Another Theology Blog

Last week, I came across a very interesting post on Mark Shea’s blog.  Essentially, some materialist philosopher is trying to disprove free will again (and failing miserably).  Mr. Shea proposed that denying free will and then trying to persuade another person to do the same is intrinsically contradictory.

I decided to have some fun for a change.  Why not try to defend the materialist philosopher’s thoughts?  Honestly, I’ve found that by arguing in my opponent’s favor, I’ve often learned a great deal about his positions.  Hence, I hammered out the following response:

A materialist’s denial of free will would not imply a choice or a free act. It would only mean that seeing certain data has triggered processes which rearranged connections between his neurons into a pattern corresponding to the concept of belief. Furthermore, the exterior manifestation of this pattern might include propagating itself by transmitting the information that originally created it.

I speak here from my area of expertise: mathematics. It is entirely possible to create very simple algorithms which, upon seeing certain data in their environment, automatically seek to alter other algorithms in some form or fashion in accordance with the data received.

Hence, to a materialist, “choice” means both the process of shifting through information and the final state achieved afterwards. A materialist seeks to assist other algorithms make better “choices” by increasing the quality of data they receive.

There is no need to invoke volition in a materialistic understanding of persuasion. You must use another tactic to combat advocates of materialism.

This apologetic seemed perfect, that is, until John C. Wright arrived to implode it!  With a few taps on his keyboard, Mr. Wright deftly dispatched my argument:

This is the key point that always baffles me. Materialists will go blithely talking about matter in motion, and of the charge and position of electrons in the brain, the number of neurons, and other empirical things (things that can be measured, and are open to the senses) but then suddenly at some point in the argument, they reach a concept that has no material properties, no mass, no color, no size, no location, no duration. I mean concepts like “pattern” or “correspond” or “symbol” or “word” or “idea” or “belief” or “concept”. These are ideas that cannot be reduced to any material measurements. 

The words written on a page might have location and mass and so on, and you can measure the amount of ink used to write the letters, but the letters qua letters have meaning, which is not a physical property of the ink on the page. The same letters would convey the same meaning if the physical substrate were utterly different, such as a neon sign. 

So a materialist will blithely run on, until he reaches a point where he starts talking about things that are not and cannot be any property of matter, such as the corresponding meaning of symbols to concepts, and he will not notice he just contradicted his own argument. 

If everything is material then words and concepts and ideas and symbols, and the correspondence of symbol to reality, and words and concepts that refer to the correspondence of symbol to reality (words like truth and logic) have no meaning. 

So our sentence, given above, would read, if read honestly by a materialist, “”….a pattern (meaningless phrase–one needs an observer to see a pattern; patterns do not exist in matter) corresponding (meaningless phrase. Correspondence deals with word-reality relations, which do not exist in matter) to the concept (meaningless phrase. Concepts are conceptual, and do not exist in matter) of belief (meaningless phrase. Belief is conceptual, and does not exist in matter).”

So you see that disbelief in materialism is necessary even for this: to inquire whether one ought to believe in materialism or not.

Of course, I should’ve seen this.  It’s quite obvious that the mere existence of an experiencer disproves materialism.  For meaning, in the strict sense of the word, is inherent in experience, which is immaterial by nature.

In conclusion, it might be logically possible to deny that man has free will, but not from the perspective of materialism.  The truth of the matter is that materialism can’t even logically establish itself, much less argue against the concept (key word, concept) of free will.