteristics", that the soul should exist? http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Metaphysics_Identity.html

To repeat from Part 1 of this discussion, something is self-evidential. What is not evidential is that this something is physically material; it takes science to prove that the processes of physiology, body chemistry, and psychology relate to that which is self-evidential.

It is also not self-evidential that this something is transcendental, i.e., extending beyond physiologial life in either direction; nor is it self-evidential that it ought not be given metaphysical value as a "mental supervisor," and as an intimate part of the ego by which we can make sense of our moral abstractions.

Scientific naturalists deny the metaphysical value of what they admit is self-evidential. They does so because scientific naturalism operates on the metaphysical belief in determinism. Since random forces, such as existence itself, intrude into our power to operate willfully, then--say scientific naturalists--we have no libertarian free will. It is true that we do not have libertarian free will, in the sense that they mean it.

They mean that we cannot cause the sun to stop shining, cannot cause our hunger to go away, cannot cause the cancer in our bones to vanish, and cannot make a pot of gold appear at the end of the rainbow--at will.

The comment about the gold is not meant to be facetious. If contra-causal libertarian free will is the scientific definition of the form of will we are said not to have, then it necessarily follows that if we did have it we could turn anything into gold, cause heaven to come to earth, and do all things that empirical reality will not allow us to do.

This is why the metaphysical emphasis placed on our lack of libertarian free will is of no consequence to the argument of whether man has free will. Free will is in the rationality of man, not the accidental circumstances surrounding his being.

"On the one hand, does man possess genuine moral freedom, power of real choice, true ability to determine the course of his thoughts and volitions, to decide which motives shall prevail within his mind, to modify and mould his own character? Or, on the other, are man's thoughts and volitions, his character and external actions, all merely the inevitable outcome of his circumstances?" CA

Taxonomically, free will is of the genus arbitrium with respect to reason, and of the specie liberum, with respect to the will which can be turned toward either good or bad ends. Peter Lombard, Libri Quattuor Sententiarum, 1150

Free will, then, is the doctrine that human beings are free to control their own actions, actions not determined in advance by God or fate. It is, therefore, tied inexorably to the soul.

The soul, as we have discovered, is at one end of the spectrum considered placed by God in the fertilized egg immediately at conception, thereby releasing the potential human to be free of fate at birth. At the other end of the spectrum volition, the actions of freedom, are declared to begin with the first syllogism.

This second idea is tied to tabula rasa, the idea that nothing exists in the mind apriori, that all knowledge, including knowledge of one's own volition, is born of experience.

This is logical, since a child is most certainly not volitionally free of his empty but growing mind, of his inability to feed and clothe himself, of his lack of language, his environment, and his genes, not to mention his nutruring.

Since free will is Liberum arbitrium, and since that was initially a Catholic concept, then the soul is either the liberator, or freedom from determinism sows the seeds of the soul.

In our last look at this subject tomorrow, we will see how freedom from determinism is the link in our search for the answer to whether or not the fetus has a soul. We can then answer the question: Does the fetus have a soul?

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What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part Five: Summary

What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part Five: Summary

The caveats to the Academy's Strong Definition of Naturalism needed inclusion because the main body of the Definition was not precise enough. It was not precise enough to stand alone for reasons that will be made clear below, and which were made clear in Part One.

To include the caveats within the body of the definition, however, will take some extraordinary thought, and some very precise writing, if the caveats are to be incorporated without altering the definition's meaning. One wrong word, one misplaced comma, and the result would be the spectacle of a misunderstanding.

("A well regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." It took 221 years for that nightmarish sentence to be untangled by the Supreme Court. Why did Jefferson put a comma after "Arms"? What change did it make?

But the comma that caused all the problems was the first one. Did Jefferson mean to say that the right to keep and bear arms hinged on the need for a well-regulated militia, as the sentence seems to indicate? No one wanted to believe that, but a strict reading would make it necessary.

(However, a reading of Original Intent, whereby the Justices read the historical documents of the day, the minutes of the Constitutional Assembly, and other related and pertinent documents, led them to understand that the Framers did not mean to imply arms were a right only on the condition that a militia was kept, and kept well-regulated. Yet, that little comma had left the question in the air for 221 years.)

I will for that reason leave the Academy's Definition as-is, for now, except for possible amendings. This does not mean that the Academy's Definition is anymore correct or unimpeachable than the Second Amendment, now that that has been ruled on by the Court. After all, I have amended it twice already after adding the caveats, and I did not add the caveats until after some of its mistakes and shortcomings were pointed out to me by critics.

The caveats are--

that: this [definition] neither explicitly nor implicitly excludes 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) and

that: "consciousness" is "the faculty of awareness—the faculty of [veridically] perceiving that which exists;" (AR) and

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

that: an existent is of veridical* perception and memory of empirical or abstract content, and is not fictitious, revealed revelation, hallucination, mirrage, etc.;

where: *veridical perception is a direct relation of awareness between a conscious subject and an object of empirical or abstract content that is not . (CEC) (Dict. of the Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism; unpublished)

What a mouthful. Their are more kinds of "naturalism" than the two discussed in this series: metaphysical, and scientific. The "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" says in its first sentence on the subject "Naturalism": "The term ‘naturalism’ has no very precise meaning in contemporary philosophy."

It goes on a few paragraphs later: "So understood, ‘naturalism’ is not a particularly informative term as applied to contemporary philosophers. The great majority of contemporary philosophers would happily accept naturalism as just characterized—that is, they would both reject ‘supernatural’ entities, and allow that science is a possible route (if not necessarily the only one) to important truths about the ‘human spirit’." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/

Soul, Spirit, and God

The problem with truths about the human spirit is that scientific and ontological naturalism often equate that spirit with soul, refusing to split hairs and say that one is one thing and the other is another thing. "On a scientific understanding of ourselves, there’s no evidence for immaterial souls [or] spirits..." says one website.

Certainly the soul is made of the elements of the physiology of life, and is therefor made of "material." But if spirit is not immaterial as a metaphysical existent, then one cannot say that he or she has the spirit of an individualist, or a pianist, or a great quarterback.

Immaterial does not mean transcendental. It means that metaphysically the soul or spirit is a concept that extends beyond the idea of the scientifically measurable; that while certain areas of the brain may "light up" when triggered, they do not indicate nothing more than chemical and electrical activity. Meta physical means "conceptually beyond the physical"; it does not mean ignoring the physical, nor does it mean irrationally conceptualizing it as supernatural and transcendental of the life that gives it physiological substance.

Metaphysical as "conceptually beyond the physical" means placing a value upon that which is being measured, a value that is specific to the life form in which the measured effect resides, and it means placing that value in a hierarchy. At the top of hierarchy must be "life." Without it, Man is nothing, non-existent. Metaphysically, "life" presupposes existence. Placing "life" somewhere other than at the top does not mean one does not presuppose existence with what he/she places at the top; it does mean that he/she values something believed--rightly or wrongly--to be an existent more than one values life.

But scientific naturalism would state that since we will probably discover what it is that causes life in the first place, all life and all its attributes become measurable; and as something measurable is nothing more than "natural", where "natural" excludes what is commonly called "supernatural." (A theologian could make the case that if God exists he would be "natural." Short of doing so, God has always been the "supernatural" and this designation has been in the attempt to raise God above the creations he is said to have authored. If God existed, he would certainly be "natural." But calling him "supernatural" is to metaphysically exalt him, not to seperate him from existence itself.)

Physiological Biochemistry and Metaphysics

A man wrote to the The National Post (of Canada), saying, "If all thought and behaviour are indeed only the result of the biochemistry of the brain, then free will cannot exist, and all we have left is pure determinism.

"Furthermore, any concept of moral obligation and responsibility is also nonsensical if determinism is true. But we do not live this way because we do not believe this way." http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=10e16339-fa9a-4507-9ddd-3daced2f008b

Unfortunately, the writer, in arguing against ontological naturalism, said that if all thought and behaviour is purely the result of neurochemical synapses in the brain, then there is no mind or soul independent of the brain.

It is unfortunate because the writer makes the mistake of asserting first that thought and behavior cannot be merely biochemistry of the brain; but then asserts that they must be independent of the neurchemistry that houses them.

If they are independent of the brain in which they reside, and independent of the biochemistry, then they are transcendental. In denying such transcendentalism, naturalism needs neither to assert the soul and free will as "merely biochemistry of the brain," nor as deterministic veridical perceptions.

Rational discourse will lead to the conclusion that the values one chooses in life, such as whether to love one's spouse or to be a cheater; to love one's children or to walk away before one ever knows them; to hold to a standard of high ethics in everything one does--can alter the neurology of the brain and overall the biochemistry of the body. It is, after all, within the physical human body that one feels one's soul and one's emotions. Different humans have differing emotions about the same subjects and objects because of their metaphysical value systems. It is why one Muslim writer was able to discuss "sharia banks" in the world banking system, and then sign himself "Prisoner Of Joy." More from Act! for America

The American metaphysics of individual freedom sends shudders of horror down the backs of Westerners over the prospect of sharia law. It is specifically the metaphysical values one holds that alters neuro and bio chemistry, thus disproving determinism. But naturalism does not need to assert determinism, yet much of it does, to its own harm.

Naturalistic science would show, if it took the time to do so, that people who have a low priority in ethics and metaphysics, or a non-chalant attitude toward intellectual honesty, or who embrace tyranny such as sharia and jihad, would have a far different brain-map than their opposing counterparts. Mohammed Atta, for example, would have a very different brain map than Brigitte Gabriel. Thoughts and images that mapped as "joy" or "excitement" in Atta's brain would map as "horror" in Gabriel's.

In other words, free will when used to gain or to keep things of objective value will affect the brain's biochemistry, as will being a profligate liar or a willfull thief or an uncaring parent--or a terrorist.

The mind, the soul, free will, and the conscience are independent of the determinate forces of fate, because such tests as brain mapping would corroborate that one group demonstrates one kind of brain biochemistry insofar as what values "light it up," and the other group's "lights" would look vastly different.

What we are is determined by what we want to be. We are not "fully caused" (determined) by memes, genes, environment, and other phenomena. We are the phenomena, obeying only the laws of the nature of reason in our willful actions, and we are self-made and we are responsible, not "fully caused" and determined by forces beyond our control. It is what we do about those forces that are beyond our control that are determined by our willful choice of metaphysical values.

Various Forms of Naturalism and Intelligent Design

Wikipedia says that methodological naturalism is the same as scientific naturalism, referring to the assumption that explanations of observable effects are practical and useful only when they hypothesize natural causes rather than indeterminate miracles.

Wiki says metaphysical naturalism is the same as ontological naturalism, which refers to the metaphysical belief that empirical, material existence is is all that exists and, therefore, nothing supernatural exists. Natural philosophy welcomes, says Wiki, supernatural explanations for natural phenomena and supports theistic science.

Richard C. Carrier of the Internet Infidels identifies "Epistemological Naturalism, Ethical Naturalism, Aesthetic Naturalism, and Political Naturalism. Metaphysical Naturalism in principle encompasses all of these," he says, and he is correct, because, as he goes on to say, "all other aspects of the world derive ultimately therefrom."

But he says that epistemological naturalism is more commonly known as methodological naturalism. So, Carrier puts a different view on methodologicalism than Wiki. Carrier's associate, Bill Schultz, combines metaphysical naturalism with Intelligent Design!

"The essence of my assertions herein is that 'intelligent design' can occur without violating the bedrock principles of 'metaphysical naturalism.' In other words, you can have our universe be the product of 'intelligent design' and yet never require any supernatural phenomena to effect the "intelligent design" of our universe," writes Shultz. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/bill_schultz/crsc.html

Shultz is confusing "subject" and "object," by referring to the idea that one can objectify the design he/she sees in the mechanical operations of the universe; but this is not objective design; it is subjective design. The universe is of veridical perception and is therefor cognoscenti. Whatever "intelligence" one may see in the design of the universe is entirely within the intelligence of the observer, and Shultz confuses the issue of ID by attempting to combine it with naturalism.

Greg Frost-Arnold, who writes the blog "Obscure and Confused Ideas ", wrote this: "In the context of the debate over Intelligent Design, the anti-evolutionists often say 'Darwinism is a religious belief (perhaps atheism in disguise).' Many pro-evolutionists respond by drawing a distinction between methodological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism, where only the second is anything close to a religious belief. Here's a rough characterization: (Methodological Naturalism) Scientific explanations cannot appeal to supernatural causes. (Metaphysical Naturalism) There are no supernatural causes." [italics added] http://obscureandconfused.blogspot.com/2007/02/methodological-naturalism-without.html

It is a never ending circle of one camp having one belief that is different from another camp. As I wrote in Part One, "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

Determinism, or fate according to circumstances about which one has no control, seems to be the common element in all but religious naturalism, also called "natural theology," or "natural revelation."

"Simply put, ‘natural’ revelation, or ‘natural theology,’ is what one can learn about God running exclusively on your own steam without any assistance from God. Aristotle’s Prime Mover arguments and Aquinas’s ‘Five Ways’ are such efforts. Intelligent Design, when the inference is made that God is the Designer, is ‘natural’ theology at work." Anthony Horvath http://sntjohnny.com/front/natural-versus-revealed-religion-how-atheists-drop-the-ball/349.html

The metaphysical naturalism of the Academy of MN affirms the validity of the soul as not only a veridical perception, but as an emotional element of the identity of the person whose neuro and bio chemistry give life to his/her soul; for without the empirical naturalism of those elements of our existence, the soul could not exist. It needs the body as the body needs blood.

Free will is the freedom to think or not, to choose A instead of B, C, or D. It means the ability to create B, C, or D where they did not exist before. It explains why some Muslims, to use a current example, choose to conduct what their victims call terrorism, and why some denounce terrorism, and why some Muslim nations follow Sharia and why some do not. Free will in politics explains why the U.K. is recognizing Sharia Law within its own borders while the U.S. will not.

Metaphysical naturalism does not have to be reductive and deterministic. It can be rational and promoting of individualism, individual sovereignty, egoism, free will, and a non-material yet veridical soul that is the direct representation of the human it inhabits from birth until death.

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Testicles Thwart Bush and Religion

Stem Cells from Testicles Thwart Religious Intervention in Secular Lawmaking

The Christian right-wing-ness in President Bush caused him to put Judeo/Christian religion ahead of science and the cures for many diseases and biological defects, by banning the use of the reproduction of stem cells.

There may be no science that proves the human soul begins when life begins at conception, and there are epistemic arguments for saying the soul begins at birth. But the religious limitations placed on stem cell reproduction is being thwarted by men's testicles. That is something Mr. Bush can do nothing about, unless Christians wish to being arguing that the soul exists in each half of the human connection, i.e., in the sperm and in the egg.

Studies showed scientific potential using "spermatogonial cells" from the testicles of mice. "The new study used cells taken from biopsied tissue from 22 different men undergoing various medical treatments. The men ranged in age from 17 to 81. Researchers found that after a few weeks of growth, the cells could differentiate into various types of cells just like those taken from embryos," said the Associated Press.

However, some scientists, saying the idea is promising, also said testicle cells are not a reason to give up on research on embryonic stem cells.

"It's exciting. We could do it for males; that leaves women without as easy a method," said stem cell scientist George Daley of Children's Hospital in Boston and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He was not part of the new research, said the AP.

This is great news for disease and genetic researchers all over the globe. But I have a problem when religion outweighs the secularity of our laws. Our Founders may have been superb theologians and great believers in the Deist God; but they knew the danger of allowing religion to dictate the terms of our laws.

The Deists were Naturalists, which is why Thomas Jefferson got away with writing that "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" were the basis for human equality; they allow us to assume among the powers of the earth our separateness from each other and our equal stations in life. He did not write "God" alone, and indeed there is anecdotal evidence that Benjamin Franklin might have had a hand in encouraging that turn of words.

The use of the words "Nature's God" allows each man and woman his/her own understanding of the nature of existence, including the total non-belief in the supernatural, if that is the decision one comes to; but invoking the "Laws of Nature" gets right to the heart of the naturalism of the Deists, indeed, right to the heart of any naturalist.

Christians and all religions of supernaturalism deny that only the the laws of nature exist devoid of a supreme being. Deists as supernaturalists believe, in the same moment as they believe there is a God, that that same God endowed Man with Reason and endowed the world with immutable laws, and that together those laws and Man's reason are all that can be counted on. God may have created the world, but after that he was strictly a hands-off kind of Creator. All the answers to the questions of the world are to be found in Reason, including the questions and answers on the meditations of faith. Faith itself, however, is a matter for the soul.

It is not of that reason, in other word it is not reasonable, to assume that a soul can exist before the tabula rasa has any empirically-generated material of mind by which such a thing as the soul can exist. The soul is not supernatural; it is part of the nature of Man's being, as much as his toenails or his liver--or his mind.

But mind is the product of sensory impressions retained by the brain; and soul is the emotional content, the structure of the metaphysical meaning of those retained impressions. "Nature's God" is to the description of the contents of each human's individualistic beliefs regarding the questions and the rational answers of existence, what "soul" is to the emotional content regarding the nature of existence.

"Every time we walk along a beach," wrote the naturalist Loren Eiseley, "some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.”

"Ancient urge" is not what I would call the emotional content of man's soul, but the soul is as old as man himself, so it is indeed ancient. But this emotional content is ostensive in its nature; in other words, it is the description in emotional terms that only that which we call a soul can point at using our volition of the faculty of consciousness.

How many times have you heard it said, "What I felt can't be described in words?" What was felt and indescribably in words was ostensive. My Webster's defines "ostensive" as "directly pointing out," as one can only point to the sky or the ocean to "point out" what is the color blue. Without pointing, the color comes down to the scientific description of the wavelength of the color. Without feeling the soul, its nature comes down, like the description of a wavelength, to the reductive, deterministic science that declares all things in consciousness to be merely the firing of neurons, and chemical and electrical operations of the physiology of the body.

The soul is much more than reductive descriptions of the scientific evidence of how the body works. In order for the "ancient urge" to awaken, it must be struck by empirical impressions. A human born without sensory awareness can never gain consciousness, because without things about which to be conscious, it cannot exist. To exist without things to be conscious of is contradictory of the definition of the word. That much does not not contradict reductionism.

The soul is the emotional content of consciousness, and as such it cannot exist until the mind has gained enough sensory impressions to create one. This can only begin at birth, and it may be almost immediate. It would not contain much at that point, but the volition of the soul cannot begin begin before birth, before the trauma of birth awakens the brain to the content of sensory knowledge. It is the volition of the soul that upsets the apple cart of reductionism.

Right-wing fundamental Judeo/Christians are fighting
the wrong enemy when they fight science as a whole. It is only this idea of
reductionism, of the idea that man is nothing but the contents of his physiology
producing a "belief" in the existence of the soul, that the fundamentalists must
fight. Many scientists who believe the soul begins at birth, not at conception,
believe in God and the soul, not in reductionism. These scientists are not the
enemy of Christians; many of them are Christians.

To believe that such an object as the soul, created by sensory impressions and emotionally judged by the nature of each man's metaphysics, is immutable while believing the physical body that created it is not, (Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,) to believe that the soul is transcendental and that it is placed or created or somehow infused into the fertilized egg at the very moment the sperm enters it, is the stuff of religion. And that stuff of religion contradicts the non-deterministic, non-reductionistic laws of nature that define the means of the creation of the soul.

If there be a God, He caused its creation in birth, not in conception.

To post Comments click here Testicular Stem Cells Thwart Religion to Determine Law
Note: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC

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The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of the
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© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

Atheist Survival and Recovery in God-driven Alcoholics Anonymous

How Does An Atheist Navigate Alcoholics Anonymous?

Part I

You Vs. Theists

I have decided to publish online the efforts I have gone to, and the thoughts I have to deal with as an atheist in the A.A. program, because it is most definitely a "god" and "spirituality" based program.

It's rather easy to be an atheist in A.A., actually, without compromising your principles. The most difficult part would be to find yourself in a group that does not accept your atheism and one way or another tries to convert you. The A.A. so-called Big Book, which is actually called "Alcoholics Anonymous," does at at times seem to make that attempt at winning us over.

But in the end, it does have enough leeway in the way it operates, so that even a die-hard, no-nonsense, there-is-nothing-supernatural-in-the-universe kind of guy like me can come to enjoy the sobriety and the peace of mind and the serenity, not to mention what the Big Book describes as "a new freedom and a new happiness."

Theists don't frighten me. Why should they? They have their beliefs, and I have mine, or none at all, which ever way you wish to see it. Some atheists say they "believe no god exists"; some atheists say they "don't believe a god exists"; some of us say other things. But it all comes down to the idea that the other members of A.A. are going to talk about the "God of their understanding." Even for some theists, the "power greater than themselves," in which they must find the strength to stay sober, starts out as nothing more than a belief in the power of the group itself to help to them.

That is what the A.A. program offers--the place to find the power to stay sober--and so there are Catholics sitting next to Mormons sitting next to Southern Babtists sitting next to New-Agers, Buddhists, Unitarians, and me. As of yet I have found no resistance to my atheism, and my "home group" is more than happy to listen when it is my turn to speak. If you find yourself in an intolerant group, find another group. If there is no other group in your area, there are A.A. chat rooms online. An intolerant group is not the group that A.A.'s founders would have approved of.

You see, when it comes to speaking and listening to other members in an A.A. group, the unwritten rule is, "Take what you need and leave the rest." We say it all the time. In practice this means that you listen to people speak, and you pick up on what they say that comes close to your own experience. From this "taking" you are able to think about your own situation and whether you would handle it like that person said he/she did. Other speaker's stories may be so unlike your own and unlike the drunken life that you lived, that you have no choice but to "leave" what they say at that table; what that speaker offered had nothing to offer you.

Listening for similarities is what the listening is for, not for finding differences. No one in A.A. ought to criticize another member for anything he/she did or said. It isn't your business. Your business is none of their business--except to listen and learn. If your business is anybody's business, it is the business of your sponsor, and you should find a sponsor right away, even if you "fire" him/her after one meeting. I learn so much from theists that I'm grateful they are at the tables; I just don't "take" their god perspective; I leave it at the tables.

If, as an atheist who is telling his/her story at the A.A. meetings you find resistance, ask yourself if perhaps it is because you didn't have the sense not to criticize the "god" part of their program. You don't want them to criticize your atheism; don't denounce their theism and your resistance to it. I actually think many of the people I attend meetings with learn from the things I have to say. I know they thank me for speaking, and many are my friends.

My own sponsor is not an atheist. He doesn't have to be. He is a "free thinker" who accepts that whatever a person chooses for himself is best for that person. But on the book bag he has, which is filled with his A.A. approved literature, he has a sign that says, "In case of emergency, please contact God." But one of my previous sponsers was very religious; yet he accepted my atheism and worked with me anyway.

The only way you might not make it in A.A. as an atheist is if you are "reductive." Reductivism is a way of thinking that is accepted by many naturalists, most of whom are atheists. Reductivism says that we have no soul or spirit as something that can speak to us, that we can use as a sounding board within our consciousness, and that "seems" to have a life of its own.

Well, actually the reductivist admits that that is exactly the problem: the soul "seems" to exist, we can feel it and experience it, but it isn't real, they say. It's just a "twitch" in our emotional center that is caused by chemicals and electricity in the brain, and in the body. It "seems" to have a life of its own, but reductivists won't admit it is anything more than a "twitch," because to admit that it is more than a twitch is, in their estimation, the same as admitting that it is transcendental, in other words, that it supernaturally manifests itself.

There are all sorts of naturalists. I'm a metaphysical naturalist, which means I don't believe anything is supernatural. That is what makes me an atheist. But some naturalists believe in some supernatural things. Some even believe gods exists; they just don't believe in the gods. And some naturalists believe in god. It's confusing even for we who call ourselves naturalists. The bottom line is, you can be an atheist and still believe the soul is a wonderful expression of your consciousness, and that it is something you can use in that "spiritual" quest that all A.A.er must seek, myself included. I love the spiritual quest, but when I die, my spirit dies with me.

Admitting the soul exists as a thing that tells us about ourselves, that tells us when we hurt or when we are ecstatically happy, is not the same as admitting it is transcendental, eternal, everlasting. It doesn't mean that at all.

I believe there is a power greater than myself, because obviously it made me and I did not make it. Thomas Jefferson, who believed in God, still believed that what held the universe together and made it work was not the direct hand of God, but "the laws of Nature and of Nature's God." Those Renaissance men used to capitalize all the words that had importance in a sentence, and so Jefferson capitalized Nature to make it equal with God.

Jefferson didn't know what God was anymore than anyone else does, although he and his Deist friends who founded America thought God was supernatural. Still, not knowing exactly what God was but believing He existed, they were naturalists--because they believed that God, whatever He was, created Nature and then let Nature take over. God sits back and watches, and keeps his hands off, never interfering in the affairs of Man, because He gave man Reason for the very purpose of controlling his own affairs.

So for an atheist "god" can be those laws of nature which are obviously there, like gravity. Isn't gravity a power greater than you are? If you want to escape gravity, you have to learn how. You can't just jump in the air and go floating into space.

An atheist author wrote that it is impossible to hear a man's voice over the distance of 240,000 miles; and yet, she wrote, we heard the astronauts speaking to us from the moon. We learned to command nature, but we cannot change nature; we created radio waves and receivers, but it's still just as impossible to hear a man's voice over 240,000 miles. That is a power greater than any man can overcome.

And so it our Reason we must use to navigate the tricky twists and curves of being atheist in a god-based group. But there are very good reasons for navigating those waters.

1) You receive the "Promises," which are officially described, in part, as:

"a new freedom and a new happiness;" a loss of regret over things we may have done or said in the past; that "we will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace"; that "that feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear"; that "our whole attitude and outlook on life will change" for the better; and "we will intuitively know how to handle things which used to baffle us. [These promises] are being fulfilled among us--sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them."

I added the emphasis at the end of that because it must be understood that these things don't come just by showing up at A.A. meetings and listening and talking. You have to work for them, you have to go "into action," which is name of a chapter in the Book. That is why it is important to find someone you can work with on a one-to-one basis. That person is who you can call your sponsor, even if you find another sponsor next week.

Don't let the "god" part of A.A. deter you from using the program selfishly. "The principles we have set down are guides to progress." [italics added]

"We are not saints. Do not be discouraged.
Half measures availed us nothing. Without help it is too much for us.

"But there exists among us a a fellowship, a friendliness, and an understanding which is indescribably wonderful. We are people who would not normally mix. We are average Americans.

"The tremendous fact for every one of us [in A.A.] is that we have discovered a common solution. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree, and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action. This is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism."

Those paragraphs were mixed and matched from different pages and chapters of the Big Book. But that is how each of us must learn to do it. People at meetings who quote the books flip back and forth between pages and books all the time, taking what they need and leaving the rest.

"If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps"; and one of these steps is putting up with a program based on god while you look for your answers that are devoid of god.

In the meantime you will have that fellowship, and those promises will come true if you work for them.

And oh yes, about 1) listed above. Where are the rest of the reasons for navigating the god-waters of A.A.? Well first, ask if all those reasons listed under 1) are not a good start. But then ask yourself if you "want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it." Any length, that is, that does not deny your own beliefs. No person who believes the "Rapture" is coming next year will try to convert a Unitarian; and no Babtist will try to convert a Coptic. No one of any religious faith asks another person of another faith to deny his or her own religious beliefs.

If you are willing, that is the best reason for navigating the waters. Don't be afraid of the theists and their talk of god, because when you open your mouth and speak of how you are finding this-way and that-way of attaining those "principles" which are really only "guides," and you show that you are finding them through something someone said and through something, anything, that you found in the books, then you, and they, will know that the program they put so much faith into even works for we atheists.

For Part II Click Here more

For some outside perspectives, read the Comments on the link below.

http://atheism.about.com/b/2006/04/10/discussion-atheists-in-alcoholics-anonymous.htm

Publishing Note Re: Reader Comments
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