Defending Pantheism

[Losty]

"Pantheism is sexed up atheism. Deism is watered down theism."
   -Richard Dawkins

Sexed up atheism, I’m in

[Alan V]

The only conundrums that spinoza could legitimately be said to have directly addressed, were those ethical and factual issues arising from the various superstitions prevalent in his own time, effectively abandoned today. 

He made a pretty good case for hard determinism/lack of free will with his metaphysics, too. And this has far reaching implications in ethics, criminal justice, and a great many other things. Since reality can be described as one substance acting upon itself (according to the laws of nature governing such actions) there is no room for free will in Spinoza's metaphysics. Realizing this, he concludes that free will is illusory. 

So experience itself, no less clearly than reason, teaches that men think they are free because they are conscious of their own actions and ignorant of the causes that make them act as they do, and that the decisions of the mind are nothing but the appetites themselves, so they vary as the disposition of the body varies.

https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/...za1665.pdf

The bolded portion of the quote shows how his mind/body metaphysics relate to free will.

And what happens when creatures are as complex as humans, with multiple and often conflicting desires?  Reasoning happens, to sort them out, prioritize them, and keep them in their appropriate places.  We have both desires and inhibitions for this reason.  To try to reduce this question to such a simple equation is inappropriate for a philosopher.

Reasons are abstractions.  We act by reasons as well as by causes, depending on the situations.  Reasons are not the same as physical causes.  They don't reduce.  You have to discuss emergent properties at their own level of complexity.  Thus the concept of free will.

[Brian37]

I guess I'm a little puzzled as to the value of calling everything "God."  It doesn't help us understand anything, it doesn't have any explanatory power or any utility that you can integrate into your life, it doesn't answer any of the big philosophical questions (why are we here, where are we going, etc).  Is the only reason because it helps some people feel some sort of connectedness?

If that's the case, then that's fine - but a feeling derived from a proposition isn't anything close to a reason to believe that proposition.

I get why people like Einstein used it as a metaphor, considering the more superstitious climate he lived in. But we really don't need to be calling anything "God/god "or even "super natural".

I agree, but I am not as "puzzled" as I am irritated by it's use. "God" explains nothing and is just a place card gap word where answers lack.

[Alan V]

Property dualism, the most plausible of the dualisms, makes the argument "Hey! There is obviously some immaterial aspect of reality!" Hard to refute that, really. They are the "pure skeptics" of monism, I suppose. Cartesian dualism is something of a strawman these days. Property dualism is at least somewhat plausible.

Searle's biological naturalism is more materialist than non-materialist, but one might say his idea that consciousness is not ontologically reducible to physical states amounts to some sliver of dualistic thinking. Some accuse him of being a property dualist on that account.

I think the real argument is whether materialism is reductionistic or emergent. If it is emergent, and new properties are possible with more complex arrangements of matter, then there seem to be many more properties than property dualism acknowledges. In addition to the material property, life and mind are two more properties and perhaps individual identity as well.

[vulcanlogician]

I think the real argument is whether materialism is reductionistic or emergent.  If it is emergent, and new properties are possible with more complex arrangements of matter, then there seem to be many more properties than property dualism acknowledges.  In addition to the material property, life and mind are two more properties and perhaps individual identity as well.

But emergent and reducible are not mutually exclusive concepts.

Chemistry can in turn be viewed as an emergent property of the laws of physics. Biology (including biological evolution) can be viewed as an emergent property of the laws of chemistry. Similarly, psychology could be understood as an emergent property of neurobiological laws.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

But even so, chemical properties are reducible to the behavior of subatomic particles (physics). Biological processes are reducible to the interactions of molecules (chemistry). And psychology is reducible to the neurobiological processes in the brain (biology).


Because physics can (in principle) explain each and every process that occurs in the brain, "willing" (a function of the brain) is reducible to the laws of nature. Since none of us can control the laws of nature, none of us is able to to control what our brain "wills."

This doesn't mean their aren't good arguments for the existence of free will... it simply means that the complexity of the brain isn't one of them (or perhaps needs revision to explain how brains control physical processes and not vice versa).

There are theories of mind that propose that all feedback mechanisms in the universe are sentient. By this reasoning, the back of your toilet enjoys some crude form of consciousness. I reject this kind of reasoning as superfluous and unfounded. And I also reject a similar sort of reasoning that says: once a feedback mechanism is so complex it become autonomous. How exactly does that work? It may appear autonomous to those who can't see exactly how it works, but my default position is that a brain is subject to the laws of cause and effect just like a rock or any other piece of inanimate matter.

What about a cell in a person's body? Does it too have free will? If not, how does a collection of cells gain it?

[Alan V]

But emergent and reducible are not mutually exclusive concepts.

Emergent properties are not reducible if they disappear when the complexity is taken apart. Think of disassembling a bird. It loses both the ability to fly and the property of life.

That is not to say that understanding the components isn't important to understanding how the system works, but that's a different issue.

But even so, chemical properties are reducible to the behavior of subatomic particles (physics). Biological processes are reducible to the interactions of molecules (chemistry). And psychology is reducible to the neurobiological processes in the brain (biology).

Some are, some aren't.

Because physics can (in principle) explain each and every process that occurs in the brain, "willing" (a function of the brain) is reducible to the laws of nature. Since none of us can control the laws of nature, none of us is able to to control what our brain "wills."

You are begging the question. That is exactly the point under dispute. If new properties are possible, they might not be restricted to the same rules as the properties of less complex arrangements of matter.

This doesn't mean their aren't good arguments for the existence of free will... it simply means that the complexity of the brain isn't one of them (or perhaps needs revision to explain how brains control physical processes and not vice versa).

I disagree. As I have said, the human brain can reason and can act by reasons. That is not the same thing as acting by material causes at all.

There are theories of mind that propose that all feedback mechanisms in the universe are sentient. By this reasoning, the back of your toilet enjoys some crude form of consciousness. I reject this kind of reasoning as superfluous and unfounded. And I also reject a similar sort of reasoning that says: once a feedback mechanism is so complex it become autonomous. How exactly does that work? It may appear autonomous to those who can't see exactly how it works, but my default position is that a brain is subject to the laws of cause and effect just like a rock or any other piece of inanimate matter.

To attribute consciousness to the smallest possible particles of matter is reductionistic, and in fact I consider it a reductio ad absurdum.

The brain is subject to the laws of physics, certainly. Which does free will violate? Determinism is not a law, it's a property.

What about a cell in a person's body? Does it too have free will? If not, how does a collection of cells gain it?

Through the emergence of new properties with complexity. In other words, very gradually through evolution.

If you think emergence is reducible, you don't understand emergence. Emergence builds up through chance evolutionary events, not through strictly determined events. There is therefore no follow through of determinism to higher levels of complexity. Instead, it's whatever worked evolutionarily. Free will worked as one evolutionary strategy.

[vulcanlogician]

I guess I'm a little puzzled as to the value of calling everything "God."  It doesn't help us understand anything, it doesn't have any explanatory power or any utility that you can integrate into your life, it doesn't answer any of the big philosophical questions (why are we here, where are we going, etc).  Is the only reason because it helps some people feel some sort of connectedness?

If that's the case, then that's fine - but a feeling derived from a proposition isn't anything close to a reason to believe that proposition.

The key idea is that pantheism doesn't differ from atheism in any significant way. The pantheist doesn't say, "You atheists are wrong about this factual element of reality." No self-respecting pantheist would try to convince others to share his own high regard for the cosmos. Pantheism isn't a religion. It isn't a set of claims about reality. It's an attitude. And it's an attitude that is adopted for reasons peculiar to the pantheist. Whether they are good reasons or not is a subject for philosophical debate.

Again, pantheism doesn't really differ from atheism all that much. Atheists don't believe in any of the gods described in any religious tradition ever penned. Pantheists don't believe in any gods described in any religious tradition ever penned. Atheists believe that nature exists. Pantheists believe that nature exists.

Pantheism adds something to what is essentially an atheistic outlook. It's important right out of the gate to say just how little pantheism adds. Very little. The only thing that separates a pantheist from an atheist is that an atheist does not necessarily regard anything as a supreme force, worthy of reverence. A pantheist does regard something as a supreme force, worthy of reverence: nature.

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But emergent and reducible are not mutually exclusive concepts.

Emergent properties are not reducible if they disappear when the complexity is taken apart.  Think of disassembling a bird.  It loses both the ability to fly and the property of life.

That is not to say that understanding the components isn't important to understanding how the system works, but that's a different issue.

Let's focus on this particular issue, because I think this is where we disagree.

I get what you're saying. Subatomic particles behave in a certain way. Brains behave in a certain way. When they are not integrated into a cerebral structure, subatomic particles do not behave like brains. Therefore, knowledge of how subatomic particles behave is insufficient to describe brain activity.

But I reject this conclusion. Mind you, this conclusion is practically correct. There is no way that neuroscience would be able to function as a discipline if we forced neuroscientists to explain all brain activity by describing the motions of electrons and other subatomic particles. So (as a matter of practicality) the neuroscientist separates the brain and nervous system into large chunks and observes phenomena on a macro-scale.

But this doesn't mean that all functions of the brain can't be described by looking at individual subatomic particles and molecular forces. It simply isn't feasible to do so.

[Alan V]

But this doesn't mean that all functions of the brain can't be described by looking at individual subatomic particles and molecular forces. It simply isn't feasible to do so.

The reductionist says that if our understanding was detailed enough, we could explain everything by the interaction of subatomic particles and the laws of physics.

The emergetist says that will never be true, because some properties can only be explained at their own level of complexity. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

This is our basic disagreement. Reductionists talk as if material realities must necessarily be reductionistic. Emergentists like me disagree. In fact, I think emergentism is so obvious -- as in the example of disassembling the bird -- that I can barely comprehend the confidence of reductionists at all. Materialism doesn't have to be reductionistic, and there is good evidence that it isn't.

[vulcanlogician]

But this doesn't mean that all functions of the brain can't be described by looking at individual subatomic particles and molecular forces. It simply isn't feasible to do so.

The reductionist says that if our understanding was detailed enough, we could explain everything by the interaction of subatomic particles and the laws of physics.

The emergetist says that will never be true, because some properties can only be explained at their own level of complexity.

This is our basic disagreement.  Reductionists talk as if material realities are necessarily reductionistic.  Emergentists like me disagree.  In fact, I think emergentism is so obvious -- as in the example of disassembling the bird -- that I can barely comprehend the confidence of reductionists at all.

Have you tried reassembling the bird? What did you reassemble the bird from?