Free Will, and consciousness: Egnor's latest (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, December 10, 2020, 01:32 (1445 days ago) @ David Turell

More on Egnor's approach:

https://mindmatters.ai/2020/12/why-consciousness-shows-that-materialism-is-false/

"I also believe that the mind refutes materialism in a rather straightforward way—and in much the same way that evidence of intelligent design in biology refutes materialism.

"But first, we need to define materialism. There are several varieties but all share the belief that the matter of which reality is composed is stuff extended in space, that immaterial substances don’t exist, and that a comprehensive explanation of reality can be given by the methods of the physical sciences.

"Next, we need to define the “mind,” which is my preferred term for consciousness. I don’t like the word “consciousness” because I find it imprecise and because it emphasizes alertness over other, more fundamental, mental attributes. For example, dreams are mental acts, even though we are unconscious during sleep.

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"Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction towards an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity.

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"In other words, intentionality is the “aboutness” of thought. Every thought we have is about something—about the weather, about a car, about lunch, etc. On the contrary, no physical thing is inherently about anything.

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"The salient quality of the mind, which matter does not have, is that the mind is about something other than itself. In other words, the mind “points” to something else—to an object, a person, or a concept in a way that matter doesn’t.

"So the mind cannot arise wholly from matter because intentionality is not a property of matter. The existence of the mind refutes materialism because the mind is characterized by a power that matter does not have. Intentionality, like design, is a shoal on which materialism wrecks.

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"In philosophy of mind, intentionality is the power of the mind to point to something other than itself. It is a goal-directed power of thought. In nature, we see the same goal-directedness, the same pointing to something other than itself, a quality that which metaphysicians call teleology. Teleology is a hallmark of change in nature and it is particularly evident in biology.

"Molecular machines in living things—enzymes in metabolic pathways, DNA replication and gene expression, intracellular organelles, whole organs and whole organisms—all are teleological, in the sense that they act in goal-directed ways. Biology is saturated with goals—energy production, protein synthesis, locomotion, reproduction, among countless examples. Each process in a living thing is teleological, and the teleology—the purpose—cannot be denied. You can’t understand the heart or the eye or the ribosome unless you know their purposes—to see or to pump blood or to make protein.

"Can matter, by itself, have purposes and goals? Thomas Aquinas said no. In his Fifth Way, he demonstrated that goal-directed behavior in matter presupposes a Mind that directs the process to its goal. Of course, Aquinas pointed out that this Mind is what all men call God.

"Intentionality in the mind and teleology in biology are both manifestations of the same fundamental goal-directedness in nature. And matter alone, without mind (or Mind), can produce neither consciousness nor life.

"Both mind (intentionality) and design (teleology) refute materialism, and for fundamentally the same reason. Minds and life manifest goals, which matter alone lacks."

Comment: Does an 'intelligent cell' have a mind? Certainly not, but it can contain intelligent instructions from a mind providing the appearance of teleology in living actions.. Only a mind can consider future needs and design for them. This consideration solves Gould's famous and well-recognized problem with fossil gaps.