Lately, they've been calling the mind, soul or consciousness an "epiphenomenon" of the physical brain. Epiphenomena are secondary phenomena which can cause nothing to happen.
That means a physical brain caused the above post. "You" didn't cause it to happen. "You" are just an epiphenomenon. "You" can't cause anything to happen.
If they really believed this nonsense they would have to say a person couldn't be tried for a crime. He is just an innocent epiphenomenon. He can't cause anything to happen. He didn't do it. He couldn't.
That raises a humorous legal point - if only the physical brain can be guilty for causing a crime, it would be cruel and unusual to punish the innocent epiphenomenon or the rest of the physical body.
I guess my point is, if they perport that consciousness, or the soul are epiphenomenon which superveins on a biological entity then they have to explain how it originates. Biological entities (purely physical, they say) would have to have this epiphenomenon emerge, even though there is nothing like it in the physicalist worldview. So, there are two choices for the physicalist...(1)abandon physicalism and embrace dualism, or (2)accept the epiphenomenonalism which forces them to espouse panpsychysm and by definition, a metaphysical reality. If they do not accept one of these two worldviews they must deny that consciousness, sentience, numbers, any abstract, invariant, univeral entity even exists....and that is a hard one for them to have a conversation about. I do not believe their argument,otherwise, is sustainable. Metaphysical naturalism is on its way out, it seems to me. It must be defeated whereever we find it.
As you know, the underpinning of the Criminal and Civil law is Natural law which presupposes, as our Founders did, the dualistic nature of man. It seems the law deals with reality more forthrightly than those stewards of biology.
And yet by the standard of orthodox Darwinist (and especially Neodarwinist) thinking, such an observation must be "true."
Anything they don't want to think about is ruled out as "false," in advance.
Most convenient!!!
But from there we necessarily descend into logical incoherence, observational pointlessness....
Which is probably why Ludwig von Bertanffly, pioneer of complex systems theory (among many other world-class thinkers), believed that such nonsense posed a threat to the well-being of human societies, and of the order of human persons....
Are you as sick and tired of such "games" as I am, dearest sister in Christ?
I bet you are!
All thanks and praise be to God, whose Name is I AM.
Thank you, oh so very much, for writing!!!