46 ms·
"If, moreover, naturalism is correct (however implausible that is), and if consciousness is then an essentially material phenomenon, then there is no reason to
by bshepard 5y ago
"If, moreover, naturalism is correct (however implausible that is), and if consciousness is then an essentially material phenomenon, then there is no reason to believe that our minds, having evolved purely through natural selection, could possibly be capable of knowing what is or is not true about reality as a whole. Our brains may necessarily have equipped us to recognize certain sorts of physical objects around us and enabled us to react to them; but, beyond that, we can assume only that nature will have selected just those behaviors in us most conducive to our survival, along with whatever structures of thought and belief might be essentially or accidentally associated with them, and there is no reason to suppose that such structures—even those that provide us with our notions of what constitutes a sound rational argument—have access to any abstract “truth” about the totality of things. This yields the delightful paradox that, if naturalism is true as a picture of reality, it is necessarily false as a philosophical precept; for no one’s belief in the truth of naturalism could correspond to reality except through a shocking coincidence (or, better, a miracle). A still more important consideration, however, is that naturalism, alone among all considered philosophical attempts to describe the shape of reality, is radically insufficient in its explanatory range. The one thing of which it can give no account, and which its most fundamental principles make it entirely impossible to explain at all, is nature’s very existence. For existence is most definitely not a natural phenomenon; it is logically prior to any physical cause whatsoever; and anyone who imagines that it is susceptible of a natural explanation simply has no grasp of what the question of existence really is. In fact, it is impossible to say how, in the terms naturalism allows, nature could exist at all.”
Excerpt From: David Bentley Hart. “The Experience of God.
- hibernator149 5y agoThe only way to perceive actual reality and truth is to be magically endowed with this ability? The author of this quote can't imagine how this ability might result from evolution? Personal incredulity does not count as proof. Naturalism is our only chance for understanding this world, everything else is just magical thinking without proof.
- srcreigh 5y agoDo you have the magical ability to see, hear, and otherwise perceive reality? It's one thing to have sensory perceptions, it's another to consider them all somehow connected, and it's entirely another to do so while ruling out any other forms of perception which may not be known to you yet.
- janto 5y agoIf I make a mistake in my perception of reality there is a chance I might die. I have many emotional reactions that prevent and attempt to correct for this misalignment whenever it occurs (surprise, disgust, doubt, anger). Are these the magical abilities that would get me closer to perceiving reality?
- bshepard 5y agoNaturalism is a metaphysical position; a second order claim about what kind of phenomena count as real. It is different than a methodological committment to only considering a certain set of causal relations -- this methodological committment makes research possible, not the metaphysical committment of naturalism, which is extremely untenable, as it can't account for the most basic aspects of our experience.
- bencollier49 5y agoAbsolutely. We are still suffering as a society from the baggage of the 20th century, when man rather foolishly imagined that science would explain everything. This was pretty much ruled out philosophically from the get-go, but we still have this naive scientism which crops up everywhere and claims to have explained the human condition and origin, when it has done nothing of the sort.
- swayvil 5y agoFor most of us, mystery is intolerable. So we take the authoritative story on faith. And use it to create an airtight coccoon about ourselves. A bubble of dream where no phenomenon goes unexplained.