Re: Causal determinism and non-materialist atheism

On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 11:56:48 +0000, MarkE wrote:

I'm (tentatively) conceding some ground in this post against CS Lewis.
So no particular argument here; just for your end-of-year enjoyment.
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If causality holds universally, then the universe is deterministic (_in
principle_, and aside from quantum indeterminism).
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Different versions of compatibilism attempt to reconcile causal
determinism with free will to varying degrees. I'm not intending to go
down that rabbit hole here——I'm wondering instead about rationality,
reason, and materialism. Here's a one claimed problem (apologies if this
is old ground for you):
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"C.S. Lewis, in his work Miracles, builds an argument from the oddness
of reason, claiming that a materialist-atheist view of reality is
untenable. Imagine a purely materialist world: a world of only particles
and matter, with no purpose or normativity——only causal relationships.
In this world, reasoning becomes just a series of brain states caused by
non-rational processes. According to Lewis, this means the rationality
of thought processes is an illusion. If materialism is true, then there
are no reasons, only causes. Thus, materialism undermines reason
itself."
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The algorithm read my mind and gave me an answer at Joe Folley's YouTube
channel Unsolicited Advice (which I highly recommend). He describes
himself as an agnostic/atheist, and offers this response:
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"...Plantinga argues, there is no reason to think that survival and
having access to capital-T metaphysical truth are necessarily
connected..."
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However (and I find this fairly reasonable):
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"...For Fodor, sure, our ability to reason's overall job is to help us
survive, but it does this through letting us know what the state of the
world is—that is, what is true and what we can deduce from what we
already know is true. At the very least, he suggests it needs to be
shown how exactly a creature could have mostly or all false beliefs and
yet still somehow be well-suited for survival. After all, beliefs are a
big part of what guides behavior, and if we want to successfully
interact with the world—that is, to achieve our aims of survival and
reproduction—we had better have true beliefs about how the world will
respond when we perform certain actions. Or, to use an example, we need
to know where the tigers actually are, because if they are there, they
can hurt us."
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Interestingly, he then goes on to disagree that atheism implies
materialism, and discusses the possibility of non-materialistic atheism
with reference to Plato's forms and mathematical abstractions:
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"In a recent video by the underrated YouTube channel Emerson Green, he
points out that in modern popular discourse, we often use the terms
atheism and materialism as if they are totally interchangeable. Lewis
arguably falls into this trap as well when he suggests that if his
argument from reason succeeds, then this is good evidence for God’s
existence. In his video, Green largely talks about the examples of
non-materialist atheism from the philosophy of mind, but I want to
expand upon this point because there is a whole world of non-materialist
atheism to explore. And a lot of it is far less ridiculous than you
might first think."
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"The Hidden Problem with EVERY Atheist Argument"
https://youtu.be/Q1jQscSNtNU?feature=shared
(Don't be put off by the title)

Two thoughts on this: equating materialism with atheism is
indeed nonsense. Why should a specific opinion about the
existence of deities prejudge one's view of the existence
of numbers, minds, fictional objects, propositions,
etc etc?
For TO purposes Godfrey Harold Hardy comes to mind -
an outspoken atheist who nonetheless (In "A mathematician's
apology") embraces mathematical platonism. Bertrand Russell's
neutral monism isn't materialism either. Schopenhauer was
clearly an atheist, but also a key figure in the
idealist movement etc etc.
So most certainly not all atheists are materialists.
I'm not even sure the converse is true, though that
could be more debatable.
As for the Lewis-Plantinga argument, that has come up
quite often on TO. And yes, one obvious response is:
"mistake the sabre tooth tiger for a pussy cat once too
often, and see what it does for your reproductive success"
At least a significant part of our perception has
to be truth-tracking to enable survival and evolutionary
epistemology (Ruse, Rescher, Vollmer, etc) take this to
the very heart of the epistemological endeavour.
What is missing in your account is the converse here.
Evolutionary epistemology does not only explain why
our perception has to be truth tracking "often enough",
it also explains why it can sometimes fail, and thus
accounts also for things like optical illusions and
other common mistakes. But these are a real problem
for the creationists' side: if as they argue God is
necessary to cause an alignment between reality and
perception, then He/She/they are also causal for those
situations where perception systematically fails. So
you end up either with a trickster God or dualism
where the anti-God has creative abilities or some
another ad hoc fix that comes at a significant
theological costs,