Worst Arguments For Christianity

[Angrboda]

Please explain how you think making physical states the same as mental states violates Liebniz' law.

Two things are identical if the share all the same properties, for example Samael Clemens is identical to Mark Twain. For something mental, like a thought, to be identical something physical, like cascade of firing neurons, they must share all the same properties. They do not.

The medium is not the message. What Rush Limbaugh says is distinct from the radio waves that carry his show. For the reductionist, the show just is the electromagnetic waves. That position is clearly false since a transcript of that show carries the same meaning even though it has a completely different physicality. Even different signs can carry the same meaning. The English word ‘dog’ has the same meaning as ‘chien’ in French.

These examples show that meaning has features distinct from the various physical mediums that support it. It may be that meaning must always instantiate in some material way, from electromagnetic waves to scratches on stone. The simplistic belief that the mind is identical to the brain is woefully incomplete. Explaining the relationship between signs and their significance requires more kinds of cause than reductionism allows. At least formal and final causes provides a more complete model for that relationship.

I honestly don't understand what you just said. Let me go back and go line by line.

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Please explain how you think making physical states the same as mental states violates Liebniz' law.

Two things are identical if the share all the same properties, for example Samael Clemens is identical to Mark Twain. For something mental, like a thought, to be identical something physical, like cascade of firing neurons, they must share all the same properties. They do not.

Being charitable here, I think you're begging the question. If mental properties reduce to physical properties then the brain has both mental and physical properties; it is identical with itself.

The medium is not the message...These examples show that meaning has features distinct from the various physical mediums that support it.

True, but irrelevant. We're talking about meaning in a complex set of neurons, not writing on a page. This doesn't even remotely relate.

The simplistic belief that the mind is identical to the brain is woefully incomplete. Explaining the relationship between signs and their significance requires more kinds of cause than reductionism allows. At least formal and final causes provides a more complete model for that relationship.

This is an abstract philosophical argument which depends on a certain theory of causes, which, even if true, is far from obvious. This is simply insufficient and seems to put you in the position of claiming to know the kinds of causes which meaning and intentionality require. I'll admit that I don't fully understand how meaning arises from brain matter, but substituting some philosophical just-so story in its place is inadequate. You'll need to be more explicit on this point before I'll bite.

Let me return to a point in that whole:

Explaining the relationship between signs and their significance requires more kinds of cause than reductionism allows.

I think this reduces to a form of argument from ignorance, but could you explain what kinds of causes are required that aren't allowed by reductionism?