A dialogue between Gary Gutting and Alvin Plantinga (NYTimes)
I thought it was interesting enough to be worth linking, although as a matter of fact I think most of Plantinga's arguments are pretty bad. The argument Plantinga makes about (strong; to use the RGT term) atheism and agnosticism is reminiscent of our threads here about strong and weak atheism.
I broadly agree with this (excerpted, see the article )
Quote:
G.G.: O.K., but in any case, isn’t the theist on thin ice in suggesting the need for God as an explanation of the universe?
A.P.: Some atheists seem to think that a sufficient reason for atheism is the fact (as they say) that we no longer need God to explain natural phenomena — lightning and thunder for example. We now have science...
Atheism on this sort of basis would be justified only if the explanatory power of theism were the only reason for belief in God.
G.G.: So, what are the further grounds for believing in God, the reasons that make atheism unjustified?
A.P.: The most important ground of belief is probably not philosophical argument but religious experience...
But, this to me was probably the most interesting thing, more about philosophy of mind and cognitive science then religion:
Quote:
GG: Especially among today’s atheists, materialism seems to be a primary motive. They think there’s nothing beyond the material entities open to scientific inquiry, so there there’s no place for immaterial beings such as God.
AP: Well, if there are only material entities, then atheism certainly follows. But there is a really serious problem for materialism: It can’t be sensibly believed, at least if, like most materialists, you also believe that humans are the product of evolution.
GG: Why is that?
AP: I can’t give a complete statement of the argument here — for that see Chapter 10 of "Where the Conflict Really Lies." But, roughly, here’s why. First, if materialism is true, human beings, naturally enough, are material objects. Now what, from this point of view, would a belief be? My belief that Marcel Proust is more subtle that Louis L'Amour, for example? Presumably this belief would have to be a material structure in my brain, say a collection of neurons that sends electrical impulses to other such structures as well as to nerves and muscles, and receives electrical impulses from other structures.
But in addition to such neurophysiological properties, this structure, if it is a belief, would also have to have a content: It would have, say, to be the belief that Proust is more subtle than L'Amour.
GG: So is your suggestion that a neurophysiological structure can’t be a belief? That a belief has to be somehow immaterial?
AP: That may be, but it’s not my point here. I’m interested in the fact that beliefs cause (or at least partly cause) actions. For example, my belief that there is a beer in the fridge (together with my desire to have a beer) can cause me to heave myself out of my comfortable armchair and lumber over to the fridge.
But here’s the important point: It’s by virtue of its material, neurophysiological properties that a belief causes the action. It’s in virtue of those electrical signals sent via efferent nerves to the relevant muscles, that the belief about the beer in the fridge causes me to go to the fridge. It is not by virtue of the content (there is a beer in the fridge) the belief has...
if this belief — this structure — had a totally different content (even, say, if it was a belief that there is no beer in the fridge) but had the same neurophysiological properties, it would still have caused that same action of going to the fridge. This means that the content of the belief isn’t a cause of the behavior.
Gutting doesn't push back on this at all, but it seems to me that the kind of response Dennett would make is that it's impossible for the "belief" to have a different content but identical neurophysiological properties under materialism, or at least insofar as those properties are tied to an actual real instance of a human brain, i.e we're not treating them abstractly, like implementing alice's brain structure in bob. It seems like the distinction between content and structure is just begging the question. Materialism assumes the content is in the structure, the structure is a physical representation of the content and that changing the structure changes the content. Is that not right? I am assuming zumby might have a comment on this.
It sort of reminds me of the arguments about p-zombies.