James Le Fanu: Why Us? (The limitations of science)

by John Clinch , Monday, July 06, 2009, 16:51 (5620 days ago) @ dhw

dhw asks me why I am a materialist and a monist. Thank you - it's a huge question but I'm happy to try a brief explanation. Maybe a good place to start is by reminding him of the Dawkins' quote he posted a while back:- - "The evolution of complex life, indeed its very existence in a universe obeying physical laws, is wonderfully surprising. [...] Think about it. On one planet, and possibly only one planet in the entire universe, molecules that would normally make nothing more complicated than a chunk of rock, gather themselves together into chunks of rock-sized matter of such staggering complexity that they are capable of running, jumping, swimming, flying, seeing, hearing, capturing and eating other such animated chunks of complexity; capable in some cases of thinking and feeling, and falling in love with yet other chunks of complex matter." - This is the amazing hypothesis: we are the living embodiment of the fact that matter, stardust, can think and feel. We have discovered that we have no need for supernatural agencies or other "substances" to explain any aspect of it, as was the norm in the pre-scientific age. Not only is there no evidence for the existence of miracles, supernatural intervention or, in fact, anything outside "Nature" at all ... there is no need for any such evidence. We have indeed found that all phenomena of Nature are natural. Nature is all - all we have, all we are and all we ever will be. So I'm a materialist simply because I do not think there exists anything other than material: our souls inhere within our brains. And it seems that the weight of evidence and 300 years of science is behind me. If the facts change, I will change my mind. Until then, I'm with Joni Mitchell: we are literally stardust. - And, philosophically, I'm with Spinoza: there is only one "substance" in Nature. I deplore dualism (which Spinoza demolished in his Ethics), the idea that mind is a substance fundamentally distinct from matter. (Where exactly is it, then, M. Descartes?). Despite its enduring popularity (explicable, perhaps, because children all seem to hold it instinctively) dualism is philosophically very difficult to defend. Yet it is the basis for all supernatural belief and belief in the existence of "paranormal" activity like NDEs. When you think about it, you have to be a radical dualist to believe in life after death or to think that your mind could wander around a hospital unsupported by your brain (and closely followed by your eyes!). With all due respect to the True Believers, I think it's nonsense on stilts. So I'm a monist too. - I'm not a theist. I don't believe in miracles (for the reasons Hume brilliantly articulated). The idea that a supernatural being like a "sky god" one day "decided" to kick-start life on Earth through a timely miracle is, frankly, preposterous to me. I am prepared to admit to a continuing streak of pantheism not because I think Nature is wholly good but because the fact that Nature is is supernatural (as Wittgenstein said). Spinoza was a pantheist, taking his "one substance" idea to its logical conclusion. He was maligned as an atheist in his day but a pantheist is not an atheist. At the end of the day, I guess it is my inability to let go of pantheism that distinguishes me from the atheist. Of course, it doesn't dispose of the problem of evil or any of the other traditional objections to theism. But "agnostic" is still a better ascription than "pantheist" for me because I'm not a positive believer in any theological worldview and I genuinely believe that nothing can be known about the nature of God, if God can be said to exist in any meaningful sense ... the classic definition of agnosticism. - Can I try to put you right about one thing: however you may want to characterise them as such, atheists are not, and cannot be, dogmatists. It may also be helpful if we were to distinguish the strong and weak atheist positions. The weak atheist does not believe in "God" (with a minor tweak, that's me). The strong atheist believes that there is no god or gods. You call that faith - but I think that's pushing it.