Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[BigMike]

Immanuel, your argument collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.

You keep saying things like that, but it turns out they're never true.

You assert that physical laws only apply to physical entities,

That's definitionally true. If they applied to other things, they'd be called "other thing laws."

If your non-physical mind "kicks" an atom into motion, it must transfer energy or momentum to that atom. Where does this energy come from, if not from the physical realm?

I keep pointing out the obvious: nobody knows that. You certainly don't. But you still managed to kick your fingers into action, provoked by nothing more material than an argument.

Marvel at the mystery of how you did it.

You argue that consciousness falls outside the domain of physical science.

Clearly it does.

However, the moment you claim it interacts with the physical world, such as influencing neurons to fire, it is no longer exempt from physical laws.

That's ex post facto. Of course your fingers are physical. How did you make them move?

Here's the kind of difference in argument you and I are presently having:

Question: Why did Caesar cross the Rubicon?

IC's Answer: Because he decided it was going to be better for him and for Rome if he did.

Mike's answer: Caesar crossed the Rubicon because of synapses, synaptic fluid, electricity and meat.

Which one is the sensible answer, and which one is in the right category of explanation, isn't hard to detect. You're just circling the drain, lamenting the fact that physicalist explanations are useless in regard to human volition and action. But just because you want physics to answer this question doesn't mean it can.

Or, to take another example, did you ever watch The Big Bang Theory? The show, I mean.

It really had only one gag, if you noticed. It was this: it does'n't matter how brilliant of a physicist you might be...it won't help you figure out how to get a girl. In that realm, it will just make you stupid. That was the gag. The whole thing was based on the characters' category error, essentially. In the lab, they were geniuses; in the bar, they were hopeless. And that's life: you can't exposit mental phenomena by way of physics.

Or, to put it poetically:

Come, now, you most careful layers of T-squares,
You tedious extractors of square roots and cube roots,
You stooping squinters through microscopes,
You merciless probers and meticulous dissectors,
You would-be plotters of the curves of life,
Mathematically sure or else unbelieving;
You scorners of all but what mechanics
Can drearily prove: I challenge you,
Even in your pride, even in your own citadel,
Using those very instruments in which alone
You have such almighty faith,
Draw for me now the design, the plan
Of the universe; tell me how this earth, a star, is hung,
Diurnally turning for the refreshment of darkness and dew;
With your unfailing knowledge instruct me now
Who sensitively fringed the retiring gentian's beauty;
Or with your calipers, infallibly certain, bound for me
The mystic wild parabola of love.

Archibald MacLeish

Your claim that "you still managed to kick your fingers into action, provoked by nothing more material than an argument" reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how physical actions occur. You suggest that the "mind" initiates physical processes, but this is false. What actually happens is that physical processes already in progress—neuronal activity, biochemical interactions, and sensory inputs—produce the awareness and the illusion of "will." The mind doesn’t push atoms around; it’s the atoms that push the mind around.

Your brain, composed of atoms and governed by physical laws, is constantly processing inputs and outputs. Neurons fire, neurotransmitters cross synapses, and signals travel along pathways to activate muscles. These processes occur within a framework of cause and effect, fully embedded in the physical world. The experience of deciding to move your fingers is the result, not the cause, of these processes. Your "mind" is a product of this intricate network, not its originator.

This isn’t mere speculation; it’s grounded in observable evidence. Studies in neuroscience consistently show that decisions can be predicted by monitoring brain activity before a person becomes consciously aware of making them. This demonstrates that "will" arises after the brain has already initiated the action, not the other way around. If your mind were truly independent of the physical, it would need a mechanism to inject energy or momentum into the system to move atoms—something that violates conservation laws and defies observation.

When you insist that the mind initiates physical actions, you’re perpetuating an outdated dualism that has no empirical support. By ignoring the role of ongoing physical processes in creating awareness and "will," you invert causation and replace evidence-based understanding with unprovable assertions. The reality is clear: it’s the atoms, through their interactions and laws, that create the mind. Your perspective flips this relationship, offering no mechanism or evidence to justify the reversal.

This misunderstanding is at the core of your argument. You mistake the mind’s awareness of actions for the initiation of those actions. This is why your claim of a "non-physical" mind fails—it has no grounding in the physical interactions that govern every known process. Until you can address this causal inversion and provide a coherent mechanism for how a non-physical entity influences the physical world without violating fundamental principles, your argument remains not only incorrect but deeply misleading.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Moreover, your stance has profound ethical implications. By suggesting that the mind operates outside deterministic causation, you imply that people’s actions are entirely self-originating, which justifies blaming individuals for circumstances beyond their control. This perspective fuels punitive justice systems, entrenches inequality, and ignores the societal and environmental factors shaping human behavior. Determinism, by contrast, offers a framework for addressing root causes, fostering empathy, and creating systems of accountability that are fair and constructive.

In short, your perspective is not only logically unsound but perilously regressive. It invites a rejection of the principles that have allowed humanity to advance and solve problems collectively. When we introduce false assumptions, especially ones that defy well-tested physical laws, we’re not just being inconsistent—we’re undermining the intellectual integrity that safeguards truth, progress, and justice.

To say that people’s actions are “entirely self-originating” is a misstatement, a misapprehension of what is being said (and what IC says)(if I understand him).

At some level, at some point, something intangible and non-physical brings about effect within the complex structure of the brain but moreover in the “mind”. Could one ever make an absolute delineation? an absolute separation? Not within a man (and any one of us).

That is, is there such a thing as non-material entity?

…which justifies blaming individuals for circumstances beyond their control

In BM’s ultra-physicalism there is, by definition, nothing controllable. Nothing that could be controlled by man.

So men are “responsible” for nothing.

This perspective fuels punitive justice systems

Actually by defining what is just, and by demanding that a man behave justly, it centers responsibility on man in a crucial way. Ideally it is that man who would punish himself when he does wrong. You cannot achieve what is just except through an empowered man.

Determinism, by contrast, offers a framework for addressing root causes, fostering empathy, and creating systems of accountability that are fair and constructive.

To see and recognize causal patterns and the outcomes of those established causal chains which distress BigMike, is actually the activity of an awake, conscious being. Thus you need that man to be able to a) see and b) to choose to make changes through conscious decision.

To understand what had been set in motion (i.e. determined) requires — absolutely! — the man and mind you seem to undermine with your tendentious grasp of the causal.

Accountability, you say?

In short, your perspective is not only logically unsound but perilously regressive. It invites a rejection of the principles that have allowed humanity to advance and solve problems collectively.

Here you have made a leap and it does not follow. History, especially the 20th century, offers lessons that fly in the face of these ultra-ideological assertions.

We have a hard time locating what is really “regressive” except when we refer to the really obvious cases which most agree are such.

To have, let’s say, faith in a divine power (something supernatural and even ineffable) does not necessarily mean that one denies or obstructs those “principles that have allowed humanity to advance and solve problems collectively”.

You are confusing categories, BigMike, because of your zealously defined, absolutist position.

we’re undermining the intellectual integrity that safeguards truth

Not so. But so much depends on what “truths” are being considered. That is a most complex topic.

[Immanuel Can]

Your claim that "you still managed to kick your fingers into action, provoked by nothing more material than an argument" reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how physical actions occur.

You don't know how these physical processes get stimulated from the side of non-physical things like mind. You don't have the foggiest idea, actually. Nobody does.

You suggest that the "mind" initiates physical processes, but this is false.

And your proof of that is...sadly missing.

Your brain, composed of atoms and governed by physical laws, is constantly processing inputs and outputs. Neurons fire, neurotransmitters cross synapses, and signals travel along pathways to activate muscles. These processes occur within a framework of cause and effect, fully embedded in the physical world. The experience of deciding to move your fingers is the result, not the cause, of these processes. Your "mind" is a product of this intricate network, not its originator.

So Caesar crossed the Rubicon because synapses?

Do you expect such an explanation to be taken seriously? By anybody?

...outdated dualism...

You never answered my question about why you think the answer has to be monist. Would you do so now?

[henry quirk]

At some level, at some point, something intangible and non-physical brings about effect within the complex structure of the brain but moreover in the “mind”. Could one ever make an absolute delineation? an absolute separation? Not within a man (and any one of us).

Hylomorphism, particularly the Thomistic strain, describes man as a composite being, body and soul, co-equal. There is no delineation possible or needed. A person, a free will, morally discerning and responsible, and subject to moral judgement, is body and soul together. There is no mind-body problem. No causal gap. Man is not a soul ridin' around in a meat car. He is meat as much as he is spirit.

Interestingly, this corresponds with Wilder Penfield's conclusions about brain and mind. He reasoned for a person to be a person, both, with their complementary powers, were necessary.

[Noax]

I provided three of the standard definitions, from credible sources.

Remind me, and provide the sources, because I suspect the sources are not providing definitions acceptable to say a naturalist.
OK, my sources are not from say SEP, but at least my definitions distinguish will from free will. Yours apparently does not, but I only say one defintion of another term, which I said I liked, but it still lacked that distinction I find necessary.
Words like will, volition, change, choice, free (and even genuine) all seem to have no universal definition. The compatibilists for instance seem to require an awfully liberal definition of free will to claim it is had.

I do acknowledge that different views define certain terms (like 'exists') differently, and oxford isn't necessarily where to go. That doesn't make any one definition or any one view correct or incorrect. I'm not a realist, so I probably don't define 'exists' the same way a realist would. Also, 'realist' seems to be an adjective, not a noun. Realist about what? No, I'm not grilling you, just pointing out that definitions vary.

If I am the victim of forces beyond my control

Gravity is beyond your control, which is why you're a victim of a skinned knee when you fall, it probably not being your choice to have one. Making a choice between cheating at cards or playing straight is not beyond one's control in most views, perhaps excepting epiphenomenalism and fatalism. You deny this. I know that. Probably your 'sources' also do, but I've not seen them.

what difference does it make to me whether my jailor in the iron cage is called "physical causality" or "quantum events"?

It makes no difference to you. None was claimed. In discussing a naturalist view, there is no cage. The naturalist can still do what he wants, without cage. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that he wills one thing, but physical causality forces some other thing. There is no jailer involved in that.

That's like saying "a cord explains why I'm mowing my lawn."

Not a full explanation, but mowing a lawn without a spinal cord would be a challenge indeed. Alternate means would need to be found.

In Determinism, all the "power" comes from previous physical or quantum causes, and all the action happens as an inevitable result.

Wow, I actually would agree with that if you agreed with my definition of determinism. I'm not sure how "power" comes into that, which is perhaps another word you define in a mysterious way, requiring the scare quotes. But yes, determinism (my definition) entails an inevitable result of sorts.

I say of sorts. Suppose we define 'free will' informally (as many do) as 'could have done otherwise'. There is at least one fully deterministic interpretation of physics that satisfies that definition.

Volition is not a real thing, according to Determinism.

[Citation needed]

But that raises a very interesting question, which so far, nobody has been bold to take up: why or how would impersonal causal precursors coming from my environment instill within me a belief in something that is utterly false?

Or why one that just happens to be true? Beliefs, especially intuitive ones, are put there for pragmatic purposes, and truth has little if anything to do with it. Some may coincidentally be true, many (most probably) are not.

Why would the impersonal and unthinking cosmos generate a being (me, that is) who believes in "volition," a thing that has never existed and never will?

Because it makes you fit.

Choice: You seem to use the term 'choice' in a way that is in no way distinct from 'free choice'.

I don't, actually. They are synonyms.

Those two statements seem to directly contradict each other. The two terms are distinct actually, then they are not.

A discussion of if one has free will cannot proceed if the two terms are not distinct. It would just be a discussion of if we have will, which seems to be only one of definition, not anything functional. You deny the distinction, so I think we are done. There's nothing to discuss.

Rather, I pointed out that there are no possible conditions under which you can show Determinism to be false

OK. I agree with that, regardless of if we're talking your definition or the ones the determinists use. Nobody claims proof one way or another. Maybe you do with your view, I don't know.
.

But Mike, in the OP, seems to think that Determinism is such a certainty that anybody who doesn't believe in it is "rejecting science."

Forcing me to actually read a post, eh? He does seem to define determinism the way you do, meaning 'naturalism'. Science has never proved naturalism, it just an assumption in its methodology. Science made so terribly little progress until it adopted that methodology, at which point progress exploded. He seems to equate free will to supernaturalism, not far from your definition. He says 'no room for comforting'. I disagree with that, but one first must ditch all the baggage that comes with the supernaturalism, and that isn't very easy to do.
He's right about you holding physically impossible beliefs. Somewhere in a body must be a structure that is sensitive to supernatural causes, yet no such structure has ever been found, nor even searched for. Only structures that seem to maximize deterministic processes and minimize the random ones, just as is done in a say a traffic signal.

Let me quote Big Mike, just to show you that at least here, your view is in the minority and the "definitions" upon which I've been relying are, at least as far as Mike himself is concerned, quite orthodox

Absolutely, all willpower is an illusion in the sense that it doesn’t cause anything by itself. Your "willpower" has as much ability to affect the physical world as a ghost does to move furniture—none. It cannot push even a single atom, let alone rewire your brain or change your behavior without external inputs driving those changes. What you call “willpower” is simply the perception of a process that’s already underway, not its cause.

Your will isn’t some magical force; it’s an epiphenomenological emergent perception—a side effect of complex neural activity. It feels real, but so does the illusion of the sun rising and setting when, in reality, it’s the Earth rotating. That doesn’t make your will any more capable of initiating change than wishing for a million dollars will make it rain cash.

So no, your thoughts aren’t under your control. They’re the product of deterministic biochemical processes shaped by prior causes. Thinking otherwise is like believing a puppet can pull its own strings—it’s delusional. Willpower is just a nice story you tell yourself to feel in control, but the reality is far less flattering.

But bigMike is not a naturalist, so hardly one to speak for how they define the words in contention.

He got the bit about the sun rising right. So many get their Copernicus wrong. And wishing for a million dollars very much can make it rain cash, especially if you put effort into it. Doing so sure does make it more likely than accepting this bleak view and sitting back waiting for the inevitable to occur.

BigMike has not abandoned dualism/supernaturalism The last two paragraphs really show it. No wonder that many of his terms match yours.

[henry quirk]

Mike,

Your "mind" is a product of this intricate network, not its originator.

Speakin' only for myself: my soul is the principle organizing that network. Together, my soul and my body, equals me.

You, though, I'm beginnin' to accept that you are what you claim: automation.

As to who originates: The Creator, of course.

Studies in neuroscience consistently show that decisions can be predicted by monitoring brain activity before a person becomes consciously aware of making them.

You're misrepresenting Libet's work....again. He was clear: the most one can say about the readiness potential is it represents a possible free won't. Libet believes in free will and he was clear his work doesn't disprove free will (see the link I posted to Libet's own words, several pages back, in this thread).

you’re perpetuating an outdated dualism

And you're ignoring, or are ignorant of, alternate ideas like the one I posted to AJ.

physical interactions that govern every known process

What of unknown processes? Or processes you willfully ignore?

[Immanuel Can]

I provided three of the standard definitions, from credible sources.

Remind me...

Either I go back and ferret it out, or you do. No reason I should. I did it already. Page 38.

You deny this. I know that.

You don't seem to know quite what I affirm or deny.

what difference does it make to me whether my jailor in the iron cage is called "physical causality" or "quantum events"?

It makes no difference to you.

It makes no difference to anybody.

That's like saying "a cord explains why I'm mowing my lawn."

Not a full explanation, but mowing a lawn without a spinal cord

You pretend to misunderstand the analogy, perhaps.

Volition is not a real thing, according to Determinism.

Logic. If one's volition changes nothing, then it's a mere "seeming." You think you made a difference, but you didn't.

But that raises a very interesting question, which so far, nobody has been bold to take up: why or how would impersonal causal precursors coming from my environment instill within me a belief in something that is utterly false?

Or why one that just happens to be true?

No, this one in particular. Why and how would an impersonal universe make a creature that believes in volition, when volition is an illusion?

Why would the impersonal and unthinking cosmos generate a being (me, that is) who believes in "volition," a thing that has never existed and never will?

Because it makes you fit.

Fit with what?

Choice: You seem to use the term 'choice' in a way that is in no way distinct from 'free choice'.

I don't, actually. They are synonyms.

Those two statements seem to directly contradict each other.

Read carefully. All it means is, they are the same thing, but sometimes adding the adjectives helps people not go off track. That's all.

Rather, I pointed out that there are no possible conditions under which you can show Determinism to be false

OK. I agree with that, regardless of if we're talking your definition or the ones the determinists use. Nobody claims proof one way or another. Maybe you do with your view, I don't know.

There are at least some very good indicators that Determinism is false. One is the fact that no human being since the dawn of time has been able to live as a Determinist. It's purely a theory of the imagination. Take it to reality, try to live as if it were true, and you wouldn't survive a day.

Somewhere in a body must be a structure that is sensitive to supernatural causes, yet no such structure has ever been found, nor even searched for.

The brain. Very obvious. Nobody doubts that the mind has some important link to it, but it's clearly nowhere near as simple as a mere relation of physical causality.

[BigMike]

Immanuel, let me ask you this directly: do you think before your neurons fire, or do your neurons fire before you think? This is not a rhetorical question—it's fundamental to understanding causation in your framework. If you believe the mind initiates action, you need to explain how non-physical "thinking" causes neurons to fire without relying on physical processes already in motion. If the neurons fire first, then your thoughts are a product of those physical events, not the other way around. Which is it?

[henry quirk]

Mike's about to send you to his penalty box, Mannie.

These short, ultimatum-style posts of his, that's the tell.

[attofishpi]

Everything is physical, including construct of the mind. If I think of the word 'bugger', the physical state of my brain is configured within the mind's eye to either consider it as a structure of the word 'bugger' as lettering, or even as the sound 'bugger'. So I can hear it in my 'minds' eye and I can see it as spelt out, again in my minds eye.

..or should that be the 'mind's eye/ear'?

[Noax]

what difference does it make to me whether my jailor in the iron cage is called "physical causality" or "quantum events"?

It makes no difference to you.

It makes no difference to anybody.

This assertion commits the strawman fallacy since it makes a difference to what you call a determinist. You equate the inability to get outside a jail cell despite willing to be there, to not ordering chocolate because you like vanilla better. These two situations are not equivalent, yet you assert them to be with your assertion. The two cases are distinct to the naturalist despite you (and only you) asserting that there is no difference between the two.

Volition is not a real thing, according to Determinism.

Another strawman assertion. The determinist would differ.

If one's volition changes nothing, then it's a mere "seeming."

OK, you seem to have an unstated definition of 'volition' that requires some sort of unstated meaning of the word 'change'.
In a deterministic view, if I mow the lawn, it changes from long to short grass. So change is there, and the volition is there since me wanting the lawn mowed has resulted in a mowed lawn.

An actual determinist can tell you the difference between choice and free choice. You apparently cannot.
BigMike seems to be a funny case of this: Both dualist and determinist (your definition), but that view is defeated as soon as evidence is produced.

Why and how would an impersonal universe make a creature that believes in volition, when volition is an illusion?

I cannot answer such a question, which is like asking why 45 is prime, and being 'prime' is not clearly defined. And yes, that question (the 'why' part) can be answered even given our shared knowledge of the meaning of being prime.

Fit with what?

Darwinian fitness of course. If lies make some creature more fit for survival than truth, then natural selection will reinforce the lie. There are many examples of this, very few of which you will likely acknowledge since you seem to put an awful lot of stock into your intuitive beliefs and also your cultural ones, most of which are products of natural selection.

I don't, actually

contradict each other.

Read carefully. All it means is, they are the same thing, but sometimes adding the adjectives helps people not go off track. That's all.

"I don't actually" seems to say the opposite of that, if you take that in context: "[I don't] use the term 'choice' in a way that is in no way distinct from 'free choice'", where you just here assert that you do actually do this. This means that you cannot agree that your choice is free since you find no meaningful difference between it being free and it not being free.

There are at least some very good indicators that Determinism is false.

Depends on the definition of that word, and I cannot agree to the statement using your definition. 'Live as a determinist'? Determinism does not suggest that there is a way one should live were the view to be chosen. But I'll agree to something else. There are two parts of me, a rational one and the boss. The rational part may be a determinist (mine isn't), but it not being in charge, the boss still lives according to the lies. To do otherwise would be for a human to become a rational creature, which is apparently not a fit thing to be. It may explain the Fermi paradox.
Very few people recognize the division I speak of, where the rational part is but a tool to be exercised at need. Hence humans are a rationalizing creature, a very different thing than being rational creatures, where the other half is in charge. I like to lie to myself and say that I am closer to being the latter, but I very much know that a little closer makes very little difference. Still, there is comfort in the view if one can get past the irrational objections. BigMike apparently hasn't got that far.

The brain. Very obvious.

Not the logical place to put it, but sure. But no structure in the brain seems to meet the criteria I ask. Nothing in there is sensitive to supernatural causes. It all seems designed explicitly to do deterministic functions and eliminate non-deterministic causes from having any effect, exactly as transistors are designed.
So I ask again, where is this sensor? Where exactly might something exist that amplifies a supernatural cause into a physical effect? Is it in a neuron somewhere? Those seem sensitive only to stimulus to dendrites, a physically caused stimulus from the axon activity of other neurons.
Finding the interaction that I ask for would not only be empirical evidence for your view, but also would serve to falsify a great deal of the alternate view. Yet no effort is made to research this because its adherents know that it will not be found. They know that the view is an unscientific lie. Science really is your enemy, despite it not being so back when I was educated in a Christian school.

Nobody doubts that the mind has some important link to it

I doubt it, as does everybody else, as evidenced by the lack of looking for something they know isn't there. So you fall back to refusing to look at the man behind the curtain in an effort to perpetuate the ignorance. Not you personally, not being a neurologist, but surely this majority held lie has a neurologist among them somewhere wanting the fame that would result from actually demonstrating such a thing. But no, they all know deep down that it cannot work that way, and the effort is futile. The view depends on ignorance.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel, let me ask you this directly: do you think before your neurons fire, or do your neurons fire before you think?

If your neurons fired before you think, it would mean that thought was just neurons. This is the sort of embarassingly reductional explanation to which physicalists find themselves committed: it's not a person thinking, it's a neuron being a neuron.

Really?

And is this neuron in the Determinists head merely firing because that's what neurons do? Is his neuronal firing unrelated to the truth or falsehood he believes attaches to his Determinism? If so, he does not have any way at all of knowing whether or not Determinism is worth defending...there's no truth entailment, no person thinking, and actually, no "him" to be having the thought. It's just a neuron neuroning.

If you believe the mind initiates action, you need to explain how non-physical "thinking" causes neurons to fire without relying on physical processes already in motion.

Well, one thing's quite obvious: neurons relevant to cognition don't fire without a thought. And the thought must precede whatever it is the neurons do, or occur at the exact same instant, plausibly, if the two are dualistically related in some fashion.

But one thing we can be quite sure of: "the neuron just fired" isn't an explanation of a thought. It's a description devoid of everything we are looking to explain: the reason for the thought, the justification of the thought, the choice involved, and the intelligence and personal identity of the thinker himself. Since physicalist explanations offer us nothing in these regards, we do well to ask ourselves why we would insist on beginning and ending our inquiry arbitrarily, on the mere assumption that physical stuff is all there is.

And let me ask: why should we think that? Why should we think that the physical explanation is comprehensive (especially since it answers so few of the essential questions), and why should we assume that physical stuff is all that exists?

I see no reason for those assumptions: but if you've got one, I'll hear it.

[henry quirk]

a neurologist among them somewhere wanting the fame that would result from actually demonstrating such a thing

Cynical view.

Wilder Penfield, a neurosurgeon, found evidence mind is not brain product.

Michael Egnor, a neurosurgeon, found evidence mind is not brain product.

Charles Scott Sherrington, John Eccles, Roger Sperry, Benjamin Libet, neuroscientists all, found evidence mind is not brain product.

These men didn't look for fame (though each, in his field, achieved some). They were lookin' for what is real and true.

None of what they discovered has been proven wrong. Some of what they discovered has been ignored. Some of what they discovered has been, and is, misrepresented (as Mike does with Libet's work).

[Immanuel Can]

It makes no difference to you.

It makes no difference to anybody.

This assertion commits the strawman fallacy

No, it's not a "strawman" claim. I'm saying it because it's universally the case, regardless of what anybody might wish to think. It actually makes no difference...and only an imaginary difference to those who believe otherwise, obviously.

Determinism has no explanation of cognition that involves an individual human consciousness, a thought, a deliberation, a use of reason, a choice, an agent and a personal course of life. It's only explanations are "X did it to a body" (X being either physical stuff, or quantum randomness, or some other such Deterministic power).

If Determinism were true, it would, in fact, make absolutely no difference what anybody thought. For there is no person to do the thinking, and not thought either. There are just neurons. And whatever was the case, ontologically speaking, there would be no reason for us to expect the person to know the truth anyway. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't: there are no promises with impersonal forces.

Volition is not a real thing, according to Determinism.

The determinist would differ.

He might, but he'd have no grounds to. It wouldn't rationalize with his Determinism at all -- it would require him to abandon his position.

In a deterministic view, if I mow the lawn, it changes from long to short grass. So change is there...

This is not the kind of change we are talking about. Of course the grass "changes" from one state to another; but that "change" is not thought, by the lights of Determinism, to be volitional, and is not actually a "change" at all, ultimately -- for the grass was fated to be long, then short...so nothing changed from the ironclad course of fate. And there was no human will to choose the change.

That's the difference. We're talking about volitional change. What the Determinist would have to say is that the "change" may have been from long to short, but your ability to decide what would happen was not present...hence...

So change is there, and the volition is there since me wanting the lawn mowed has resulted in a mowed lawn.

...is Deterministically false. There was no distinct "you," just the ordinary operation of the physical universe. Your "volition" wasn't a factor in why the lawn got mowed. You were fated, by prior forces, to wander like a brainless robot across your lawn; for it was fated to be short today, and that so-called change was really no change from the way things were fated to be.

Why and how would an impersonal universe make a creature that believes in volition, when volition is an illusion?

I cannot answer such a question,

I know. But it blows a huge hole in the explanation. It's a truly surprising thing, to suppose an utterly-indifferent universe would spontaneously generate beings that can believe, and can doubt Determinism, if Determinism is the true and only rule for how things operate.

It's a serious problem for Determinism. But they owe us an answer. It cannot simply be passed by.

Fit with what?

Darwinian fitness of course. If lies make some creature more fit for survival than truth, then natural selection will reinforce the lie.

This is another serious criticism of Determinism. Since, as it claims, the mind is keyed not to truth but to survival, and survival may well be enhanced by various delusions and lies, how can we trust the mind?

It's the end of philosophy, of reason, and of science, of course. We've lost the cognitive scientist completely, and are left with dumb chance to replace him. Science might turn out to be nothing more than a collocation of delusions...useful delusions for survival, perhaps, but useless for any search for truth.

So Determinism isn't simply unscientific: it's aggressively anti-scientific. Science itself is no longer reliable, they would have to conclude.

'Live as a determinist'? Determinism does not suggest that there is a way one should live were the view to be chosen.

Well, that's supposing that the Determinist hopes to be rational and consistent, which I think all thinking persons should strive to be. What that entails is no "taxicabbing" one's beliefs: if you take a ride in the Determinist "taxi," one has to take it all the way to the destination it takes one to. To jump out half way, and to run away without "paying the fare," is dishonest and hypocritical. And I assume Determinists do not want to be either, do they? So if they claim Determinism is true, they they owe it to honesty and consistency to ride it all the way, no matter what unsavoury outcomes that entails.

And no Determinist can. He still inevitably ends up acting as if human will, especially his own, is a real thing...even while he demands you believe otherwise.

The brain. Very obvious.

Not the logical place to put it, but sure. But no structure in the brain seems to meet the criteria I ask.

Well, it's not a legit criterion, obviously: because it expects the kind of one-to-one physical-to-mental events that Physicalism would require us to expect. But we don't find that. Instead, we find that the relation between brain structure and cognition is highly variable, loose and "reprogrammable," so to speak. So there's no easy link between physiological sub-feature of the brain and cognition. That's mysterious to all of us...but it's reality. And if you can solve that one, the Nobel Prize will surely be yours.

Science really is your enemy, despite it not being so back when I was educated in a Christian school.

Ah, the old cartoon dichotomy: religion is "anti-scientific." Too bad so much history puts the lie to such a comforting thought. In fact, what you need to realize is that it was no accident that scientific method and the scientific revolution happened in the developed West...which was still nominally Christian. It didn't happen in India or China, which had more people, and smart people. It didn't happen among Atheists...but then, there were fewer of those...it happened in the Christian West, and through people like Newton and Bacon first...both Theists, as were most early scientists.

But to those who don't know the history of science, perhaps the old delusion persists. But what does it matter? You've said that delusions are survival-apt, so maybe you have a preference for them...

Nobody doubts that the mind has some important link to it

I doubt it,...

Well, that's not a terribly admirable or warranted doubt. You're having to use your mind to do it, though perhaps you doubt it's involving your brain...

[BigMike]

Immanuel, let me ask you this directly: do you think before your neurons fire, or do your neurons fire before you think?

If your neurons fired before you think, it would mean that thought was just neurons. This is the sort of embarassingly reductional explanation to which physicalists find themselves committed: it's not a person thinking, it's a neuron being a neuron.

Really?

And is this neuron in the Determinists head merely firing because that's what neurons do? Is his neuronal firing unrelated to the truth or falsehood he believes attaches to his Determinism? If so, he does not have any way at all of knowing whether or not Determinism is worth defending...there's no truth entailment, no person thinking, and actually, no "him" to be having the thought. It's just a neuron neuroning.

If you believe the mind initiates action, you need to explain how non-physical "thinking" causes neurons to fire without relying on physical processes already in motion.

Well, one thing's quite obvious: neurons relevant to cognition don't fire without a thought. And the thought must precede whatever it is the neurons do, or occur at the exact same instant, plausibly, if the two are dualistically related in some fashion.

But one thing we can be quite sure of: "the neuron just fired" isn't an explanation of a thought. It's a description devoid of everything we are looking to explain: the reason for the thought, the justification of the thought, the choice involved, and the intelligence and personal identity of the thinker himself. Since physicalist explanations offer us nothing in these regards, we do well to ask ourselves why we would insist on beginning and ending our inquiry arbitrarily, on the mere assumption that physical stuff is all there is.

And let me ask: why should we think that? Why should we think that the physical explanation is comprehensive (especially since it answers so few of the essential questions), and why should we assume that physical stuff is all that exists?

I see no reason for those assumptions: but if you've got one, I'll hear it.

Immanuel, are you seriously suggesting that you can think without engaging your brain? If so, does that mean you believe you could think without a brain at all? This is the unavoidable implication of what you’re proposing—that thought exists independently of the physical processes in the brain. If that’s the case, how does this disembodied thinking entity interact with anything in the physical world? How does it experience, process, or act without the brain’s neural networks?

This leads to a deeper problem: every instance of thought, decision, or awareness we’ve ever observed is tied to the functioning of a physical brain. Damage to the brain affects thought and consciousness in precise, predictable ways, whether through injury, disease, or substances. If the mind could think independently, why would brain function matter so much? Your argument doesn’t just raise a philosophical question; it outright denies the overwhelming evidence that thought is inseparable from the brain's physical activity.

Your suggestion creates a false dilemma: that neurons firing means there’s no "you," only neurons. But that’s a misrepresentation of what determinism or physical explanations propose. Neurons firing are how "you" think; they’re not separate from "you." Without them, there’s no thinking, no decision-making, no awareness. By claiming the opposite, you’re implying that thought exists in a vacuum, untethered from any mechanism—something for which there is zero evidence and endless contradictions.

So, I ask again: are you arguing that thought can occur without the brain, and if so, how? Or are you acknowledging that thought and brain activity are inseparably linked, making your non-physical mind hypothesis untenable? You can’t have it both ways.