C.S.Lewis' MIracles - Chapter 3 - "The Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalismt" (Part 3 of 17)

[M4ruta]

It seems that CS Lewis is resorting to a "reductio ad absurdum" fallacy. Just because our subjective thinking and feeling can be reduced to atomic movements, doesn't make them any less relevant or authentic. Just like reducing a beautiful painting to a collection of differently coloured chemicals does not compromise its esthetic value.

[ghostofdayinperson]

I hate Cs Lewis.

[KonijNx2]

Not another glimpse at your baby face? :D

Excellent video -- watched it a few times.

[manwaring]

Plantinga's revamps the argument from reason in order to avoid your evolution criticism, what are your opinions on his argument? Would make a great video.

[theowarner]

I'm not too convinced by Plantinga's arguments, either.

[everythinthatcounts]

Theo, with all the respect, I think that you seem to wrongly equate naturalistic with deterministic and consequently drifting towards a position in which anything not deterministic would fall beyond the realm of the natural hence proving the supernatural.

[everythinthatcounts]

(cont.) Additionally, I would like to add that the concept of causality in your discourse have not been defined rigorously. You mentioned you received Penroses book as a gift his books are a great place to find information on how perplexed and still evolving is the concept of causality in the most naturalistic science of them all..

[everythinthatcounts]

(cont.) Summing up, the natural is ill-defined here. And the definition is biased in a direction in which the natural would lack something, something to be filled with ... ill-defined supernatural.

But I suppose one needs to have ill-defined supernatural in order to talk about miracles...

In my humble opinion the natural should be defined as being possible to model mathematically. And the real question to address here is:

what is the dominion of mathematics???

[theowarner]

Your summary is apt.

[everythinthatcounts]

Thank you for your reply Theo.

I havent read Lewis book. But since he is wrong in these preliminary chapters I wonder what is the point continuing as we may assert with high confidence that whatever follows is bound to be more or less wrong as well?

Yet I enjoy the series /as all the stuff you make :)/

[theowarner]

I agree. Lewis does not define causality carefully. Chaos would be a problem for him among other things.

[AndrewTheEternal]

On that note, did C.S. Lewis live long enough to be aware of the random mutations in genetics?

Genetic sequencing was developed fourteen years after his death, but he might have learned of the idea of chaos in our very blood, so to speak.

[theowarner]

Well... it's not my argument. C.S.Lewis wrote it and I agree.

[spinkwotzer]

I'm sure you're making some good points in these videos but I just can't get past the unnecessarily convoluted way in which you're expressing yourself.

[theowarner]

You can't blame a duck for quacking.

Thanks!

[sammcalpine]

Actually, you can blame a duck for quacking. And while it may not carry any moral weight, it can make you feel good about yourself as you kill the noisome beast and prepare yourself a tasty supper.

;)

[leporidus]

Just like chemistry is an emergent phenomenon of particle physics, the mind apparently emerges from neural electrochemistry as an epiphenomenon. The sum is more than its parts, at least in the eye of the sensible observer.

Reducing the mind to a set of atoms in Brownian motion is but one perspective, and one of the least helpful at that. It's like modelling global weather after the flaps of a billion butterfly wings.

[Vic92084]

Theo, I think that your best point by far is pointing out the false dichotomy of natural / supernatural. After all, is not the formation of a star as "miraculous" -- if not more so -- as, say, an icon that weeps myrrh?

Just thinking out loud. Great discourse, as always!

--R

[theowarner]

Thanks!

[urbanelf]

Nice video. Theo  I look forward to seeing all the videos explaining how you didn't do it right.

[theowarner]

I'm sure there will be many.

[randyhelzerman]

thank you I'm enjoying this series quite a bit.

[theowarner]

You condescend and I'm flattered.

[HonestDiscussioner]

This is very much in line with my discussion on free will, and people claiming that without free will there cannot be rationality. You argued similiarly to the way I approached the issue, so . . . good.

[gonyea12]

C. S. Lewis was an atheist in the same way as Kirk Cameron.

A matter of convenience for the sake of argument.

[legodesi]

What's your basis for saying this? How do you you know this, that C.S. Lewis was an atheist as a matter of convenience? Can you provide evidence for this view?

[theowarner]

Sick 'em!

[gonyea12]

He and my grandfather were friends.

[KarinMikazuki]

theowarner deleted all my other comments where I exposed him for the hippocrit he is!!!

[theowarner]

Where? When?

Post them again... I'll do it myself if you want.

I promise you: I don't know what you're talking about!

[KarinMikazuki]

You dont know what you're talking about but I know what im talking about!

That in which hasnt yet not been unspoken of has been spoken unless not said it was then unsaid

[theowarner]

My, my... Just post it here. You're more than welcome.

[KarinMikazuki]

theowarner, you are asian!

[theowarner]

Wrong again.

[KarinMikazuki]

theowarner, you LOOK asian!

[legodesi]

funny troll, i like you.

[theowarner]

Yes, I know. BUT... I'm not.

Sorry to disappoint.

[GWR3440]

Most people theists accuse of being naturalists aren't. They are simply practical and have no reason to believe in the supernatural. Any naturalism is consequential and incidental unlike belief in the supernatural which is foundational.

I have a very low opinion of Lewis, in part because he says he had been an atheist but shows no understanding of any of the atheist positions. His thinking at the time he was very Christian. Eg morals coming from a God he didn't believe in.

[legodesi]

Suprising that you mention only ONE HALF of the argument, which was that naturalism requires beliefs to be explained causally whereas justified belief requires beliefs to be explained teleologically or through the "Ground-Consequent". You barely mention this, which explains why you're not "sure" why he concludes as he does. Also absent from your argument is his response to your objection pertaining to evolution. Whether or not he successfully argues anything is one question....

[theowarner]

I suppose that you are correct. These are decisions one has to make.

Frankly, final and efficient causes are just opposite sides of the same coin, as Aristotle would say. I find it unconvincing and needless complication. Perhaps you would care to make a video on the subject, though.

[legodesi]

The idea is that to explain all effects in terms of prior physical causes usurps the idea that our beliefs are the result of reasons when, at each step of the way, the mental state was a result of a prior cause that at one time was non-rational. The working premise (which, not suprisingly, wasn't mentioned) was that rationality cannot be derived from non-rational causes.

[theowarner]

Ah, yes...

I think that the problem with this claim (that rationality cannot be derived from non-rational causes) is that 1) how do you know that? 2) Yes it can. Naturalism argues that it can. So, as a premise, we've just restated the question.

So, I think my omission of the explicit step (some omission is invariably necessary) isn't too much of a problem... the substantive refutation is there to be applied.

[legodesi]

1) is the argument from reason that C.S. Lewis makes, which was that if an effect is exhaustively the result of non-teleological causes (if there is no other factor that affects the effect except for such a non-purposeful cause), then the effect is non-teleological. At every stage of physical existence then, given naturalism, an effect is the result of a cause that is non-rational. I wouldn't make the argument the way Lewis makes it. It is out-dated but it was built better later.

[theowarner]

And that does not describe why these thoughts as Lewis depicts them are not capable of tracking truth.

[legodesi]

Right. Lewis doesn't make an argument to this right here, unfortunately. He did argue elsewhere that truth itself is not a physical property, if that point is valid so whatever process that involves truth cannot be an entirely physical process. but this was outside "Miracles" (I think...) so you didn't need to prepare for that argument.

[NichtDieseTone]

Truth is not a physical property because it is imaginary. Nature has no concepts of truth and lies, it is a human tool to process the world.

[legodesi]

"it is a human tool to process the world."

Really? Is that true?

[theowarner]

I know that's supposed to be funny, but your capitulating the point... not transcending the critique.

[NichtDieseTone]

Positively. Since you are applying one human term to another - that is, our (my?) subjective understanding of the universe - it makes perfect logical sense. Try comming up with a real-world example of what you just said.

[theowarner]

Well, I disagree. I think it is substantial in Miracles.

He refers to thoughts per Naturalism as a "fluke." That is... accidentally true, true by coincidence, he also says. I think this actually untrue, but even if it isn't, thinking that is physical in process CAN track truth.

[legodesi]

But whether you've completely argued the argument from reason can be answered with an emphatic "No."

Sorry for my apparent rudeness, I don't mean to sound like a jackass. Yeah, I'll make a video on it.

[theowarner]

Ah... well, I would say that this "completely argued" thing is a moving goal post and probably a fool's errand. But, the discourse is welcome and we will see what becomes of it.

Thanks!

[legodesi]

This was an extremely sloppy depiction of the argument. Firstly, Lewis doesn't say that Atheism is self-contradictory. He says that Naturalism is a self-contradiction in an early version of his chapter which he later removed. And he actually states in the chapter that the naturalist is not self-contradictory but rather inconsistent. Also absent from the chapter is the claim that atheism is egotistical and lazy. Absent from the entirely is any reference to atheism.

[theowarner]

This is a very sloppy depiction of my video.

Firstly, I don't say that Lewis says that Atheism is self-contradictory. I say that theists do and I'm referring to modern theists, like Mr. W.L.Craig.

[legodesi]

Oh, I see that now. Okay.

[VeryEvilPettingZoo]

Me: "Computer computations are due to mere matter bouncing about, and hence their results can't be trusted."

Lewis: "Ah, but it's not just any old matter bounding around - human engineering process arranged the computer's matter in a very distinctive way so that its computations can be trusted."

Me: "Ah, but the human brain is not just any old matter bounding around - the PROCESS of evolution arranged the brain's matter in a very distinctive way so that its basic reasoning can be trusted."

[theowarner]

Yes. I'm afraid that Lewis would probably observe that computers are designed and asking if you are conceding the design hypothesis. But... your point is clear to me.

[VeryEvilPettingZoo]

There's a reason I used "process" rather than "design". : )

That's one of the many advantages you get when putting words in other people's mouths. The end result is the same if "design" were used, except it takes more than 500 characters to decipher what evolution's "design" means - and would distract from the essential correct observation: It's anything BUT happenstance that I know to stop when I walk toward the edge of a cliff!

[legodesi]

Can you translate what you said at around 5:11? I really can't make anything of it. Thanks.

[theowarner]

To use "real" as a criticism against Naturalism, that Naturalism's thoughts aren't really real, is to beg the question that Supernaturalism is real.

[legodesi]

Okay. By beg the question, do you mean, reasoning in circular logic? or by assuming the thing that he is trying to prove?

[theowarner]

Let's say... yes.

[VeryEvilPettingZoo]

Well done! It's a very flawed argument.

[KarinMikazuki]

Once again theowarner pukes out another video which reaks of fail

[theowarner]

You again. I see you still have nothing better to do.

And again, notice that you aren't blocked and you are free to comment on my channel.

[Hooya2]

You said everything I was thinking (although in a lot more words). It begs the question, assuming we actually DO know reality; it begs the question, arguing that atomic motion can not accurately symbolize truth without explaining why; and, finally, it misses the possibility that evolution would drive brains to be better at perceiving truth.

Ah, but then the refutations have been floating around for years, so I shouldn't be surprised we both know them by heart =p

[CousinoMacul]

*****

[AnimaRaptor]

I finish reading an e-mail from NaNoWriMo and come back to YouTube to find TheoWarner continuing his essay on C.S. Lewis... Given the topic too, I find this relativley amusing. :P

[Un0riginalAlias]

Good video.

There appears to be a typo in the title ("Naturalismt") though.

[CousinoMacul]

You're such a pedanticismt!

[theowarner]

Jeeze...

[Tommy2er]

Ahh my darling Theo, thank you once more for a fantastic video.

[theowarner]

Thank you, gorgeous.