Refuting Plantinga's God and Other Minds

[MindForgedManacle]

Honestly, I just find reformed epistemology to be nonsense on stilts. From the get-go, Platinga has to do two things:

Heavily critique evidentialist apologetics, thereby giving up essentially all arguments for God's existence ever made (INCLUDING HIS OWN)

and then

Special plead that you cannot use his critique of the evidentialist against his foundationalist view, which is demonstrated in the "Great-Pumpkin Objection".

Since an honest reformed epistemologist will have to admit that such makes, on their view, atheism and theism equally rational, they can't even use abductive reasoning (i.e an inference to the best explanation) to bolster theism's odds, because that would mean that at least some the arguments for God's existence do work, but the reformed epistemologist has to give them up as NOT working in order to establish their position.

I repeat, PlantingDerp.

[free_thinker_at_last]

Hi Vinny,

I'm not a big philosopher so by evidentialist, you mean a person who will only accept proof of something if that proof can be totally confirmed by our five senses and totally supported by hard evidence, right?

If so, I don't think that I am. For example, I think a multiverse of some sort exists but in all reality, our universe is the only one for sure that we know exists. The multiverse may exist and can be showcased in physics and cosmological modals and in theory be detectable; however, we don't have any "hands-on"evidence of it.

As to your second question, I don't know how I would deal with it on evidentialism, if I was an evidentialist. I guess that's why I'm here getting some help from fellow atheists on these topics...ha.

I thought that a lot of research in neuroscience has provided sufficient evidence between brain/mind and a great amount of evidence has pointed towards the corner that w/o a physical brain, we can't possibly have a mind. Because humans have brains, surely, we must have minds. It would be strange to think that only I have a mind and everyone else is just a robot. Likewise, anyone else w/ some sense of reason would feel the same.

How would one deal with the this other minds issue?

Hey, I'm no big philosopher either. I'm just glad there are atheists who think about these issues beyond simply bleating about their antipathy towards religion.

But could you point to the work that shows that brains are conclusive evidence of the existence of minds? I'm not familiar with any such work.

I don't know of any definitive works. I just hear some talk about it from high profile atheists. I would assume that with all the knowledge we have in this modern day and age, I'm sure there's got to be something out there.

What is the stumbling problem with the brain/mind issue that prevents us from saying that without a physical brain someone cannot possibly have a mind?

Put it in layman's terms for me.

Thanks.

[Whateverist]

I can't locate a website that exactly specifies the details of what this argument entails. In a nutshell, just from my own reading (not any actually reading from the book itself because I'm not going t waste 20 bucks on bullshit), it states that belief in god is rational and justifiable just as belief that other people have minds/other people's minds exist. I know this sounds like crap on the surface but I'm wanting to dismantle it at the core. I don't think this explicitly argues for god but I can't seem to get my hands around this. I'm sure it's been disputed before but I just can't find anything on the Internet that knocks it out to my satisfaction.

Personally my preferred and genuine response is that believing God exists (and communes with you) is perfectly reasonable, and I suspect our minds are complex enough to provide you with a god to speak to if you want it fervently enough. What is not reasonable is to attribute to that 'God' you commune with all the attributes associated with the biblical God. So yes, God can be as real to you as I am if you're wired that way, but it is not reasonable to assume that the God you commune with created the universe, has prepared a post life wonderland for you, yada, yada, yada.