RE: Neurosurgeon Provides Evidence Against Materialism
June 12, 2019 at 3:12 am
(This post was last modified: June 12, 2019 at 3:55 am by vulcanlogician.)
Interesting video.
I'm about 10-ish minutes in. Right off the bat, he didn't give functionalism a fair shake. And he failed to mention biological naturalism as a modern theory of mind.
Also, there are some non sequiturs running about in his reasoning: especially the argument he gives 8 or 9 minutes in.
1. If the intellect were situated in the brain, we would expect people to have intellectual seizures.
2. People do not have intellectual seizures.
Therefore, the intellect is not situated in the brain.
There are all kinds of problems with this argument. First, it's a non sequitur. The first premise I'm going to assume is true (since I'm not a neuroscientist). But what about the second premise? Doesn't Paul's seizure on the road to Damascus count as an intellectual seizure? I mean, if a seizure causes you to have a mystical experience, I think that counts as an intellectual seizure.
Some other remarks...
--Patients in a vegetative state understanding things is not evidence for dualism.
--Libet's experiments are interesting. I'll give him that. We could talk about property dualism. To me, it can be considered a form of materialism. But that's a whole discussion of its own.
--Why can't material things have intentionality? Again, this is something that biological naturalism addresses (and IMO clarifies), but John Searle seems to have flown under this guy's radar.
--I actually liked his remarks concerning teleology as it pertains to intentionality in nature. It really doesn't have anything to do with dualism though. In fact, the materialist interpretation is much more profound.
--But then he errs by taking on Aristotle's misconceptions. "You can't understand a heart without knowing it pumps blood"... Well, yes you can. You could look at the heart strictly through the lens of chemistry and study only the chemical compounds that make it up. And you could learn a great deal by studying the heart through this mode. It's like saying, "You can't understand what a piece of paper is unless you understand that you are meant to write on it." You can understand that a piece of paper was made from a tree, sold to Walmart, and purchased by a consumer there, earning several parties profit along the way. He is saying that we ought to look at the universe with prejudices (much like Aristotle did). That is a way outdated mode of thinking.
--On his concluding remark: Aristotle's hylomorphism has been called "a polite form of materialism"... it doesn't lead to dualism. It's just that most hylomorphists tend to err on the side of dualism. I actually like hylomorphism, and I'd be happy to discuss that too.
Thanks for sharing the video.
I'm about 10-ish minutes in. Right off the bat, he didn't give functionalism a fair shake. And he failed to mention biological naturalism as a modern theory of mind.
Also, there are some non sequiturs running about in his reasoning: especially the argument he gives 8 or 9 minutes in.
1. If the intellect were situated in the brain, we would expect people to have intellectual seizures.
2. People do not have intellectual seizures.
Therefore, the intellect is not situated in the brain.
There are all kinds of problems with this argument. First, it's a non sequitur. The first premise I'm going to assume is true (since I'm not a neuroscientist). But what about the second premise? Doesn't Paul's seizure on the road to Damascus count as an intellectual seizure? I mean, if a seizure causes you to have a mystical experience, I think that counts as an intellectual seizure.
Some other remarks...
--Patients in a vegetative state understanding things is not evidence for dualism.
--Libet's experiments are interesting. I'll give him that. We could talk about property dualism. To me, it can be considered a form of materialism. But that's a whole discussion of its own.
--Why can't material things have intentionality? Again, this is something that biological naturalism addresses (and IMO clarifies), but John Searle seems to have flown under this guy's radar.
--I actually liked his remarks concerning teleology as it pertains to intentionality in nature. It really doesn't have anything to do with dualism though. In fact, the materialist interpretation is much more profound.
--But then he errs by taking on Aristotle's misconceptions. "You can't understand a heart without knowing it pumps blood"... Well, yes you can. You could look at the heart strictly through the lens of chemistry and study only the chemical compounds that make it up. And you could learn a great deal by studying the heart through this mode. It's like saying, "You can't understand what a piece of paper is unless you understand that you are meant to write on it." You can understand that a piece of paper was made from a tree, sold to Walmart, and purchased by a consumer there, earning several parties profit along the way. He is saying that we ought to look at the universe with prejudices (much like Aristotle did). That is a way outdated mode of thinking.
--On his concluding remark: Aristotle's hylomorphism has been called "a polite form of materialism"... it doesn't lead to dualism. It's just that most hylomorphists tend to err on the side of dualism. I actually like hylomorphism, and I'd be happy to discuss that too.
Thanks for sharing the video.
