Against Materialism (for Immaterialism)

Alvin Plantinga

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo 2004

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Alvin
• Plantinga
• Materialism
• Immaterialism
• Determinism
• Naturalism
• Atheism
• Philosophy
• Religion
• Christianity
• California
• Polytechnic
• State
• University

[St00sh13]

The belief "Naturalism is all the rage these days" is not held in the brain as a sentence stored somewhere in the brain.

The various premises involved in that belief are held as concepts in the brain.

And, yes, neurons that fire in response to "concetps" (not just the word) have been found.

[St00sh13]

His whole argument is the "dualism of the gaps" argument. In other words we can't explain consciousness with material explanations yet, therefore it must be something immaterial.

[St00sh13]

A: "Material objects cannot think"

B: "We can think".

Therefore: "we are immaterial"

Hmm, A is not a proven premise, therefore the conclusion is not valid.

Why can't things like consciousness arise from "physical interactions"?

An individual ant is simple. But a nest of ants behaves like an organism.

Emergent behaviour happens all the time.

[St00sh13]

2+1 = 3 may appear to be intuititive. It had to be proved. It was discovered at the turn at the last century when mathematicians realised they hadn't actually proved it. They went on to prove it, of course, otherwise maths would be still struggling to prove it.

[St00sh13]

The 2 "yous" that would be created if everything was replaced would start out with all the same memories etc... but would go on to be their own people, who may both look and even act like you, but they would both be people in their own right.

Instantly destroying the other one would be murder. This is the one of the problems with a sci-fi like transporter.

2 physical items can't be co-located. The laws of chemistry don't allow it.

[St00sh13]

Changing the name to for immaterialism means he has to demonstrate the existence of the immaterial. He failed to do that.

His assumption that the marble and the statue are different things is false. The fact that a statue looks like Queen Victoria, say, is an illusion, as is all art. Nothing is co-located with the statue. The illusion only exists in the observers mind.

[Greathiway]

I find his argument immaterial

[ApologeticsArsenal]

This is why I love Alvin Plantinga.

[TheMessianicDrew]

Plantinga does offer a definition of thinking at minute 23. Thinking is reasoning, believing, entertaining propositions, drawing inferences and so on.

[lourak]

@lourak Correction - at the end, the computer example is brought up. His attempt to differentiate the computer from a mind, however, is a bit clumsy. "Original" or "derived" intentionality? His distinction is not well established here.