metaphysical naturalism

[sooper2dooper3]

maybe you should invest in a lightbulb next time you make a video.

[mattgresh1]

nature can be defined as an organism-environment. Therefore if you go against the "normality" of the organisms in your environment along with the environment it self, then you are unnatural. Debate: Homosexuality is natural because organisms can be homosexual. Then with logic you can continue: .. Therefore environments can be homosexual. This entire statement is true because you cannot describe an organism without simultaneously describing its environment.

[JonathanM00r3]

Great video! Although, I take exception to the claim that Free Will is supernatural. I don't think that's true. Just about any compatibilist will give you a naturalistic conception of free will that retains all of the features worth wanting in free will (e.g. Dennett, Hume, Locke, Hobbes, etc.). But other than that, I thought the argument was very strong.

[MrBenMcLean]

First of all, no rational person believes in super naturalism as you describe it. Rational super naturalists merely believe in non-physical events which still behave in a law-like fashion. The Christian God is one which made all the laws, and is either subject to his own laws or else is a liar and a hypocrite.

Free will does not necessarily exclude the idea of law-like behavior. It merely asserts that decision making power rests with individual people, not elsewhere.

[urbanelf]

I think if you probe deep enough you will find that either supernaturalists either agree with me or that there is nothing distinguishing the supernatural from the natural.

Logic and moral laws are insufficient to describe God's behavior as law like.

God created the first man and named him Adam. From what law of logic or law of morality can this behavior be derived? Law of Identity? Thou shalt not Kill?

[MrBenMcLean]

No, that behavior is derived from the principles that the creation is good - or in other words, that to create is good and to uncreate is bad. When God divided the light from the darkness, saw the light and called it good, this was the declaration of a system of laws which are the basic building blocks of reality.

[urbanelf]

Dear Mr Mc Lean,

Your characterization of God's behavior as law like is viciously circular.

1. God's behavior is law like.

2. God created the laws that govern his behavior.

3. Creating laws is a behavior.

The only ways to stop the regression is to say either...

1. There is some standard to judge God's behavior that transcends God or...

2. God's behavior is inherently un law like.

[MrBenMcLean]

First of all, creating laws is a behavior which is itself law-like.

Second of all, we know things through contrast. The standard by which we judge God then, is known through a contrast against what God is not.

[urbanelf]

"First of all, creating laws is a behavior which is itself law-like."

Sure. And what is the law that describes God's law creation? Please describe it.

[MrBenMcLean]

I'm not sure I understand the question. Do you mean you think there needs to be some kind of law not merely binding on but actually behind or beyond God? If so, you're ignoring the concept of transcendence. If you're attacking the concept of transcendence, then you're doing it from a pre-assumed model of how time works which places God as an event inside the larger context of history rather than outside it.

[urbanelf]

I'm asking you to describe God's behavior in a non circular manner.

You have God behaving according to laws that he creates... which is just a fancy way of saying that God behaves the way God behaves which is a tautology.

I think it's pretty straight forward. If God's behavior is law like, then describe it.

[MrBenMcLean]

If you've actually read "Miracles; A Preliminary Study" - the book we are discussing, you'll remember Lewis wrote that, "It is by means of such 'tautologies' that we advance from knowing less to knowing more."

The Judeo-Christian God claims that, "I AM THAT I AM" - which I would interpret to mean, "I am self-defining." It seem to me that no matter what view of reality you take, you eventually must fall back upon something like an axiom that you can't go behind in search of further explanations.

[MrBenMcLean]

I can describe what I believe about God's behavior (This is what theology is about) but not within the YouTube comment character limit.

[urbanelf]

As for your quote, I disagree with Lewis. Tautologies are inherently useless.

What information do these sentences contain?

"It will rain tomorrow unless it doesn't."

"Movement is movement"

"God is the thing that is God."

I share your sentiment that there are certain axiom we can't get behind, foundational truths, but these truths are not all tautologies.

"God exists", for example, is not a tautology.

[MrBenMcLean]

I agree that if "I AM THAT I AM" only meant "God is the thing that is God" then it wouldn't be giving us any useful information. However, if God does exist, then we have found the ultimate or final or foundational cause of all effects. I think "I AM THAT I AM" means that God acted, and was not acted upon in creating. That in eternity past, God was all that there was, and nothing made or caused him. Though I don't think God would see it that way - he would probably say he chose an arbitrary point

[MrBenMcLean]

in time to begin to create things other than himself, while he exists equally in what we would consider a "present" tense (not merely a present condition) at all points in time, and he thus cannot have an origin that is within the temporal sequence as we understand it.

On the one hand, if we knew everything God knew, we could predict his behavior exactly because, being :"outside of time," he is absolutely unchanging, having no time to change in. On the other hand, we can't know everything God

[MrBenMcLean]

knows because God knows everything. One of the qualities listed after "I am" by Christ is "the truth." He quite literally is "the truth" as his mind contains all possible true statements.

[urbanelf]

So, he has law like behavior, but it's totally inaccessible to us... which puts us in precisely the same epistemic relationship with his behavior as if it were not describable as law like.

[MrBenMcLean]

Well a complete description of God's behavior is not accessible to us but we do have SOME information about God's behavior patterns - or at least, this is the claim of organized religion with scripture.

We usually don't have COMPLETE information about anything.

[urbanelf]

"We usually don't have COMPLETE information about anything."

We have complete access to our own proposed descriptions of reality.

Not so with the supernatural. Perhaps God's behavior is law like, but I'm still waiting to hear you propose what that could possibly be.

[MrBenMcLean]

Well we've got proposed descriptions of God. That's what theology books are about.

[urbanelf]

Well, why haven't you picked a description and write it into the comments yet?

[MrBenMcLean]

OK well here are some of them. All I am attempting to prove here is that the God of the Bible follows rules or laws, or in other words has self-consistent behavior. One thing to realize is that the Christian God is not really "omnipotent" in the modern sense.

God is the way / is righteous - and is thus incapable of doing evil.

God is the truth - and is thus incapable of lying.

God is creative / the Creator / the life - and thus cannot have not created.

[MrBenMcLean]

God's words cannot return void - once spoken they must return true.

God is just - and is thus incapable of commuting an injustice.

No one can carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives - not even God.

[urbanelf]

Regarding free-will, it sounds like you are defending a compatiblist view of free will. This is certainly consistent with the view that our will has law like behavior. I'm mainly attacking libertarian, contra causal free will. Many supernaturalists hold this position and it certainly is incompatible with law like behavior.

[legodesi]

i'll restate my main point: a person that exhibits free-will completely follows the laws of logic, so they are completely law-like. i'm almost begging you to just say that free-will doesn't follow the laws of nature so that you can just scrap your definition.

[urbanelf]

Beg harder.

Is that ALL that we can say about free will? It's equal to itself? It isn't not itself?

If ALL that can be said about free will is that it is consistent, then why attribute the creation of the world to will? Why attribute the motivation of my body to will?

[legodesi]

No, of course its not ALL that we can say about free will, since obviously we're not limited to just talking about the laws it abides by. But what if there are only four laws that free will abides by. What, are you gonna place a qualification of the natural that it must abide by at least 5 laws or more in order to be natural? Finally I don't see how your questions are remotely relevant; why should its conforming to 4 laws instead of 5 make the proposition that i have free will invalid?

[urbanelf]

My question is important because we need to know what distinguishes free-will from not free-will. What makes free-will different from a rock or the number '6' or a cool autumn breeze?

[legodesi]

well free will is a property. it's not an actual thing. it's proper comparison would be to "size or weight", etc. the difference between one and the other is that the other is a physical property, whereas the former is not a physical property.

[urbanelf]

OK, why is a cool autumn breeze different than a free will cool autumn breeze?

[legodesi]

huh? I just said that free will isn't a physical property, so there's no such thing as a free will cool autumn breeze.

[urbanelf]

OK, what's the difference between X with free will and X without free will?

[legodesi]

If you set that up again with X1 with free will and X2 without free will and asked me what the difference is between them, I'd say "The difference between X1 has free will whereas X2 does not."

By this point I've forgotten where we're going with this.

[legodesi]

"The difference is X1 has free will whereas X2 does not."*

[urbanelf]

I'm trying to get a description of the behavior of free will or something with free will.

[legodesi]

do you mean, something like a definition of free will?

[urbanelf]

A description of free-will behavior. What are the empirical markers that are used to identify the source of behavior as being something with the property free-will?

[legodesi]

To my knowledge, we don't know of any empirical markers.

[urbanelf]

I would say that to be law like in behavior would minimally require its behavior to have some ontology.

I would say something with no ontology need not even follow the laws of logic.

[Pumbaelo]

This argument seems hopelessly incoherent but what I think is more interesting is this:

Do you think free will does not exist?

[urbanelf]

Do you think the statement "free will exists" is an analytical statement?

[legodesi]

My point is this: You're going to have to end up falling back on saying that what you mean by laws are specifically laws of nature (in order to exclude the laws of logic, unless you will say that laws of logic are laws of nature, in which case the problem still applies). Then you will have to end up saying something like "Nature is whatever that follows natural laws" which doesn't help us define nature unless we know what is nature. Then your unique definition is smushed.

[urbanelf]

I'm not sure this is the case. I'm basically impeaching free-will.

Can a being with free will be said to have completely law-like behavior, in spite of all the other laws they follow?

[vbfl920]

But what follows from God's will not being "law-like", or even ours for that matter?

So, none of us are robots, does this mean that we don't exist, or can't be detected?

Randomness does not follow law-like behavior either, but does randomness not exist?

[legodesi]

but of course they can have law-like behavior, as they follow the laws of logic and that other law that i stated. what do you mean by "completely"? i think you're trying hard to avoid just saying that they don't have completely natural behavior, but you should just say so...

You don't follow some laws as well, for example, you don't follow the following law: "All persons that are caucasian also speak with a lisp." does that mean you're not natural?

[vbfl920]

Im not sure that super-natural means anything that does not behave in a law-like manner.

That would just be incoherence, I think.

Because as you mentioned down below, Ghosts and even God.

Ghosts, ontologically speaking, have a form and a substance, which lawfully make up what they are.

So if a ghost is not bound to PHYSICAL law, does this mean that they do not adhere to ANY law-like behavior at all?

A ghost cannot suffer a flesh wound, nor is it mortal.

Sounds like it follows laws to me.

[urbanelf]

I was asked to provide my own definition, not to provide some correct version.

But like I said, if the totality of ghostness is law-like, why call it supernatural? Why make it this weird otherworldly thing when it has the potential to be completely understood?

[vbfl920]

I hear you homie.

A couple things to add that sort of go in line with what you are saying.

1. If the entire universe is contingent upon God, then everything would be "natural" in as far as God sustains all of it.

God would be what defines "natural".

There would really be nothing outside of God,

2. I think it is atheists who need to define what natural and supernatural means then, other than you. They are the ones who have a problem with the supernatural.

[vbfl920]

And what I meant by "incoherence" was something that doesn't behave according to laws, or patterns.

Not what you were saying:)

[vbfl920]

I realize that your definition is off the cuff, and you were asked to make it, but you build additional arguments on top off of a faulty definition. That sort of creates a faulty argument.

"Natural" to me, is that which occurs within, arises within, and is subject to the laws of THIS particular universe.

God would be supernatural because He is not bound to this particular universe, according to this definition.

[vbfl920]

But it isn't necessarily true that for an entity to be law-like, it MUST pertain to the laws of THIS universe.

Nor must an entity be law-like in order to exist.

[vbfl920]

Perhaps the terms should be:

Physical

Metaphysical

[PinkProgram]

Everything that does exist is natural. Supernatural things only exist so long as they do not exist. Once they are shown to exist they are no longer supernatural.

[KnownNoMore]

what is natural or supernatural has to do with composition or substance or essence, not behavior.

Free will is definitely not supernatural but a behavior of specific natural agents with brains capable of free actions, its not a-causal or without explanation or something.

Also how do you know that a supernatural entity would not behave according to laws? Again natural or supernatural has to do with essence/substance not actions/behavior

[urbanelf]

I apparently can't please everyone with my definition of free will. Define it one way and theists get upset; the other way and atheists get upset.

Also how do you know that a supernatural entity would not behave according to laws? Because that's how I've defined it.

Remember my ghost example: if it has law like behavior, I say it's natural; if not, then not.

[KnownNoMore]

"I apparently can't please everyone with my definition of free will. Define it one way and theists get upset; the other way and atheists get upset"

I dont think my definition of free will is different from that of the theists, I only leave out the supernatural element of the soul as an arbitrary add on.

"Because that's how I've defined it."

ok, I define the natural world as everything I can see. Why? well thats simply how I define it :p

[urbanelf]

"ok, I define the natural world as everything I can see. Why? well thats simply how I define it :p"

I was asked by theowarner to give a definition of natural and supernatural so you can't knock me for doing just that.

Yes, you can define natural however you want, but I don't see the use in your definition. My definition explains why we can't test supernatural hypotheses and why we have certain expectations of the natural world and fears of the supernatural.

[KnownNoMore]

"My definition explains why we can't test supernatural hypotheses"

and mine doesnt? How could you ever test something that is immaterial, timeless and a-spacial?

and why cant you test something that doesnt behave lawlike? sure you cant make predictions about it so that is a limit, but you could potentially at least observe it or its effects. it puts a limit on it but its still within the realm of science

[urbanelf]

"and mine doesnt? How could you ever test something that is immaterial, timeless and a-spacial?"

In your version of supernatural, do you consider ghosts natural or not?

[Pumbaelo]

"brains capable of free actions"

It's MINDS capable of free actions unless you want to endorse something like the old refuted identity theory of mind.

[KnownNoMore]

well alright, the mind is a product of the brain

[Pumbaelo]

Whatever this is supposed to mean.

Let's try this. Tell me if you think the following is true, without looking it up:

"Brain states cause mental states"

[KnownNoMore]

I dont think your definition of the natural is very logical. If there was a universe with only 1 particle in it which basically doesnt do anything, would that be a supernatural universe?

I would say that the natural world is the world of matter/energy, space and time. The supernatural is that which is not matter/energy, space and tim

[urbanelf]

Regarding your simple universe, The Law: DO NOTHING.

I would point out that if we adopt the view of nature as being m,e,s, & t then 1) there is no reason to assume that we can do scientific research on nature and 2) no reason to think that we can't do science on the supernatural.

[KnownNoMore]

"Regarding your simple universe, The Law: DO NOTHING"

then absolutely anything could be defined as behaving according to a certain law even the supernatural

regarding 1) there is no need to include such abbility to the definition of what is natural

regarding 2) because science functions within the realm of m/e/s/t. Also are you 100% science cant examine the supernatural in any possible way, even indirectly or to a very limited extent?

[urbanelf]

"then absolutely anything could be defined as behaving according to a certain law even the supernatural"

That's a contradiction according to my definition. So, you are mistaken.

Also, in Phil. of Science it is generally accepted that one can't test a hypothesis of the supernatural. My definition explains why this is the case.

[FallenAngel0fDoom]

How can we look for supernatural evidence if all we have is natural means? Calling something supernatural is like putting a god in a gap, no?

[TheEfkk]

See the version of free will deployed by Daniel Dennett in his book "Freedom Evolves", which is natural in that context.

[urbanelf]

I should check that out. Thanks!

[bcosten2007]

i was wondering why you would define free will as supernatural? if people make choices based on habits, biases and the evidence available, pros/cons, etc... anyway.. how is this such a special thing?

[urbanelf]

If free will is making choices then I have no problem saying that free will exists, but usually theists want it disconnected from any physical causality. Maybe I'm using the word in a very strict sense.

[legodesi]

im interested in what you mean by rational, and secondly, how you might apply your ideas to finding out that there are thoughts that belong to people that are about other things, that there are subjective experiences of the world, that there is an external and physical world to begin with.

[Newton1692]

His line of thinking

in this video is not concerned with proving that we're not brains in a vat. There is no proof for that in all philosophy, except in Heidegger -- but not really. Descartes says we can't know (without god), proves god exists analytically, says he wouldn't deceive clear reasoning, and blamo: the external world.

[urbanelf]

1. Rational would be something like structuring one's thoughts logically when trying to achieve some goal.

2. The inference would be inductive from the kind of thing I am and my internal experiences to the kinds of things other people seem to be.

3. At worst the evidence for solipsism or not is identical. At best, solipsism is a more complex explanation than the existence of an external world and so there is less reason to believe it.

[legodesi]

1. Okay, I think I get that.

2. So it's sorta analogical? But then it's not based on a direct experience of other peoples thoughts, nor is it even producing empirical evidence for such thoughts, right?

3. Well the claim that there is an external world postulates one entity whereas an a-world-ist (atheist with respect to the natural world?) postulates nothing, only lacks a belief in it. My attempted point is it seems that your criteria of rationality is not enough to support that belief.

[legodesi]

I find your definition of natural wholly unsatisfying. It seems definitely possible that a thing be beyond the physical universe and follow completely different laws, and yet that would also have to be natural. is that true?

[Newton1692]

I have problems with his defense as well, but "it seems possible" that something exists beyond the universe is a possibility

grounded by what fact in our world? Or is it just imaginable that a thing exist beyond the physical universe. I am suspicious of the premise of your question.

[urbanelf]

I would be interested in hearing the problems with my defense.  I'm not entirely convinced either.

Where have you been? You're like one of my first subscribers.

[urbanelf]

Yes, it would be natural. My definition is a rigid criteria. I think you will find it far superior to more bloated definitions that try to appeal to observable/unobservable or this world/that world.

[legodesi]

i feel that your definition would make you a completely different sort of naturalist than others. God is also natural then, since he follows laws of logic and laws of morality. (I'm hinting at the ambiguity of "law" here.) All things that we traditionally concieve as supernatural are also natural since their behavior are confined by the laws of logic.

[urbanelf]

I would only be willing to say that God might be natural if one were to drop his having will. It is his free will that I cannot describe in any law like way and so I can't think of God as being natural.

[legodesi]

is the qualification that EVERY quality or property of God must abide by certain laws? Given that, though, in some sense, free will does conform to laws - what i said before - the laws of logic. Separately, suppose if I stated as a law "A person who exhibits free will makes choices based on goals and desires derived from his person and not by antecedent conditions." So a person who has free will abides by 2 sets of laws, those of logic, and this one. So free will is natural.

[vbfl920]

"Natural", only in the way you define.

But does an entity necessarily need to behave law-like, in order to exist?

Law-like behavior =/= actual existence

[myintellectualjourny]

Dig it! Good stuff ;o)

[urbanelf]

Thank you, Mr. Journey.

[theowarner]

So... my free will is supernatural... and probabilistically non-exist.

I don't exist.

[Dashes000]

...or don't have free will.

[theowarner]

Thanks, Adam!

You rock!

[urbanelf]

You're welcome, Theo!