I agree with Searle although not always with how he says it. He is a "biological naturalist" which, as far as I am concerned, is a kind of materialist. Searle rejects "materialism" but only because he identifies it with mechanistic reductionism. He is unaware of Engels' dialectical materialism. Searle thinks that we will:
"...finally break through to understanding how neuron firings cause consciousness..."
-John Searle, The Mystery Of Consciousness (London, 1998), Chapter Two, p.23.
- but there is a qualitative difference between objective neurons and subjective consciousness. At some stage, I think, such a difference has to be merely recognized and acknowledged. But this does not license obscurantism or mystification. Neurologists study brains, psychologists study minds and philosophers must, as far as possible, understand how brains cause minds. (As Searle argues, molecular cohesion causes solidity but both are features of a material object.)
See also Minds And Brains.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I simply don't agree materialism can explain everythibg! Such as the cures recorded at Lourdes or the Shroud of Turin.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean
,
Again, materialists do not claim to be able to explain everything. As knowledge expands, there will always be phenomena that have not been explained yet. To say of any event, "This is miraculous and forever inexplicable," would be to abandon science.
The Shroud was debunked and I am skeptical of attempts to reinstate it - but scientists should continue to try to explain the photographic negative.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I think it would be for very difficult for materialists to explain how Vittorio Micheli, given his deadly illness, was almost immediately healed after bathing ONCE in the waters at Lourdes.
No, the Shroud has not been debunked. You overlook how the sample taken from it for carbon 14 dating was from a 13th or 14th century PATCH. And there was no knowledge of photography and reverse negatives in the 1200's.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But materialists do not have to explain Micheli's cure. We do not know everything.
If that sample was taken from a later patch, then why was that mistake made? Why has a sample not subsequently been taken from another part of the Shroud? Of course there was no knowledge of photographic negatives. Some physical process produced it. This has to continue to be investigated, like everything else.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I still believe materialists will have a hard time making sense of the Micheli case. I accept it as a miracle God granted thru the BVM.
I don't know why the people who did that inadequate carbon 14 dating chose an unsatisfactory sample. I am sure there are many up to date discussions of the Shroud, including discussions of precisely that point.
As a Catholic, what I believe happened is that as Christ rose from the dead, power radiated from His body to impress that image and reverse negative on the Shroud. That is enough for me.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But we do not have to make sense of the Micheli case. There are all sorts of phenomena that we do not understand yet. Materialism is the philosophical theory that being preceded consciousness, indeed became consciousness, not the theory that there are never any unexplained cures.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Of course I agree there are many things we don't understand. Some of which might be understood in the future.
On materialism, however, we are going to have to agree to disagree.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: I'm afraid that's a matter of finding "God in the gaps" -- things science can't explain... yet.
Back in the 19th century, science couldn't explain the evidence that the solar system was much, much older than current physics could account, because 19th-century physics had no plausible explanation of how the Sun continued to emit energy on the scale it did for many hundreds of millions of years.
Theists at the time used this as evidence of divine intervention. It was in fact simply a case of scientific discovery not having got around to that yet.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Of course I agree with you here, as far as your argument goes. But I also had in mind things like the miracles recorded at Lourdes, which the doctors and scientists who investigated them were forced to admit had no known scientific or natural cause. Paul brought to my attention a particularly striking example, the Vittorio Micheli case, in which a man dying of bone cancer was immediately healed after bathing once in the waters of Lourdes.
Ad astra! Sean
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