Pondering Theism

I'm packing up my things...

2008-11-10T16:28:00.000-08:00

... and moving to Facebook. Considering it's a more engaging experience overall there, and there is space to write to your heart's content, I figure consolidating the two tasks is a good idea.

If, by chance, anyone happens to read this you're more than welcome to send a friend request - just be sure you search for Daniel Wesley in Kansas.

...of Qualia

2008-08-31T15:56:00.000-07:00

"If we acknowledge that a physical theory of mind must account for the subjective character of experience, we must admit that no presently available conception gives us a clue how this could be done." - Thomas Nagel

Random Thought

2008-08-16T22:09:00.000-07:00

It's always interesting to find out someone "famous" whose work you enjoy is a believer. In this particular case, I recently learned that the host of my all-time favorite TV show 'Good Eats', Alton Brown, is a Christian.

http://www.altonbrown.com/

John Polkinghorne

2008-08-13T21:27:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite authors, Christian or otherwise, is John Polkinghorne. As an eminent particle physicist and a theologian of the Anglican tradition, he is uniquely situated to cogently discuss matters of science and of God. His books on Quantum Theory are just as fascinating as his books on rational Theism - He has a gift for making sense of metaphysical ideas while remaining firmly rooted in the scientific tradition. He is one of the premiere proponents of the notion that science and faith have no real qualm with each other - the only qualm is between those with a predilection of one over the other.

While I may disagree with the finer points of his theology (he is a proponent of Open Theism, an idea I'm not quite sure what to make of yet), I am indebted to him for many of my own ideas. He has opened the door for me to honestly critique both traditional Christian philosophy and contemporary ideas of naturalism without sliding down the slippery slope of liberalism.

Along with the other topics I have previously stated, an additional idea I have to keep myself writing are to select various quotes from his writing and adding my own commentary. For example, a great quote from John via Francis Collins' The Language of God:

"The poverty of an objectivist account is made only too clear when we consider the mystery of music. From a scientific point of view, it is nothing but vibrations in the air, impinging on the eardrums and stimulating neural currents in the brain.

How does it come about that this banal sequence of temporal activity has the power to speak to our hearts of an eternal beauty? The whole range of subjective experience, from perceiving a patch of pink, to being enthralled by a performance of the Mass in B Minor, and on to the mystic's encounter with the ineffable reality of the One, all these truly human experiences are at the center of our encounter with reality, and they are not to be dismissed as epiphenomenal froth on the surface of a universe whose true nature is impersonal and lifeless"

What he is alluding to, is that even with a full and complete understanding of how our subjective experiences may be entirely explained by physical causes and interactions, it does in no way remove the subjective experience itself. At the end of the day, when I've enjoyed spending quality time with my wife and son, I have had a real subjective, positive experience that belies a universe devoid of meaning or purpose. Naturalism, to paraphrase John, is ultimately at a loss to explain its reality except to toss it out as not somehow real.

Why does the brain do what it does?

2008-08-01T14:24:00.001-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/08/01/open.brain.surgery/index.html

Yet again another fascinating example of just how amazing the brain is.

It again raises the question, why does the brain do what it does? It's certainly a no-brainer (pun intended) to recognize that mental functions are correlated with physical activity, but is it entirely a natural phenomenon?

Why should a brain do what it does? What physical property/properties suggest mental activity could arise naturally from matter and energy alone? Is it possible that mind is as fundamental to reality as matter, regardless if there is a correlation between the two?

Climbing the Ladder

2008-07-25T19:58:00.000-07:00

I've been reflecting on what I've written so far and in an effort to come up with new potential topics to write about, I came up with a sort of 'Ladder to Christian Theism'. What this entails is an attempt to create a rational 'ladder' of steps starting with rejecting Naturalism/Materialism up to embracing Christian Theism.

It's certainly not a novel idea because I can recall reading something very similar in another book. In fact, I think it was in a Normal Geisler book, but that memory might be mistaken. I wanted to try and come up with my own version anyway, so I figured there's no point in trying to find the original and just copying it. Without further adieu:

Step 1 - Rejecting Naturalism/Materialism

Step 2 - Understanding Metaphysics (Reason, Logic, etc...)

Step 3 - The Reality of Personhood

Step 4 - Ethics / Morality

Step 5 - The Possibility of Divine Revelation

Step 6 - Judging Various Scriptures

Step 7 - The Superiority of Christ

This list is in no way, shape, or form intended to be authoritative or definitive. Let me also say that Christian soteriology (salvation) has no requirement other than turning to Christ. One does not need to determine anything prior in order to enter into a saving relationship with Him. However, I believe this list will suffice in helping me come up with future topics.

Yet Another Jumpstart

2008-07-24T10:57:00.001-07:00

I've been trying to make the rounds and comment on interesting posts I find throughout the web. I'd like to express my gratitude to Google Alerts - I have it set to notify me whenever it finds new content relating to 'Theism' and it finds interesting things on an almost daily basis.

However, I'm always a bit miffed at myself because I don't feel like I've got enough valuable content here to warrant posting a link to my blog whenever I leave a comment elsewhere. I really want to change that and I've got more ideas I'm going to start posting tomorrow.

Fundamentals of Reality

2008-06-12T13:16:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting thought today:

Not everything philosophical is true, but everything that is true is philosophical.

Work to do!

2008-04-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, in an effort to jumpstart my writing again, I intend to actually get out there in the blog-o-sphere (how I loathe that term) and actually read other blogs that share my love of the Philosophy of Theism.

Thomas Wolfe Was Wrong

2008-03-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

Wow... I know it had been a while, but Christmas? That's unacceptable.

In the meantime, I have managed to read a few high quality books, my favorite of the bunch being Francis Collins' The Language of God - A Scientist Presents Evidence For Belief.

I have to admit, the book was not what I was expecting at all - in fact I was very pleasantly surprised. However, the title is a bit misleading, since it's not so much a hardcore exposition of evidence, but rather just a well written account of why Francis Collins (the head of the Human Genome Project) is a Christian Theist and the particular reasons he is convinced.

One theme he is adamant to push is his particular notion of Theistic Evolution, which he names BioLogos. It's all very interesting and well thought out - I highly recommend it to anyone with an inkling of interest in the biological sciences and theology.

Ergo Nihilism?

2007-12-28T13:01:00.001-08:00

Christmas this year was hectic, as usual. It my seem a bit ironic, but I am not a fan of the holiday - at least the modern version concocted by the American retail system.

The other day I ran into an online debate (using the term loosely) of whether atheism entails nihilism. I'm of the opinion that unspecified atheism does not imply nihilism - however, those of the naturalist / materialist persuasion of atheism who are not nihilists are so only in betrayal of its logical conclusion.

Of course, I've read multiple times the vehement denials of such a conclusion, but how can it be otherwise? If all is physical, then where does value come from? Why should an object that is only one particular aggregation of molecules have more value than one lone molecule? From value springs morality - how can moral, value based truths be possible? Is there ever a circumstance where rape is not wrong?

I Need to Read More

2007-12-02T18:45:00.000-08:00

I've been reading (and re-reading) Does God Exist? The Craig-Flew Debate, and while the book has been eye opening on many levels, personally it's reminded me how much more I need to read. There are a plethora of good philosophy books out there that I need to get my hands on.

As far as the book, the editors give a slight bias to Craig, but even that withstanding, I think he still comes out on top. One thing that I noticed is that even though this was published before Antony's abandonment of atheism, you can see the beginnings of the cracks in his worldview, especially towards the end in his Reply to Critics. I'll share more specific thoughts on the book after I've had a chance to read it a few times.

On another topic, I've been giving thought lately to the Argument from Aesthetics. Is it just another branch of the Argument from Mind? Earlier tonight I was watching this miraculous (pun intended) performance of the Presto agitato movement of the Piano Sonata No. 14 (aka the Moonlight Sonata) by Wilhelm Kempff, who is among my favorite pianists. A few thoughts came to me as I was watching it:

How can any creature create such an intricate piece of music?
How can any other creature truly enjoy it and be moved by it?
What is the ultimate source of the creative process?
Can such a process be described only by physical processes?

Yes, it seems like questions I've asked before. I guess that answers my previous question. :) In the end, I can certainly relate to those over the centuries who are so moved by the music and art of countless individuals that a sincere divine experience is invoked.

One Question

2007-11-22T19:02:00.000-08:00

I sincerely hope everyone who reads this has had an enjoyable holiday!

I had a question pop in my head amidst all the hustle and bustle of people today. Don't ask me why things like this come to be at the oddest of times... I'd like to know myself!

The question is: Are all facts empirical facts? A subsequent question that occurred to me is, does Naturalism require the answer to be yes?

Of Mind and Matter

2007-11-06T20:34:00.000-08:00

A response to my friend over at The Meme Pool regarding the Cartesian Theater, Multiple Drafts Theory, and a physical account of consciousness.

After taking a crash course in Daniel Dennett's Multiple Drafts Theory, I believe I can codify what his theory presents: that consciousness is an emergent property of a system of many smaller systems each predicated on various forms of information processing. To quote Wikipedia, "... that consciousness is not to be found in a specific part of the system [brain], but in the actions of the whole."

Personally, I think it's a fascinating theory, and it could very well be a fruitful one. However, there are good reasons to believe Dennett may be wrong. New evidence in neurobiology, such as mentioned in this New Scientist article suggests that Dennett may not be completely correct. There is evidence that specific abstract concepts normally only associated with conscious thought can in fact be tied to specific physical locations - an arrow in the quiver of the Cartesian Materialists!

From a philosophical standpoint, I find that the best reason to reject purely physical explanations of consciousness is the sheer qualitative difference between physical processes and the net result - personal subjective experience. If one neuron isn't self aware, nor two, nor 10, what good reason is there to think 2 billion of them are? Someone once told me that's called the Fallacy of Great Big Numbers. Even in the videos of Dennett speaking that I've seen, there are many times where he creates a subject-object distinction between the "I" of the subjective, and the objective brain. Statements like, "Your brain tells you this..." aren't exactly consistent with what he's presenting. :)

However, for the sake of the argument in the rest this post, I will assume that Dennett is correct, and that he has eliminated a need for an immaterial soul, or even the need of a "Cartesian Theater" to explain mind and consciousness.

Even accepting such an argument does not solve the entire puzzle. There are questions that arise that Dennett's theory does not address, or at least does not address where I could find. The big question to me, is: What good reason do we have to believe that physical processes are capable of 'information processing' of their own accord? In other words, even if consciousness is the net result of nothing but physical processes, does it entail a natural result? Take your computer - it's a collection of purely physical processes, but it had to be engineered to do what it does. Now, I know the first objection to that analogy - natural selection can engineer our brains and minds. That's fine, but it still doesn't solve the fundamental problem I have.

The problem I have is with information.

Not all information is empirical. Our brains not only deal with the 'direct' empirical information flowing into our brains from our senses, but also 'meta-data', or information about information which is itself not empirical nor has a physical correlation. Mathematics and numbers are a good example - you can't touch or see mathematical objects, but we use them every day (at least we should!) and consider them just as real as concrete objects we interact with. Ironically, science itself would be impotent without math. Another example would be reason - reason is itself not a physical or empirical description, yet we consider it just as true and important as any physical one. (More on that in the future.)

Information itself is not a physical property. Things like charge, gravitation, electromagnetism, quantum spin, etc... have no inherent functions that describe themselves. An already functioning conscious mind is a prerequisite for information to have any real meaning or context. How then can a mind evolve from information processing, if there is no real information until the mind exists? It seems to be a tautology then, to presume that matter can create mind by itself.

To me, the tautology is resolved if you posit that Mind (note the capital M!) is prior to matter, and is the seat of the abstract information our physically based minds can process. Let my Gem of a Blogger Friend help refresh that concept.

Note: After reading through this post again, it just doesn't feel 'right'. I feel like I need help tidying up the points I'm trying to get across, so feel free to criticize and point out things I may have goofed. :)

A Quick Tangent

2007-11-01T14:23:00.000-07:00

While I'm working on my response to the main topic at hand, I thought I'd take a brief tangent and reply to larro's comments.

"And philosophy...one minuscule step up from theology or theosophy. It's junk."

This I disagree with completely. If philosophy is junk, then science is junk because there could be no science without a Philosophy of Science. If philosophy is junk, then truth and knowledge are junk is junk because without formal epistemology, there can be no way to determine what is knowledge.

A person with no notion of philosophy is impotent to interact meaningfully with the world, ideas, or other people.

"This doesn't read well with the common man or woman."

I'm not sure why you think this. Perhaps you underestimate the common man or woman? I consider myself a common man, and I'm fascinated with the various philosophies that have governed peoples over the ages.

"Feed the starving/make-ends-meet individual with this garbage and you'll get spit in your face."

This I agree with, to a certain extent. A starving individual doesn't care about philosophy or Ivory Tower speculation. In my experience, the best way to demonstrate the knowledge of God to someone in need is to first meet their need. Christ himself compels us to do so, and I've found that it works quite well. After all, if a Christian theist posits that compassion is fundamental, he would be wise to be compassionate himself.

I'm not quite sure what is meant by "spit in your face". I'll assume that's a bit of hyperbole. :)

More on Metaphysics

2007-10-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

I had begun to write a mish-mash of various metaphysical ideas expounding upon my previous post, but then I found this gem of a blog. For those of you wondering how the topic of metaphysics and abstract objects relates to theism, I highly suggest you begin there. This gentleman is a much greater wordsmith than I, and does a far more excellent job than I ever could have explaining this. It turns out that my argument isn't original at all (not that I really thought it was) and in fact has a name: The Conceptualist Argument.

One idea that crossed my mind today was the nature of philosophy vs. empirical science. It dawned on me that there could be no effective science without first establishing a Philosophy of Science. However, the ideas and proposition(s) behind the philosophy of science are themselves not empirically detectable. What got me scratching my head was how an individual could conclude that all that exists is matter, energy, and their interactions when the methodology and reasoning used to reach that conclusion were themselves neither matter, energy, nor an interaction between the two. Am I missing something?

One reason I currently reject the idea that matter and/or energy can produce mental activity in and of themselves is that no matter how one measures, qualifies, or quantifies the matter/energy that constitutes brains, the only thing ever directly observed is that matter/energy. Yes, I am aware that there have been fascinating experiments done with nuclear material and mental projections (or something to that effect), but that involves a translation and in fact requires a separate brain/mind to interpret, which creats an interesting tautology. In the end, direct observation of potassium ions, electrons, and chemical pathways, only reveals potassium ions, electrons, and chemical pathways. I can't help but conclude that there is an insurmountable gulf between the empirical and the abstract.

Braindump: How many and in what configuration of neurons produces the number pi? Are there enough neurons in my brain to hold every possible digit of any irrational number? Is there a consistent pattern between neurons and ideas? If I could 'observe' the number 7 in my brain, and the number 7 in your brain, would they be identical?

(Note to self. Begin writing before 1:00am, so you can think more clearly.)

The Irreducibility of Metaphysics

2007-06-27T13:42:00.000-07:00

What is metaphysics? To some people, it conjures up the idea of crystals, meditation, and psychic hot-lines.

However, the traditional (and more correct) definition of metaphysics is the realm of ideas or abstract objects and relationships. The field of ontology is an example of metaphysical science, as it seeks to learn to what is and how things relate to each other.

What I am interested to hear is how non-theists account for the existence of non-physical abstractions, which is ultimately what metaphysics boils down to.

Take the human brain, for instance. Science has done an excellent job demonstrating how the mind and the brain are functionally one. Poke one part, and a person will evoke a memory; Prod another part and an emotional response will take place. However, for all of that, what is still inescapable is that even while accepting direct correlation between physical brains and abstract thoughts, the brain is still only a collection of particular substances. When I think of my wife, there is a separation between the substance of that thought and the substance of my brain. My wife is not the firings of neurons, and the firings of neurons are not my wife.

There is a seemingly infinite bridge between the two. Just as sound waves representing music can be optically etched as a pattern on a CD, my thoughts can be 'etched' into physical brain patterns. However, unlike CDs to sound waves, which is a physical-to-physical transition, the transition from brain pattern to thought appears to be one from physical-to-non-physical. How can this be, if non-physical things do not exist?

~ 100 years ago, a branch of philosophy called Logical Positivism attempted to remove metaphysics from modern epistemology. It ultimately failed because it was self defeating. Likewise, when I am confronted with the idea that theism is non-rational, I have to ask, how can anything be rational, which is a metaphysical description, if only physical things exist?

Let me add a couple of points:

Certainly not all non-theists believe that physical things are the only things that exist, but the majority of what is popular in the Western world is the belief that only physical things are real.
I do not necessarily believe in classic Cartesian dualism. I say 'necessary' because I have come to believe it is not vital to the theists palette of supporting ideas.

The Wrong Approach

2007-06-18T18:27:00.000-07:00

The other day while perusing Digg at work (shhh!) I ran across a typical story which was really nothing more than an Astronomy shot of the day - artificially colored but still very captivating. Digg is down as I'm writing this, but I'll try to find the story in the future and post it here.

What really caught my eye was not the photo but two quick comments made about it, which I'll paraphrase:

Comment #1: 'How can you look at the vastness and beauty of the universe and not consider a Higher Power exists?'

Comment #2: 'No more than I can look at a vast and beautiful forest without considering a magical unicorn must live in it.'

Although I agree with the sentiment of the first commenter, I have to agree with the logic of the second comment. What I would have commented on was not the wonder or beauty of the universe, but rather that I am a being who is capable of wondering and determining beauty. I believe that is a far more difficult proposition for the non-theist to consider.

A beginning, of sorts...

2007-03-06T22:50:00.000-08:00

My purpose in this blog is to discuss the proposition that Christian Theism is the most accurate description of reality. By 'Christian Theism', I define it as the set of propositions:

There exists one God (eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, etc...)
God consists of one ontological essence and three triune persons
God is ultimately revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ alone has provided the vicarious atonement necessary for the forgiveness of sins and restoration of the God/Man relationship

Considering that this topic is highly contentious and prone to confusion, let me start by stating a few of what I do not believe are necessary propositions or prerequisites to Christian Theism:

The universe is 6,000 years old
Man is a product of special, instantaneous creation
Man is a trichotomy of essences: Body, Spirit, and Soul

Personally, I don't know if any of the above propositions are true - they may be, they may not be. (Proposition #3 will hopefully be discussed in the future.) However, if any of them are false, they do not impugn upon or negate any proposition in the first list.

I have always enjoyed reading philosophical and religious writings from both theistic and non-theistic perspectives, and I think my confidence has grown enough to present some of my own thoughts on the topic. I'm not naive enough to think that I will present any truly novel ideas, but hopefully there are enough of you out there interested in discussing them!