Naturalism vs. Determinism

"Weak" Naturalism and Determinism are Not Natural

[I republish these blogs into another internet medium where many more readers can find my work, since it often does not appear on the first page of most search engines, but the other medium does. There, the readers are allowed to give "thumbs up," and "kudos." This article by its original title has reached the "hot" mark; I'm not certain if that is determined by the number of hits, or the thumbs up, or just what the criteria is. But I'm republishing it here for those of you who missed it several months ago under another title.]

Last week (8.21.08) I used a quote from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), which in part read that various contemporary philosophers "interpret ‘naturalism’ differently," that "philosophers with relatively weak naturalist commitments are inclined to understand ‘naturalism’ in a unrestrictive way..." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/index.html#note-1

To prevent this Academy blog from being misunderstood, I found it necessary to post in the left-hand sidebar column the "strong" definition of "Naturalism" to which this Academy holds itself. It's author wrote a great many things which I'm certain would be arguable in this blog; as well as a strong definition of "Naturalism," this Academy holds a "strong" position on the philosophy of Objectivism, using quotes Objectivists where they support the Naturalist convictions argued here. Mr. Fuller can not be said to be Objectivist, but I cannot deny that his definition of Naturalism is my own. I can place Objectivism into Fuller's definition like a hand in a custom-made glove.

As to what is "weak" Naturalism, it often not only strays from the conviction that "natural grounds" are objectively definable and that in the area of human behavior "man's will" is as much a law of nature as are the firings of neurons and the possibility that some behavioral traits are genetic. How else to explain the lives of twins, separated at birth, who without knowledge of the other's existence, has managed to put together a life where even his choice of clothes is similar, not to mention the type of house in which he lives and the model of car he drives?

But this Academy recognizes that such things are not the things in a person's life that are metaphysically important. Siblings often have divergent world views while dressing alike; they often diverge from their parents' religion yet continue to maintain similar views on other things of importance. This is where the free will of the individual comes into play. Clothes and cars are not of metaphysically important where a person cares more for his own character and integrity, more for his ethics and world view, than for the aesthetics of his everyday choices.

SEP says, "There may be as much philosophical controversy about how to distinguish naturalism from non-naturalism as there is about which view is correct." And quite often it appears that statements or even entire theories put forth and defended by those who call themselves Naturalists seem, to other peoples' opinions, to be not only inclined to weaker definitions, but in an "unrestrictive way" appear to be completely un-Naturalistic.

Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore are big targets for this Academy to be disagreeing with, but certain ideas cannot be allowed to go unchallenged, even by someone such as myself who has basically zero scientific background compared the people who's ideas need challenging. Such is the case with Dennett and Blackmore's defence of "memes."

Blackmore "has a degree in psychology and physiology from Oxford University (1973) and a PhD in parapsychology from the University of Surrey (1980). Her research interests include memes, evolutionary theory, consciousness, and meditation; [ ] no longer works on the paranormal; [ ] writes a blog for the Guardian newspaper," and appears on television. "She is author of over sixty academic articles, about forty book contributions, and many book reviews. Her books include "Beyond the Body" (1982), [ ] "Test Your Psychic Powers" (with Adam Hart-Davis, 1997), and "The Meme Machine" (1999). Her latest book, "Conversations on Consciousness" [was] due out in the USA in January 2006." http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/

Richard Dawkins coined the term meme to describe "a unit of culture." More specifically, it describes what causes that "unit" to exist. The definition of a "unit" of culture seems to be found in the definition of meme.

Calling herself a "memeticist," Blackmore's ideas are characterized by the PBS station WGBH : "[C]ulture is carried forward by memes, [which are] units of ideas, habits, skills, stories, customs, and beliefs that are passed from one person to another by imitation or teaching. Memes are, in effect, units of information that are self-replicating and changeable, just as genes are." [italics added] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/2/l_072_05.html

Objectively one must ask how something that is learned from another person through example or words can be "self-replicating just as genes are." Speaking of the comparison in the way genes and memes change, Blackwell says: "Our ideas, catch phrases, beliefs, games, and creations also evolve. Think of the differences between Ice Age cave art and modern painting, the chants and songs of centuries-ago people and the crooning of Britney Spears, the stone axe and the atomic bomb. Is there something gene-like that carries culture?" [ibid]

"Evolutionary Epistemology is a naturalistic approach [whereby] trial and error learning and the evolution of scientific theories are construed as selection processes," states the SEP, under the general description of memes. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-evolutionary/ "[Richard] Dawkins observed," says the SEP, "that [ ] biological evolution is differential reproduction. [ ] If culture was to evolve, on this view, there had to be cultural 'replicators', or entities whose differential replication in culture constituted the cultural evolutionary process. [Memes] were characterized as informational entities which infect our brains, 'leaping from head to head' via what we ordinarily call imitation. Common examples include infectious tunes, and religious ideologies."

Princeton online describes culture as "the tastes in art and manners that are favored by a social group" and "acculturation: all the knowledge and values shared by a society."http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=GZEZ,GZEZ:2008-32,GZEZ:en-GB&pwst=1&defl=en&q=define:culture&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

Values and knowledge are metaphysical components of the concepts held by a person. Those which are held in common among many in a society are merely that: common, and are hardly "infections leaping from head to head."

By most accounts, Naturalism does not support the idea of human free will. "A major problem with theories of free will is that arbitrary choices are simply random. If the will is fundamentally a randomizer, it is not clear how will is different from some kind of mathematical function. [ ] And if it is not different, then there would seem to be no reason not to assimilate "will" to naturalistic theories about indeterminacy and randomness in physical systems. Free will, consequently, would provide no basis for denying a materialistic and naturalistic interpretation of the self. " Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D.

But a Naturalistic interpretation of the self ought to include the idea that some "infectious tunes," for example, are actually repulsed by the minds of some people, for the very same reasons that create the values on which a person's character and integrity are grounded: the epistemic logic that gave those values their grounding. Why is it that some persons despise the music of Johann Strauss? of Elvis? of the entire Romantic school of concertos and symphonies?

Could it be they despise such music on the basis that the metaphysical values contained within those forms are anti-thetical to the live one has chosen to live? Naturalism in art is considered a backlash to the "idealism" of Romanticism. If one can choose to create a backlash to something one despises, what causes the despisement, what causes a desire or a need for a backlash, and what causes the precise form of the backlash? Such causes are decided by the values one has chosen, and values are based on the validations of one's epistemology.

If Naturalism in literature is the form of backlash to Romanticism accepted and used by most people who despise Romanticism, is it because of some of biological entity of consciousness called a "meme," or is it because once the wheel has been invented, it is not necessary to re-invent it? And if someone can create a new form of literature, for whatever reason, whether out of idealism or out of hatred for one or another form of idealism, is that not the definition of free will?

Why is it that I am expected by secular science to accept "that man's ethical values, compulsions, activities, and restraints can be justified on natural grounds," [Fuller] while at the same time I am expected to dismiss any idea of free will as against natural grounds? Is it because Naturalism "as encompassing sensationalism, materialism, determinism and reductionism" [David Ray Griffin] are "backlashes" against the theist defenses of free will?

Are the deterministic-minded scientists so afraid of giving in to theists' beliefs in free will that they are willing to go to any length to state a hypothesis that might give credence to the denial of free will?

It does not seem possible that a belief in free will could be construed as a belief in the supernatural. If Aristotle could formulate the concept of "qua," an objective standard applicable to any entity of life based on the nature of that particular entity where its "qua" was not necessarily applicable to any other entity of life--for example the difference in the nature of a deer and a hippopotamus--then is it not justifiable to believe that standards, not memes, are the basis of commonly held concepts among men?

If "weak," or non-existent Naturalism strays from the conviction that "natural grounds" in empirical reality are objective in nature, strays from comprehending "man's will" as a law of nature of "Man qua Man," then it strays from a rational difference of opinion about the nature of the "supernatural."

"Free will is a concept in traditional philosophy used to refer to the belief that human behavior is not absolutely determined by external causes," says The Skeptics Dictionary. http://www.skepdic.com/freewill.html "Traditionally, those who deny the existence of free will look to fate, supernatural powers, or material causes as the determinants of human behavior."

Invoking "supernatural powers" means that even in the realm of theists, there are "weak" and "strong" principles at work. Naturalists who deny free will can claim their denial is justified because strong theists justify free will based on supernaturalism, that of the existence of God or a Creator. "Free will advocates [ ] believe that while everything else in the universe may be the inevitable consequence of external forces, human behavior is unique and is determined by the agent, not by God or the stars or the laws of nature."

Now, this is where things begin to bog down and get messy. Christians have always argued for free will based on the theory that God granted it to us. The Skeptics Dictionary says the opposite. Deists, who deny any organized religion is legitimate, base their strict devotion to God precisely because they say it was God who gave Man Reason, and that from Reason necessarily comes free will.

Most Naturalists claim free will does not exist because their epistemic qualifiers for its existence are different than those of theists. Yet in other science you may read this: "Free will is probably located in the pre-frontal cortex, and we may even be able to narrow it down to the ventromedial pre-frontal cortex." --Stephen Pinker, How the Mind Works

According to Pinker's homepage at Harvard University his short bio goes this way: "Steven Pinker is Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. Until 2003, he taught in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. He conducts research on language and cognition, writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time, and Slate, and is the author of seven books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, Words and Rules, The Blank Slate, and most recently, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature."

Cognitive science is the area of expertise for Daniel Dennett. He seems, on a first reading, to disagree with Pinker. Dennett "is a student of neuroscience, linguistics, artificial intelligence, computer science, and psychology." http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/dennett.html "Philosopher and scientist Dan Dennett argues that human consciousness and free will are the result of physical processes and are not what we traditionally think they are." http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/dan_dennett.html

I repeat, this is where things bog down and get messy. Perhaps Dennett does not disagree with which part of the brain free will is found in, but he denies that it has to do with epistemic considerations or metaphysical choices. "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." [ibid]

"The first problem that really grabbed me was the question of how on Earth a brain can learn. I thought there's got to be some way that neurons can try things out by trial and error and in effect get punished for getting it wrong and encouraged for getting it right." http://www.pbs.org/saf/1103/features/dennett.htm

The metaphysics of this Academy would maintain that while trial and error are necessary given that Man is not supernatural and omniscient, the "reward for getting it right" is the rational recognition that a syllogism of deductive logic was valid and thus memorable. In other words, in an effort of trial and error, the mind goes through equations of language, such as "If I stick my finger in a flame, my finger will burn." Man knows this from trial and error, and it is rationally evident, as well as physically, painfully evident.

The mind is limited in the number of deductive "equations" it can make. The number is 256, including variations known as "moods and figures." Out of these 256, only fifteen are valid. This means the mind has only 15 chances to "get it right," while it has 241 chances to "get it wrong." Is this not the "some way" that Dennett says was "the first problem that really grabbed him"?

Now, I'm certain that Dennett, an expert logician, went beyond this explanation to look for the neurological explanations for what happens in the brain during these 15 valid moments and these 241 invalid moments.

But what is revealing here is when he says that rational recognitions of logical validity "are just simple switches and springs and so forth. [ ] It takes on just the tiniest bit of mentality. It does something that we think of as requiring a mind."

So here is a Naturalist, a revered scientist in his many fields, who does not deny the existence of free will, but attributes it to "switches and springs" which "take on just the tiniest bit of mentality," in an act "that we think of as requiring a mind."

Well, doesn't it require a mind? Not the kind of rational mind a man of his stature and education would be expected to recognize.

This tiny bit of mentality is "what I call the intentional stance. Think of something as simple as a mousetrap. It's set up, it's open, it's waiting. Well, there's one little thing it can do. It can snap. And it may snap at the right sort of thing, it may snap at the wrong sort of thing."

So free will is the "snapping" of "mousetraps" in the "tiniest bit of mentality" that isn't really what we think of a mind, and the fact that it snaps at the wrong sorts of things means Dennett, this cognitive scientist, is not recognizing that when the mousetrap "snaps" it does so in an act of epistemological validation or invalidation of the syllogism that makes the whole mousetrap work in the first place.

I'm not willing to buy into any of it. Yes, I do not deny that the mind works neurologically but I stand with the "philosophers who maintain that the most important aspects of consciousness — intentionality and subjective quality," http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/dennett.html are matters of value judgments made by people who have validated enough syllogistic mousetraps to be able to rationally choose which mousetrap to spring and when to spring it.

I do not deny that if memes exist they are things that get trapped in our minds as "units of culture," but I deny that they are "infections" that cause us to do such mindless and purposeless things as to fold our toilet paper in squares. http://kingsofsimulcast.blogspot.com/2008/02/toilet-paper-meme.html Anyone who folds TP in squares is not infected with the idea, but perhaps for no reason whatever that could be identified, chose to fold it. ""A major problem with theories of free will is that arbitrary choices are simply random." [Kelly]

So it would seem that memeticists such as Blackwell and Dennett and others cannot bring themselves to the simple idea that free will is often arbitrary and random, and that acts of free will such folding one's TP may have no "infectious" content but is a decidedly human and silly thing to do.

I cannot hold a strong position on Naturalism, and at the same time deny that the free will of humans exists; nor accept that its existence is based on the supernatural grace of God; nor deny that its existence is based on the justified natural grounds that consciousness can arise from atomistic and tychistic events tied to the nature of the brain itself.

(Tychism: A term derived from the Greek, tyche, fortune, chance, and employed by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) to express any theory which regards chance as an objective reality, operative in the cosmos. Also the hypothesis that evolution occurs owing to fortuitous variations.) http://www.ditext.com/runes/t.html

Chance is an objective reality, and to deny that consciousness and free will are natural, not supernatural; or to accept it as supernatural, from a Creator rather than as existents of objective reality based on natural law, is to deny that Naturalism is objective, making it impossible to deny that some of its claims are not defences against theist arguments that free will can only come from God.

"The philosophical goal of pursuing knowledge about the truth of naturalism contributes to bringing the philosopher to an epistemic state where a cultural consequence is that the person desires and [ ] endeavors to bring about a certain state of culture, in this case, a mainly secularized academia. [T]he most important philosophical aspect of pursuing this cultural goal in a philosophically governed way is producing better arguments (to put matters in a simplified way) than the theist, which requires an openness to a fair-minded evaluation of good arguments for theism." [italics added] Quentin Smith http://www.philoonline.org/library/smith_4_2.htm

It is obvious that aguments of "infections" and "mousetraps" and "tiny bits of mentality" and the reasons people around the world fold their TP into squares, and that "the brain’s computational circuitry fools us into thinking we know more than we do, and that what we call consciousness — isn’t," are not better arguments than the Deist who claims a devout belief in God because only Reason can bestow Reason.

It is also obvious that the arguments of Naturalism are becoming so fragmented and convoluted in some cases, that the Creationist have a good chance of relegating Naturalism to the dust bin, if only because the Creationists sound so much more rational than some of our best known secularists.

And I thought Naturalism was about rationality, whereas theism was about the acceptance of faith, the most powerful abnegator of reason in the arsenal of logic--or illogic.span>




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Religion and Revelation: What if We're Wrong?

Why are People Driven to Ask Atheists About Revelations?

After taking three holi-days of breaks from blogging, (I don't blog on Sunday,) and working exclusively on my brickfront retail operation Meta Candles and Gifts*, I would like to say that I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving weekend. Even the smallest turkey was too large for the two people in my home; I'm going to freeze one of the breasts, but we managed without too much difficulty to finish off the pumpkin pie! I know at Christmas I will be forced to eat what ever pie we decide on, and freeze half the Honeybaked Ham.

[*Click on one of the pretty images if you want to order online America's best-made candles or fabulous gift baskets! Hint: Join the Candle of the Month for a near-50% discount! Or contact me through that online site if you have questions about the products and services. Blatant capitalistic promotion is naturalistic, don't you think?]

I had a casual, workplace conversation with the owner of the brickfront, who deals in rare, unusual and expensive antiques. He is religious, and has talked about his work in the church as organist; he keeps a piano (for sale) in the antiques store and sometimes sits down to play it. But until yesterday he never brought up the subject of religion in any way that required an answer or reaction from me, except to listen.

Yesterday he asked if I "believed." I told him I did not. What came next is not unusual in such a situation; it has happened to me many times, so many over the course of four decades of discussing it that I try never to discuss it, because what I hear, and what I am forced to repeat, is simply too pedestrian, and lame at that, to allow myself to be forced into discussing my beliefs--because no one ever lets it go at what I answer.

I cannot recall one incident in all those many years when someone simply said, "Wow. I never would have guessed!" or "Each to his own," or anything that resembled the conversational equivalent of "I have no intention of impressing on you what I think is wrong in your way of thinking." That would be a blessing to hear.

Everyone has an opinion. Everyone wants to show what he/she thinks is the error of my logic. Or it goes the direction it went yesterday, when the antiques dealer brought up the subject we can call, "What if you're wrong?"

The "what if you're wrong" debate takes two forms. The first is about the idea that when we die we discover we were wrong, by discovering ourselves in the "afterworld." What will we do, then? we are asked.

The second form of the debate takes the position of, "What if something happens while you're fully alive to change your mind?" The implication here is that if we atheists were faced with some sort of revelation, either a revealed revelation, or one of observation and logic resulting in a possible change of mind, would I be able and/or willing to change my mind? see Horvath and Revelation and On Revelations; Thomas Paine

Why do people need to know this? Why are they driven to inquire? Are they convinced we may say we would be "forced by the circumstances" to believe? Are they convinced, perhaps, that some argument on their part could makes us see the "error" of having a "closed mind"? Are they looking for an opportunity to make the case that "no one can be certain that no god exists"?

It seems my friend was of the mind that he could get me to admit that I could not be certain. I've been drawn in to this argument before, and I knew that it was he who did not have the "open" mind to listen objectively to me, and to objectively ask about my logic. People like him, who are otherwise fine as friends, would rather impress upon us the logic they believe will show we are the ones with "closed" minds.

And by the way, this is behavior in which I never engage, that is, trying to convince someone who doesn't want to listen to the logic of naturalism. It is improper etiquette--and rude.

I did not take the bait. I merely got up from my chair, walked to my computer, pulled up the Academy's "Strong" Position on Naturalism--which I then read to him. I thought that if I presented my argument in its written form, rather than trying to speak from the mind and heart--a situation where I knew he would not be able to resist interrupting me, repeatedly, to argue this point or that--that he would understand I had given the subject considerable scrutiny to publish it in a blog that is readable world-wide.

Instead of being objective, or at the least considerate of my well-thought out argument, his reaction surprised me.

"Do all those big words impress you?" he asked? Believe me when I tell you there was no sarcasm ringing in his words. He wasn't trying to be rude either, though of course it was one of the rudest things he could have thought to ask.

No, he wanted an objective answer: Was I impressed by the words?

I said no, of course not. I said I understood each and every word, that to me each of the words were not "big" words; they were the properly definitive words for the concept expressed by the word in that context. "Do not use two words when one will do," said Thomas Jefferson, though I must admit you must also take into account who will be doing the reading, and choose your words carefully for the purpose.

He was not someone who understood the words of the Academy's Position.

He told me about his cousin, his best friend, who for one of his university degrees was forced to read some difficult books with similarly "big," difficult-to-understand words, and how his cousin had read some of it out loud to him and tried to impress on him the meaning of what he was being forced to read. He had no more understood what his cousin was explaining than what I was explaining.

My friend had successfully changed the subject from my concrete, written logic (and his beliefs, for that matter,) to something else entirely: how he was not impressed by big words that meant nothing to him.

What it came down to for my friend was that he was not prepared to overcome my concrete logic with his faith. Faith, in the end, has no words, and that is the meaning of faith: that it is a matter of faulty epistemology that results in a metaphysical world-view that the supernatural must exist.

When confronted by logic that declares all things to be natural and that nothing is supernatural, this faulty epistemology is frustrated. It cannot make the leap from faith-based beliefs to objective, i.e., non-faith-based, arguments. It must stick to what it knows and that is implicit, unconscious knowlege that if a believer enters into the area of objective language, he will be forced to admit that his belief is not objective. That must be a very difficult thing to be forced to accept.

And attempting to accept, to argue, the position that naturalism and not supernaturalism is the "default position," [see The Big Question of Existence] of objective discurse, it may open a door to the other side of faith that he is not prepared to face. That door is precisely the fact that supernaturalism was the skeptical position for two thousand years, until the faulty Platonic epistemology of St. Augustine reversed the logic, making naturalism the skeptical position against supernaturalism.

But what, the frustrated believer would ask by taking Augustine's position, about the door that opens to faith, the door he would say we naturalists are keeping closed?

The answer is that Reason permanently closes that door, and the only way it can be opened is if Reason fails--if a person of Reason has what is defined as a "revelation" and his Reason cannot overcome the neuropathological or psychological causes.

The epistemology, the logic, of naturalism challenges the seemingly-convincing appeal of the cosmological, mechanical, and moral arguments for the existence of existence itself, and holds that the universe requires no supernatural cause and government. If someone who maintains this logic suddenly has a neuropathological or a psychological experience that causes him to abandon Reason for faith, or at the very least question his Reason in an episode of skeptical vulnerablility to faith, then he as abandonded what makes Man sui generis from all other creatures, and that is the faculty of Reason.

Faith is understandable. Our animal brains are succeptible to latching on to any argument that seems reasonable. When Man gained enough brain neuropathy to be able to add philosophy to his mental tools, it quickly became apparent--within a few hundreds of years--through the Atomists and others, that the universe was natural and that it had natural laws.

Natural laws do not admit of the existence of things which are not natural; it would be contradictory, and supernaturalism is by definition not natural. Supernaturalism is what man clung to before he discovered the discipline and science of philosophy.

There is no longer any Reason to continue thinking, as I'm certain many of our other animal relatives do, that a clap of thunder and a bolt of lightening, or the shaking of the earth, is anything beyond our understanding.

But the religiously faithful still ask "what if we naturalists are wrong, what if the supernatural exists and what if we find reason to regret our earthly logic when we die and meet our maker"?

If God exists, He will not ask us to regret using the Reason He blessed Mankind with; but He will pity the fool who believed that faith and the abandonment of Reason was what He blessed them with.

He would say that the pre-philosophical belief in the supernatural is not the default position, and therefore supernaturalism is contradictory to naturalism.

Of course, that being so, He would never exist in the first place, to tell us such a thing.



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Ethical Priorities

Asking Ethical Questions in Ethics Classes Must be Done Ethically

I recently read in Brian Leiter's blog that, "Susan Dwyer (moral psychology, applied ethics, feminist theory), Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County has accepted a tenured offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park, effective January 2009." Dwyer from UMBC to Maryland/College Park

I think I had heard the name of Ms. Dwyer before, but I didn't know who she was. Leiter thought she was worth promoting, or possibly she is a friend or working associate.

So, to familiarize myself with a philosopher I didn't know I looked up Dwyer, and clicked on her syllabi. There I found "PHIL 150 Contemporary Moral Issues." Listed under "Outline" was this:

"We will critically examine four controversial topics: Pornography and Free Speech; Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide; Punishment and the Death Penalty; and Abortion. The class has two main aims: (1) to introduce you to some central concepts in ethical theory and moral reasoning; and (2) to help you begin to develop views about the aforementioned topics that you can articulate and defend."

Well, that sounds like a good outline of subjects that are worthwhile of ethical investigation by students. I remember as a young student many years ago investigating them, and from time to time I read something that gives me a new twist on what or how I understand the subject. Sometimes, my opinions are tweaked by what I read.

But directly below Dwyer's Outline is this:

"Among the questions we will consider are the following:
 Is pornography harmful?
 Should the state censor or restrict the publication of pornography?
 Do we have a right to determine the manner and time of our own deaths?
 Is it permissible for a doctor to kill a patient at that patient’s request?
 How is punishment justified?
 Should the death penalty be retained or abolished in the United States?
 What is the right to life?
 Is the human fetus a person?
 What is the relation between morality and the law?"

And I thought, "Wait a cotton pickin' minute. The epistemic emphasis on most of the questions is all wrong."

Asking if pornography is wrong, for example; it leaves open the question of whether its harm, real or imagined, gives one human the right to deny access to it to those he thinks are harmed by it. Why else ask the question? I mean, so what if it is harmful, what is the answer to the answer that it is harmful? The real question and answer are lost.

If my answer in that class was that pornography was not harmful, is someone going to argue with me? Are they going to ask where I got my information? What difference does my answer make, yes or no, until the basic question of whether ethics can do anything about it?

In any question of ethics (moral issues), "The first question that has to be answered, as a precondition of any attempt to define, to judge or to accept any specific system of ethics, is: Why does man need a code of values?
"Let me stress this. The first question is not: What particular code of values should man accept? The first question is: Does man need values at all—and why?"
“The Objectivist Ethics”; Ayn Rand; The Virtue of Selfishness

go to Ethics continued

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The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
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The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

"Strong" vs. "Weak" Atheism; The Debacle of Categorization

I used to think I knew what "atheism" was. I was an atheist, someone who had no belief in god's existence, and no faith that he/it did exist and was the cause of "all things that are."

Then I discovered, through an article written by Austin Cline, in "About.Com" http://www.about.com/ (which is printed below,) that there were those in the atheist community who either thought I was a "weak" atheist, or perhaps not a "strong" atheist. This amazing judgment of my beliefs/disbeliefs was made even more evident by comments in a thread in About.Com. It was hinted that I might not be atheist at all!

I was questioned as to whether or not I believed in a god called "Ahura Mazda," whether I put him in the same "creator gods bucket" as "Jehovah, which I presume is the god you are most familiar with," and I wondered, what sort of idiot did it take to ask me that after I had stated there were no gods.

Then, I was questioned as to whether or not I believed Alexander the Great had actually lived, because he had been "deified," and there is no "requirement" that god's be supernatural, which of course Alexander was not, and if I didn't believe in "gods," how could I believe Alexander was real?

In the name of all that is Naturalistic, where does this crap come from? This bothers me.

It bothers me for several reasons. If I had not happened upon this article dealing with this subject, I could have remained ignorant of the debate, for who knows how long? It seems to be a recent--within the last decade--division. I'm not certain yet whether it is primarily an epistemological division, or one of metaphysics. I suspect there are advocates of boths sides of the division some of whom are dividing the atheists by metaphysics, and some on both sides dividing us with epistemics.

It bothers me that there are two sides in each "camp." "One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything." [Occam's Razor] http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/occamraz.html

It bothers me because a rose by any other name is still a rose. The difference between a rose and "atheism" is that a rose is merely empirical, while "atheism" is not empirical at all. So as far as the denotational divisions go, it is perfectly understandable. We are, sometimes, in differing "camps of particularities." There are so many divisions of "naturalist" and "naturalism" that I can't keep them straight.

Here is Cline's original article, with my [commentary,] with a live link at the bottom to the original:

"Atheism is commonly divided into two types: strong atheism and weak atheism. [Commonly by whom? Attribution would be nice.] Although only two categories, this distinction manages to reflect the broad diversity which exists among atheists when it comes to their positions on the existence of gods. [Only two categories, now, folks, but wait until he gets finished with his propositions. He will have us so divided--but then, he is no different than those among you who believe what he believes--that, a division of a division of a division, is more descriptive of "individualism," or of "diversity."

[I had always believed our "position" on the existence of god's existence was one of nullity, either that we said they don't exist and gave our reasons; or that we gave to the gods no heed, thus nullifying their influence over our thoughts and morals. Gods represent the reification of dogma.]

"Weak atheism, also sometimes referred to as implicit atheism [attribution?], is simply another name for the broadest and most general conception of atheism: the absence of belief in any gods. A weak atheist is someone who lacks theism and who does not happen to believe in the existence of any gods — no more, no less. This is also sometimes called agnostic atheism because most people who self-consciously lack belief in gods tend to do so for agnostic reasons."

[But according to the Law of Existence and the Law of Identity, "agnostic atheism" against the Law of Non-Contradiction, or the Law of Contradiction, which means: is a contradiction in terms.

[Weak atheism is also sometimes called the natural state of the newborn. Is a newborn to be considered a "weak atheist" if he grows up maintaining his nature-given natural metaphysics, i.e., metaphysics developed without the Primacy of Deity over-riding the Primacy of Sovereignty, whereby each unique human has sovereignty only over him/herself, an no sovereignty over others except of children, and legally with some others. And does it without ever giving it further consideration? We often make the claim that religion is taught or imposed by the society which adopts it; if an entire society failed to consider god's existence, would it be a "weak atheist" society?]
"Strong atheism, also sometimes referred to as explicit atheism, goes one step further and involves denying the existence of at least one god, usually multiple gods, and sometimes the possible existence of any gods at all.

[Wait--a "strong" atheist may be one who denies the "possibility" of gods--as opposed to only denying the existence of particular gods?

[If that is to be the definition of "strong," then we must also cordon off those who deny only particualar gods, from those deny the possibility of any gods. Denying the possibility is what I thought every atheistic proposition consisted of. Now I am told that an atheist can deny specific gods, without denying the possibility that "some" god may exist. That is agnosticism.

[Cline is About.Com's resident expert and blogger in the category of "Agnosticism/Atheism." His academic credentials are excellent, having studied here and in Europe and gaining several degrees; he is a Regional Director for the Council for Secular Humanism. So I would give Cline the benefit of the doubt and hope he simply "wasn't thinking" when he wrote that. I have made similar huried or unthought-out mistakes myself. There are several typos and other editorial mistakes in this piece because I formatted incorrectly then could not back out of it.

[But it is a major gaffe, because if someone uses it later to back up a debatable question, the answer is going to be wrong. You cannot fail to deny the possibility of all supernatural gods, and still be labeled "atheist."]

"Strong atheism is sometimes called “gnostic atheism” because people who take this position often incorporate knowledge claims into it — that is to say, they claim to know in some fashion that certain gods or indeed all gods do not or cannot exist.
"Because knowledge claims are involved, strong atheism carries an initial burden of proof which does not exist for weak atheism. Any time a person asserts that some god or any gods do not or cannot exist, they obligate themselves to support their claims."

[Oh! Now that you have decided to be a "strong" atheist who also claims to have epistemic proof that gods do not or that gods cannot exist--wait: either-or is one more division. Why didn't Cline think of it?--now that you have decided, then your atheism is to be more questionable i.e., defeatable,* than that of a weak atheist, because you now bear the burden of your proof, and if the subjectivism of the listener disagrees with you, your entire justification for being atheist goes out the window in his opinion, along with your supposed atheism. If your justification doesn't hold up one way or the other, must you not be required by epistemic ethics to reconsider your atheistic position?

[That is precisely the challenge laid upon us by theists who attempt to debunk your justification; but you are probably going to disagree with him as he disagrees with you, even thought you may not be able to defeat his justification.]

*Dr. Quentin Smith of Western Michigan University, wrote about "defeated
justifiers," and more inportantly about the one syllogism that must remain
undefeated by theists if the naturalist is to have a justified argument. We
cannot let thests have ground, except as is found in their historical
pre-Augustinian role as the skeptical position of naturalism.

"Where N means "naturalism":

"When contemporary science and naturalist philosophy,
conjoined with an evaluation of contemporary theist arguments for "not-N," can be said to justify N;
"and where in fact this conjoining does justify N;
"then N is justified."
[See 13., 14., 15., under "Justifications," in
"The Metaphilosophy of Naturalism" by Quentin Smith http://www.philoonline.org/library/smith_4_2.htm

[This is where the formatting mistakes begin.]

"This [gnostic] narrower conception of atheism is often thought by many (erroneously) to represent the entirety of atheism itself. Because strong and weak atheism are often called 'types' of atheism, some people develop the mistaken idea that these are somehow akin to 'denominations' of atheism, not unlike denominations of Christianity. This serves the bolster the myth that atheism is a religion or a belief system. This is unfortunate, in particular because the label of “types” is not entirely accurate; rather, it is simply used due to a lack of better terminology."

[I have thought all along that "strong" and"weak," and the actual epistemic propositions supporting them, were due to a lack of better terminology and denotational accuracy. That means: get the definitions in taxonomic order.]

"To call them different types is to imply on some level that they are separate — a person is either a strong atheist or a weak atheist."

[Is that not what Cline has been trying to tell us all the time???? Duh. It was right there in front of us all the time, because he said it. Then he denied it. If that is not what he means, what does he mean? Well...]

"If we look more closely, however, we will note that almost all atheists are both on various levels." [italics added]

[OMG, now you divide more? How many times can atheism be divided? You are not an Atomist--not that you ought to be--if you believe they are indivisible infinitely. Every "genus" must have at least two "differentia." (Ayn Rand) So every time you make a division of two into two more divisions, you create a new genus with two new differentia. (There comes a point when there is no point to the next genus; or, to one of the new differentia, which then would automatically disqualify that genus.)

[Since "almost all atheists are both on various levels," this proposition recombines two genuses, making them as indistinguishable as are the many combinations of Empiricists with Rationalists. That, then, eliminates one genus of "atheist."

[Rand herself, I suspect, would eliminate them to one genus with two differentia. I quote Rand (cut and paste):"concepts are not to be multiplied beyond necessity—the corollary of which is: nor are they to be integrated in disregard of necessity." “The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy,”Introduction to ObjectivistEpistemology. That is called "Rand's Razor." Yes, she had her own, similar to Occam's. What they also had in common was that each had justified true belief in the metaphysics of essences as concepts, vs. Aristotle's/Aquinas' essences as "things in themselves."

[But by the same token, they are to be integrated only by necesssity. This is because we sometimes make errors of judgment caused by lack of data; or by any means of misjudging the truth. We can multiply as often as is necessary, but we should not re-integrate in haste. We are not saints. Men do not claim to be infallible. Infallibility is for the gods. We are not gods; "We wake to the world of Men." (MarcusAurelius)]

"The primary indication of [all atheists being both on some issues] can be seen in that the definition of weak atheism, lacking belief in the existence of any gods, is in fact that basic definition of atheism itself. What this means is that all atheists are weak atheists. The difference, then, between weak and strong atheism is not that some people belong to one instead of the other, but rather that some people belong to one in addition to the other. All atheists are weak atheists because all atheists, by definition, lack belief in the existence of gods. Some atheists, however, are also strong atheists because they take the extra step of denying the existence of at least some gods."

[This is an "unnecessary" division with no justification. Such people who are in denial of at least some gods, allow therefore the possibility that some gods do exist. This is not a division of atheism; it is agnosticism.]

"Technically, saying that “some” atheists do this isn’t entirely accurate. Most, if not all, atheists are willing to deny the existence of some gods if asked — few only “lack belief” in the existence of Zeus or Apollo, for example."

[And those who are not willing to deny the existence of all gods are agnostic.]

"Thus, while all atheists are weak atheists, pretty much all atheists are also strong atheists with respect to at least some gods. So is there any value at all in the terms? Yes — which label a person uses will tell you something about their general inclination when it comes to debates about gods. A person who uses the label “weak atheist” may deny the existence of some gods, but as a general rule isn’t going to take the step of asserting the nonexistence of a particular god. [!] Instead, they are more likely to wait for the theist to make their case and then examine whether that case is credible or not."

[But because of the divisions of "weak" atheists, we are still in the position of having to ask this "weak atheist" to determine for us which position he takes on this or on that.]

"A strong atheist, on the other hand, may be a weak atheist by definition, but by adopting that label the person is in effect communicating a willingness and interest to take a much more proactive role in theological debates. They are more likely to assert right up front that a particular god does not or cannot exist and then make a case for that, even if the theist doesn’t do much to defend the position of belief."

AustinCline, About.com http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismquestions/a/strong_weak.htm

Why I am An Atheist by Curtis Edward Clark

I am an atheist, not primarily because a of disbelief,whether positive or negative; nor from a belief, whether positive or negative. Rather, I am atheist because I do not sacrifice my reason to religious faith.

Religious reason is something else altogether. For one thing, it is the "religion" of Deism, the "religion" of the Founding Fathers of America. Do you know why it is not a "religion" in the dogmatic sense? Because each man or woman was allowed, under Deism, the absolute religious freedom to believe what he/she wanted in the pursuit of Reason. http://www.deism.com/deism_defined.htm

If that individualistic belief was anything other than in search of reason, then it was tinged with faith, and therefore suspect until the character of the individual had been assessed. Atheism as a religion is the merely the same religious freedom when granted to atheists, no more, no less. It is the belief, whether Deist or atheist, that is within the bounds of epistemic reason, of the individual sovereignty of each to believe in his own ideas.

It is within the bounds of "organized religions" that each person is advised to believe, not in his/her reason, but in the dogma. Witness the political candidates who are forced to choose between politics and their church, and choosing politics are told not to come to Communion.

Those in the eighteenth century who could not bring themselves to sever their beliefs from their church were theists, yet were trusted as much by Deists as the Deists trusted themsleves. They went to church with those theists, had discourse with them, voted for some of them in politics and in church affairs, and married together; but those who could and did sever themselves from the politic of the church they attended were called Deists.

Atheism can be religion when "religion is a frame of reference to man’s life and a code of moral values, [such as during the time] before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, on a very—how should I say it?—dangerous or malevolent base: on the ground of faith. “Playboy’sInterview with Ayn Rand,” March 1964.

That was Rand's opinion, with which I agree. Deists, however, did not have belief in God, as supernatural religions have. Deists had justified true beliefs (undefeated justifiers) and were not dangerous or malevolent in their overall beliefs. Not, at least, on the grounds of faith, because they had no faith, as do no atheists. But a Deist has justified true belief in God, instead. Atheists have justified true beliefs that the existence of a creator is a contradiction to the Primacy of Existence, even if they have no idea what that amounts to and even if they have never heard it. State it to an atheist, and he will say, "That is what I've always felt."

The atheist has no reason to justify the existence of a God that to him is neither an epistemic truth, nor an object of metaphysical knowledge. So they each have a "sound" syllogism, the Deist and the atheist, a soundness which comes from having chosen one of the fifteen "valid" syllogisms of post-Aristotelean logic. (Aristotle allowed 24.) And each of their undefeated justifiers can and will always defeat the evangelicals, when the defeat of theistic propositions is accomplished with formal syllogistic logic that meets the criteria for "valid" and for "sound."

But when the evangelical has as valid and as sound an argument, then, like atheists and Deists on one side of the opposed-to-religion coin, then the evangelical joins the Deist on the same side of the opposed-to-atheist coin.

Rand also had something to say about her own use of the word religion, which I agree with and which I use in the definition of the Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists. (See the first Academy of Metaphysical Naturalists' weblog, under "Archive." )

"[There is one] possibly misleading sentence . . . " Rand wrote, "in Roark’s speech:

“From this simplest necessity to the highest religious
abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man—the function of his reasoning mind.”

"This could be misinterpreted to mean an endorsement of religion or
religious ideas. I remember hesitating over that sentence, when I wrote it, and deciding that Roark’s and my atheism, as well as the overall spirit of the book, were so clearly established that no one would misunderstand it, particularly since I said that religious abstractions are the product of man’s mind, not of supernatural revelation."

Amen, as she herself said a few times. Since an atheist by definition says "religious abstractions are the product of man’s mind, not of supernatural revelation," then I say an atheist by any other name smells as sweet. And I affirm that atheists can have religious convictions, if those convictions do not attend the existence of a god of any nature, supernatural or "natural," as with Alexander the Great.

*Free will is here used as in "free will," both the kind attributed to man's ego; and the kind attributed to legal papers such as "free wills," or generically called "free will forms." http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGQD_enUS290US290&q=free+will+form

Please send all comments to

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the sm of the
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism tm, the educational arm of the Assemblage.
This publication © 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

On Free Will, the Soul, and the Single Intelligible Object

Little did I know several years ago that I would write a book on metaphysical cosmology, a subject I had barely even heard of. I had heard statements like, “Copernicus changed our cosmology with his heliocentric theory,” and, “Einstein changed it with his theory of relativity.” But I did not comprehend the magnitude of such "changes."

I am not a scientist, unless you consider metaphysics and epistemology to be science, which I do.
Metaphysics was considered by the all thinkers to be the “first science,” above all others, because presumably without it no other questions of science could be answered, let alone asked. Then the post-Renaissance skeptics ruined metaphysics by convincing the world it was unreliable at best, and a travesty of science at worst.

My book, "The Search for the Single Intelligible Object," began not as the burning desire to cover new ground, or to hash out old, forgotten and "disproved" ideas. It didn't even begin as the desire to write a book. It began as the burning desire to read as much of a variety of material in as short a period as I had ever—or rather, never—done before. I began and finished reading seventy-three books in about twenty-one weeks, books I never believed I would ever read because I was always so previously focused on specific subject matter. I could not do today what I did then, because of my focus on the works of contemporary Naturalists.

Maybe another month from now, or another year, I could do that again, when I gain a better focus on the contemporary works of Naturalism, which I need to do. I need to do it for several reasons: 1. to comprehend contemporary Naturalism which seems to exclude many of my own true beliefs; 2. to discover which of my own true beliefs are justified and which of theirs defeat my justifications; 3. which of theirs are unjustified, and why; 4. purely for the exercise of getting back to my first love, reading.

During those few short weeks, in 2005, which I found myself writing voluminous pages of notes on most of the subjects. This is not unusual for me--I've been a note-taker all my life. But over the years I have lost or discarded many of my notes. Most were worthless except as exercises in note-taking or in composition.

Those seventy-three books ranged from cowboy novels by Louis L’Amour and other writers of Western fiction--firsts for me--to Christian novels (another first) like the “Left Behind” series, books by Bodie Thoene, and by Frank E. Peretti; and a "documented" history of the Great Flood, including photos of the supposed Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat.

I read Clive Cussler, Danielle Steele, Dashiell Hammett, Tom Clancy, John LeCarre, James Michener, John Sescroart, Robert Ludlum, Jeffrey Archer and others of that genre. I read Barbara Bush, Sam Donaldson, and Bob Woodward.

"Pilgrim’s Progress" had never been on my must-read list, but I finished it. There was a book about Holland during the Reformation, and there was the biography of a Brahman, Rabi Maharaj, who converted to Christianity and then helped to found a world wide Christian youth organization, after working for Billy Graham. I had never heard of Rabi Maharaj before. How, I still manage to wonder today, can such intelligent people have visions of Jesus, as Mr. Maharaj did? I have my theories, but those theories have more to do with certain sciences of the brain, and not the subject of today's blog.

While reading those Christian-based novels, I discovered George MacDonald. One of the factors, for me, about which novels I come to like best, have to do with the characters in the stories. I discover that if I like the characters enough to wish they were real so I could meet them, talk with them, walk by their sides and take part in their lives as friend, student, teacher, then they are great novels. If the characters are such that I would want to meet them and exist in their world, then it is because we share the same metaphysical values, the same metaphysical world view, in other words, the same metaphysical cosmology.

MacDonald was the favorite author of C.S.Lewis, or so says the introduction to MacDonald's greatest work, now retitled "Malcolm." Originally two volumes, they were called "The Fisherman's Lady" and "The Marquis' Secret." But both novels were always about the most amazingly intuitive and rational being named Malcolm, a young man who comes of age and discovers a secret about his small Scottish fishing village and the marquis' estate, and consequently about himself. Malcolm does not remind me of the modern Christians I see all around me who are so pious and evangelical. Malcolm the Christian is a passionate but studiously thoughtful rational egoist. He and Ayn Rand's Howard Roark of "The Fountainhead" would have been great friends, I think. As this linked website states, "[T]here is a strong yearning to learn more about these characters of George MacDonald's immediately after reading the first." http://www.rambles.net/macdonald_malcolm01.html

I found novels based on history, such as one about a triangle between Queen Elizabeth, Lettice Deveroux, and the Earl of Essex. On of the best historical novels I discovered was about Welsh royalty in the twelfth century who quite possibly were the first permanent European settlers in the new world. It is still a controversy to this day, but here is the background:

"In 1580, Dr John Dee, a Londoner of Welsh descent, in his 'Title Royal', a document presented to Queen Elizabeth 1st (an English Queen of Welsh Lineage), mentioned 'The Lord Madoc, sonne of Owen Gwynedd, Prince of North Wales, led a Colonie and inhabited in Terra Florida or thereabouts.'" So wrote Hakluyt, a writer of daring deeds and exploration, in 1582 in a report on the voyages of Madoc. http://www.madoc1170.com/evidence.htm Hakluyt got his information from Caradoc of Llancarfan, who wrote about it circa 1140. I took it to be utterly believable, although the historical writer, James Alexander Thom, http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780449149706.html was forced to create a great deal of speculative fiction based on the few "facts" that are known. Even Lewis and Clark asked a great many questions about the decendents of Madoc, during their historic trip west.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rls=GZEZ,GZEZ:2008-32,GZEZ:en-GB&q=First+Son+Madoc+novel

Most amazing of the true stories I read was of how Ross Perot did everything and whatever was necessary to get his imprisoned people out of Iran during the 1979 Wahabbi “revolution,” a rescue effort remarkable, and heroic a feat, by any standard. After reading it, I actually believe Perot had enough foreign policy knowledge and "daring do" to have been a good, if not a great President, had he not come off looking like "the funny little man" during his race for the White House.

But it may have been Herman Melville’s "Moby Dick" that I got the biggest kick out of. I certainly made many notes about it and copied many quotes from it. I use many of those quotes in my book, "The Search for the Single Intelligible Object." [See the Academy Store, in sidebar]

Fascinatingly, "Moby Dick" is the second most-studied book in English after the Bible. I found a lot of metaphysical world views in it even before I latched on to the word “cosmology.” It is those world views and the fact that each and every character in the novel has one that is unique to himself, that I believe make it the second most studied book in English.

I found almost as many cosmological perceptions in MacDonald’s faith-oriented "Malcolm," and those were certainly more usable and profoundly valuable in my personal life—as well as in the writing of my book—though I am an atheist by principle and have been since I was a child.

But it was in the finding of a definition for cosmology, after I was acquainted with the word, which propelled me into my introduction to Kant and Hegel, Spinoza, Schiller, Aristotle, Camus, Plato, Aquinas, Marcus Aurelius and others. Trying to understand the meaning of cosmology, I began to pour over dictionaries and encyclopedias of philosophy, library research computers, and the most generally helpful of all references, the "Syntopicon of the Great Ideas of the Western World," a part of the "Great Books of the Western World" series found in virtually every adult library. It was there, in the "Syntopicon," that I found my working definition of the word “cosmology.”

Never before had I contemplated the world, the heavens, the entirety of existence, as one thing to be understood as one thing, the way we may look at a grasshopper as being “one thing” and understandable in its entirety, within the boundaries of our knowledge. That our knowledge may change daily, grow by leaps and bounds, or be upset by something like Copernicus’ heliocentric theory, is not the point. Of course our knowledge will change; humans grow, that is what we do. The day our knowledge base quits growing our evolution ends, and we become like the unchanging but always changing creatures of nature, like the apes who are always the same generation to generation and oblivious that there is something greater “out there” than mere lights blinking in the night sky.

What I came to see “out there” beyond myself, that was greater than anything I had ever perceived, was Aristotle’s concept that “existence exists,” irrespective of any gods or God; that, to use a phrase of philosophy, any god or power higher than existence itself was “unnecessary.”

(Yet, this does not prove that no god exists. "Proving" that is a feat I hope I never attempt, because I find it an unnecessary thing to do, not to mention logically impossible, since I believe no one has sufficiently done it yet, and those who have tried have much more education in the field that I do. I can find enough about existence itself that is common between me and theists, and enough serenity in my own beliefs, that I have no desire to rob them of their belief. I will occasionally argue against faith, but not against the existence of God. Faith is the abnegation of reason, and so it becomes a proper subject of philosophy and of theology. The existence of God is a personal belief. As long as a believer does not find it necessary to push the against "the wall of separation between the church and state," or to stand in front of me as some "street ministers" have done and proselytize, he may believe whatever he wishes to believe. It isn't my call.)

Still, I hold no problem with anyone who accepts a god, so long as the rest of his or her life is conducted with rationality. Faith, and sometimes even religion, has been a force for good. I have learned this from personal experience: there is a “whole lot of faith and religion goin’ on” in my family tree, and I have loved and admired my relatives for the places their faith has taken them.
Cosmology is, epistemologically speaking, a recombinant of metaphysics and epistemology, in the sense that for each unique human existence, there is a unique world view. I use the word “recombinant” in the book.

It is where the recombinants are in accord with other men’s recombinants that makes us a civilization; every unique thinker--of which there are not as many as there are unique humans--each thinker contributes to civilization by contributing to us his or her thinking, and in the end civilization analyzes those contributions, and the rest of us often let that unique thinker's world view change our common thoughts. His unique view may be entirely of epistemological dimensions, or of metaphysics, or of a combination of them; but it must be of one, the other, or both. Both, as recombinants, are necessary for anyone to have a world view.

Copernicus and Einstein are only two whose thoughts we let change our cosmology. Kant had a piss-poor cosmology, epistemologically speaking. That of Aurelius was very clean and well ordered. Every character Melville wrote about in Moby Dick had a unique cosmology, a unique set of recombinants.

In order to relate to the reader how it can be that each of us has his or her own cosmology, I quote in the book many of the persons I named above, plus a great many others, so that you may discover just what I mean. Some are mean, as we perceive Dickens' Mr. Scrooge to be; some are sacrificial, like Abraham and Jesus; some men spit hellfire and damnation, others pour out pity or they are all-forgiving; some see the glass empty, some see it filled with everything that is wrong with man.

The way in which each unique thinker has touched us comes to us from his psychology. His ethics and his aesthetics come from his psychology, and psychology is the result of the recominants of metaphysics and epistemology. We can sometimes “see” the recombinants that brought men to their psychology; it usually comes to us as an intuition, a conclusion about the person's character. Psychologists and psychiatrists, are trained to see it. Psychology even has a branch now called epistemic psychology. But each unique recombinant has its own naturally resultant cosmology, which in turn creates the psychology by which that person walks through this world. Some "wake to the work of a man," as Marcus Aurelius defined it. Some hide from their own shadows.

A world view, is necessary to the proper functioning of men’s minds. Not all men appreciate its function. Some fear existence so deeply, as they have evaluated existence in their world view, that fear leads them to their demise. In some others their world view, their cosmology, has been the cause of their sainthood.

Moving backward from psychology we can ascertain a man’s cosmology, or if we have the capacity to plough further, we can go right past his cosmology to observe his metaphysics or his epistemology. Philosophers are always blasting each other for having a supposed contradiction in one or the other science. More often than not it is more important to see a man's cosmology, because his world view is what he feels in the depths of his soul. All of us “feel” in the depths of our souls, even those of us like myself who “know” our soul is only the manifestation of our central nervous system in its connection to our minds.

It is the goal of the Academy of Metaphysical Naturalists not to take the view that the soul is metaphysically of no importance, or worse yet that it does not even exist in reality, as so many of the contemporary Naturalists believe. Contemporary Naturalism places an emphasis on the mechanics of the brain, and goes so far as to say, "We are fully physical creatures, without souls. Since we are fully caused to be who we are and act as we do, we don’t have contra-causal free will." [italics added] http://www.centerfornaturalism.org/faqs.htm

We do not “feel” our brains working nor "feel" the individual transmissions of each synapse. We can not literally feel our livers or our toenails without something else touching them, causing them to be noticeable. We can however “feel” our souls, because they are constantly being "touched," by our powers of cognition, as my book explains.

The soul is here to protect the sanity of the mind by giving it a sounding board. The soul and the mind are manifestations of our central nervous system, and upon death so go those manifestations. But I do not let that deter me from my attempt to becoming familiar with my soul. I am always amazed when someone asks me or another atheist, “If you don’t believe in life after death, why bother holding on to high standards in life?”

That my soul and mind are extinguished when my animal body dies is no reason for amorality. In amorality I might do harm to others. I might do hard to myself. But without a soul, one cannot have a world view, because to have such a view without an attachment to a soul makes us nothing but a collection of "antecedents," prior events and conditions in our lives which "program" us, making "an individual’s development and behavior [ ] entirely the result of prior and surrounding conditions, both genetic and environmental." http://www.naturalism.org/center_for_naturalism.htm

This is where I have no qualms accepting the faith of those who think God is necessary. "We shall argue that the very existence and nature of free will, purposive explanations, conscious minds, and the contingency of the cosmos are more reasonable given theism than given naturalism." Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro, An Argument from Consciousness and Free Will (Great Debate) (2007) http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/nontheism/atheism/free-will.html

I do not agree with that statement. I think a rational Naturalism can as easily conclude the reality of such "purposive explanations" and "conscious minds." It is the goal of this Academy to bring that (partial) world view to Naturalism, where it once existed and from which it has now been expunged. The modern scientists of cognition and of the brain are so skeptical of such things, from what I have seen, that their ideas turn us all into creatures who can have no purpose save but to go through life acting like the steel ball in a pinball machine, victims of intentional stance, [Daniel Dennett] a behavioral strategy that predicts the actions of others based on the lack of causal-free-will.



Once it became clear to me that I was compelled to write on a subject about which I had never formally studied, I had to read, research, and write sometimes twelve hours at a time, and produce all I could about all I knew about cosmology. I was compelled to find out what I didn’t know, to make connections of logic I had not found in other’s works, to hash it out in words by re-writing sections over and over again. There were so many connections to be made beginning with metaphysics and epistemology and then on to cosmology, to psychology, and finally to ethics, I had them entwined like un-entwineable vines. But a philosopher must un-entwine thoughts, his own and the thoughts of others, in order to show faults and strengths, and fallacies and truths.

To mix a metaphor, I do not believe I have scratched the surface of my un-entwining. Cognition of ourselves being cognitive is what makes Man the “rational animal,” and I can not stop cognizing, denoting and connoting everything I see, like Aristotle on the Isle of Lesbos. And though I am no Aristotle, I can share with him that I am a thinking animal, and that existence exists. I do not share the cosmologies of many thinkers I quote in "The Search;" I only quote them to make the point that such ideas are easily found, oftenly and easily adopted by others, which is why there are fewer unique thinkers than unique Men. Or I quote them to make the point that "this or that" is a great way to feel in your cognitively-manifested soul, or that “this or that idea is an ugly rap” to hang on Man.

Bad cosmologies, bad world views cause madness in the minds of those who have them. Where that mind belongs to one of those unique thinkers, who then becomes the bearer of those ideas in a culture, (people such as authors, theologians, behavioral psychologists, etc,) their ideas can cause madness in the receiver of the bearings, you and I, because we want to believe that such experts know what they are talking about but we cannot "square up" what they tell us with what we already know, either with what we have previously been taught to be true, or what we have learned from cognitive experiences.

We are left in entanglements of competing ideas, until another thinker tells us we don't have any free will anyway, nothing really matters, we are dust in the wind. And so we see the failure of culture, and we see it in the ugly acts of people who feel lost, such as those of teen girls beating each other up on UTube; or of women cutting the fetuses from the wombs of other women to steal the baby, leaving the woman to die bleeding on the floor; or people who see school shootings or other mass murders as their only way out of such mental abysses as they find themselves in.

I am happy to be alive, happy to be able to understand by un-entwining the baffling mysteries which are mere tones of grey for some, and which go totally unnoticed by others. It isn't necessary for everyone to un-entangle such mysteries if they can successfully exist in this world. Math is my "baffling mystery" when I get beyond artithmetic. I can't do higher math the way some people can't read.

But we must hold our own unique world view in our own unique hands and peer into our subjectively unique world and make sense of it, seeing it as an organic whole, underestanding it as a "single intelligible object." We must correct our metaphysical mistakes in order not to see the organic whole as something overwhelming to us; in order not to see our smallness compared to the universe as that which overwhelms, and not to see our unique individuality with a low sense of self-esteem that causes us to feel small in comparison to others. We must not to see "being human" as something to be "overcome," as many believe it to be.

Overwhelming fear of the world comes from the psychology created when we are told that we only "think" we are conscious, that our behavior is entirely predicable, that we have no such thing as "free will" or "soul." It is the incorrect psychology, that says we cannot overcome being small in a big, big place. That feeling of smallness is what must be overcome if we are to be able to understand the meaning of being Man.

We can overcome being small in a big, big place.

We need to get back on the Enlightenment-period idea that the glass is full, full of everything that is good about Man. What is good about him is that he can determine what is moral, about himself or about the world, and fix his ethics or his psychology or his view of natural sciences, so that the bad does not begin to suck out the good, as the period we call the Dark Ages did to us.

What is good about Man is that he does not have to work hard at ethics so long as he does not do harm to others; all the rest is Scholastic, yet important. Questions must be answered, but let the answers be rational or the glass begins to empty, shot full of holes.

That "single intelligible object" about which I can think of as holding in my hand as a snow globe can be held, to see it as one organic thing of which I am a part, is a greater force than all of us put together only if we turn our metaphysics topsy-turvy. Otherwise, I am greater than that which is greater than me, because I can walk through this world as a Man and do a Man’s work, to paraphrase Aurelius, with just my own cognitive abilities as guide and counselor, and just one ethical rule to guide me: do not do unto others what I would not have them do to me.

Those ethics describe a world in which Men exist equally; the epistemology of it is “I am rational; therefore all men are capable of rationality.” The cosmology is that to pursue happiness, those first two things must be accepted, and that inanimate nature, i.e., non-thinking existence, can not defeat what it means to be Man.

The psychology of that ethics is “can do,” not the psychology of being on a speeding train on a world you didn’t create, but that the universe in your hand, in your mind, can be redesigned by you because you think. And so, men’s minds are laissez-faire, being that they are each unique. And as they are unique and laissez faire in nature, they have free will.

And if you have not achieved after reading "The Search for theSingle Intelligible Object" an understanding of how to reach that Enlightened cosmology and a non-hostile will toward men and toward yourself, then may God be with you, and may your faith be enough.

That faith is often enough for most people, and people with faith are good people for the most part. Do not think my own atheism or my use of Naturalistic ideas deters me from seeing good in people of faith. It is the contemporary thinkers with dark, overwhelming world views who see men as creatures with over-blown egos and who mess things up for the rest of Mankind by misleading us, wittingly or not. Most of them actually believe the drivel they teach us.

Be cognitive of that universe you hold in your hand; it is within your power to comprehend it, and you will feel as if God, in his infinite wisdom, really did create you in his own, nonmystical image.

Curtis Edward Clark

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