On Facebook I got into a debate with Michael Jones (Inspiring Philosophy). The experience left me less than inspired about his competence.
Hays
Why did Jonathan pick a YouTube starlet to address the historicity of Gen 1-11 rather than a scholar with real expertise on the topic like John Currid, Richard Hess, or Andrew Steinmann? What makes Michael Jones any different than Alex O'Connor (the "Cosmic Skeptic")?
Jones
"See how condescending this guy is. I think I’ll just block him so I don’t have to see he comments anymore. Not worth my time. One of the most judgmental and condescending people I talked to, judges based on titles not arguments."
Hays
Like whether a cancer patient should prefer an oncologist with bona fide medical degrees rather than a Chinese herbalist?
So he will discuss the veracity of a historical narrative whose "events" never happened in real time and space, given his commitment to idealism.
Sorry to pull the curtain back to expose the wizard, but if metaphysical idealism is true, then it's not "real history" in anything other than a deceptive, Pickwickian redefinition.
If we filter Gen 1-11 through the tinted lens of metaphysical idealism, that reduces history to psychology. The "events" are figments of the imagination.
You do realize, do you not, what metaphysical idealism implies for Bible history (or history in general)? It's just appearances, mental projections that don't remotely correspond to the underlying reality.
i) Your reaction is like saying Christian philosophers and apologists are telling Richard Dawkins what he believes when they point out the irrational, nihilistic implications of his atheism.
ii) I've read idealists like Robert Adams ("Idealism Vindicated").
iii) According to metaphysical idealism, reality consists of mental entities from top to bottom. So human bodies (to take a paradigm example) have the appearance of detailed organs and systems that preform actual biological functions, but the reality is nothing like that at all. Rather, it's like a detailed video game where appearances bear no resemblance to what's producing the appearances.
You need to learn how to follow the actual argument. Where did I say all is reduced to human psychology? I didn't specify the agents who are the source of the mental projections. Whether you say that's ultimately God, or a combination of God and mundane agents (humans, angels), reality is identical with mental entities. So, yes, that reduces history to psychology. It's mental through-and-through. Calling "space-time" emergent is a weasel word. Unless you are actually a dualist who thinks reality consists of non-mental space-time generated by something mental, then space-time is itself a product of the imagination, whichever kind of agent you attribute that to, whether God, or a collective psychic ensemble.
In addition, you repeat the same blunder you made before. Explaining the implications of someone's position isn't the same thing as telling them what they believe. Are you unable to grasp that rudimentary distinction?
You keep swinging and you keep missing:
i) There's such a thing as divine psychology. For instance:
If God has a mind, or God is a mind, then we can speak of divine psychology. Sorry that you're so uninformed.
ii) Unless you think the mind is the product of the brain, how does it follow that if, according to metaphysical idealism, space-time is a figment of imagination, that means God is a giant brain?
iii) Likewise, what do you deny is the product of psychology? God or space-time?
iv) You then admit that space-time is generated by the mind of God. That makes space-time a mental or psychological projection.
v) You also need to bone up on anti-realism. Metaphysically, realism is typically defined as the existence of extramental or mind-independent entities. If metaphysical idealism is true, then it's a paradigm case of metaphysical antirealism.
Epistemologically, if perceptions bear no resemblance to the underlying reality, then that's epistemological anti-realism. And that follows from metaphysical idealism.
Jones
"Really reaching there, aren't you? This a metaphysical idea, not actually the field of psychology."
Hays
This was never about the "field of psychology". It was always about metaphysics and epistemology.
Jones
"The fact that the article has to specific "divine pyschology" shows us it is not the scientific field of psychology."
Hays
You're the one who's laboring to restrict the concept of psychology to a scientific field concerned with human psychology. Your restriction is arbitrary. If God is a mental agent, then there's such a thing as divine psychology. It's amusing that you're hung-up on this semantic quibble.
Jones
"No, emergent is not imagination. Your visionary experience of colors is emergent from your mind, but it is not imagination."
Hays
If I dream about colors, then colors are imaginary.
If you're referring to God giving a seer a vision, then God is using the seer's imagination.
Jones
"Once again, no... .anti-realism is about how one looks at science, whether it is true picture of reality or model we use. I argue for idealism from scientific experiments, so we can understand the nature of reality. Once again, as I have corrected you several times, you are thinking of subjective idealism."
Hays
You're the one who keeps recasting the issue in terms of a distinction between subjective and objective idealism. And that distinction can't salvage your position. As standardly defined,
"Metaphysically, realism is committed to the mind-independent existence of the world investigated by the sciences. This idea is best clarified in contrast with positions that deny it. For instance, it is denied by any position that falls under the traditional heading of “idealism”, including some forms of phenomenology, according to which there is no world external to and thus independent of the mind."
That holds true for objective idealism no less than subjective idealism. If, as you yourself say, space-time is generated by God's mind, then there is no external world or mind-independent reality.
In addition, your metaphysical idealism/antirealism commits you to epistemological antirealism since there's no recognizable relation between what is perceived and the underlying reality. On your view, Gen 1-11 is divine CGI, like Pandora in Avatar. A world of appearances. The appearances give the observer no indication of what the machinery generating the appearances looks like while the machinery gives the observer (if he had access to the machinery) no indication of what the appearances look like.
Jones
"No, you said all history would reduce to psychology. You did not say divine psychology."
Hays
In context, the reference was to divine psychology.
Jones
"I responded that since you keep assuming subjective idealism".
Hays
No, that's your incorrigible confusion.
Jones
"Visual colors are emergent but not imagined. Don’t try to shift to dreams."
Hays
In scientific realism, colors are produced in part by an external stimulus, if you're referring to say, an observer who perceives a flower garden.
But according to metaphysical idealism, it's purely psychological, like dreaming about a flower garden.
Jones
"Also, you quoted from an article on scientific realism, not metaphysical realism."
Hays
The article made a general statement about metaphysical realism in contrast to idealism, treating scientific realism as a special case of metaphysical realism.
Jones
"I have already told you and you don’t listen, I am a scientific realist. Why is that so hard to understand?"
Hays
It's easy to understand your claim. The problem is the hiatus between your claim and what your position entails.
Jones
"It is very rude to tell me what I think."
Hays
You need to get over yourself.
Jones
"And yes, there is no mind independent reality on idealism, that doesn’t entail rejecting scientific realism, since scientific realism deals with how we perceive space time."
Hays
I just quoted a definition from a standard philosophical reference work that refutes you.
Jones
"stop telling me what my view it. You dont get to speak for me, that is arrogant and condescending."
Hays
You need to acquire a modicum of maturity. Sure, you can speak for yourself. And I can point out that your position is inconsistent. That's how philosophical debate operates. If you're too insecure for that, you don't belong in apologetics.
Jones
"Again, being a scientific realist we can say the appearances tells us about the machinery. We can study reality and find indications it is mental."
Hays
i) It isn't possible for a metaphysical idealist to be a scientific realist. To begin with, you deny the existence of an external, mind-independent world. That's a presupposition of scientific realism as standardly defined.
ii) In addition, a metaphysical idealist denies that what we perceive corresponds to what reality is like. For instance, we perceive that eyes see things. But according to metaphysical idealism, our eyes are no more functional than the eyes of a virtual character in a video game.
Jones
"If you can’t just accept basic definitions…"
Hays
You're the one who operates with idiosyncratic definitions.
Jones
"...and continue to arrogantly tell me what I have to believe I am not going to waste time. This is extremely rude and not worth my time."
Hays
I was never writing for your benefit.
In terms of the science:
ReplyDelete1. Michael Jones (Inspiring Philosophy) relies a lot on the work of Henry Stapp (physicist) and Jeffrey Schwartz (psychiatrist) to argue for Christian idealism. Jones referenced this Stapp paper as well as a chapter in Jeffrey Schwartz's book The Mind and the Brain to me. Jones didn't tell me which chapter in Schwartz's book, but I presume it's "The Quantum Brain" chapter. What's more, I think this technical paper is the basis of Schwartz's chapter in his book aimed at a popular audience.
2. On the one hand, I'm sympathetic to what Schwartz, Beauregard, and Stapp are arguing. Perhaps I could even agree with their central claims to a significant degree. On the other hand, even if I agree with them, I don't see how that necessarily gets us to Jones' idealism. It seems to me Schwartz, Stapp, and Beauregard are arguing against materialism and arguing for mind as fundamental to reality, but I don't see how it gets us to idealism as fundamental metaphysical reality.
3. Moreover, what Schwartz, Stapp, and Beauregard argue seems consistent with other metaphysical theories too (e.g. Cartesian dualism).
4. That said, though I'm sympathetic and could agree with Schwartz/Stapp, they aren't without their scientific and mathematical critics (e.g. Danko Georgiev, David Bourge, Sylvain Poirier). It may be worth reading these debates between Stapp and his critics.
5. Not to mention there are other theories involving "the quantum mind" besides Schwartz/Stapp. Perhaps the most famous is Roger Penrose (mathematical physicist) and Stuart Hameroff (physician/anesthesiologist). I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of every single one of these theories, but prima facie it looks like the different theories have a basis in different interpretations of QM. Yet the different intepretations of QM are themselves debatable.
6. At best, all of these positions about how quantum mechanics and consciousness are related (including Schwartz/Stapp's position) are speculative. However it seems to me Jones takes one (if not more) of these speculative theories and runs with it as a scientific basis to argue for idealism. I think that's a bit premature, to say the least.
Jones recommended watching his "The Emergent Universe" video so I did:
Delete1. The science in the video is largely a mishmash of sensationalized pop physics and pop neuroscience, but Jones takes what seems to be (fun) speculation seriously. It'd be like if I took ideas about bioengineering, cryonics, mind-uploading, and some other aspects of transhumanism to argue that human life can be extended indefinitely. There may be some truth to this, but it's still speculative. Likewise Jones is taking trendy ideas from the likes of computer science, information theory, quantum physics, and neuroscience to argue for Christian idealism.
2. I think Jones' central argument is the human brain is quantum mechanical at bottom (e.g. our thoughts behave like quantum superpositions). This in turn is based in orchestrated objective reduction (orch OR), i.e., "consciousness originates at the quantum level inside neurons". That's probably mostly famous championed by Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff.
However, a key problem is, even if orch OR is correct (which is debatable), orch OR doesn't solely select for idealism. Rather, orch OR is consistent with various forms of dualism too (among other things).
3. Ironically a secularist could take the same data and/or ideas Jones takes but use them to argue, for example, that we are virtual characters who exist in a microverse programmed by some bored teenager in a higher dimension. Indeed, that's what some secularists do argue (e.g. Elon Musk, David Chalmers).
4. Jones says: "there is a parallel distinction with the spaceless non-physical reality of Hilbert space from which space-time emerges to how the spaceless non-physical reality of our mind, our thoughts, emotions, and dreams is distinct from the external physical world."
a. First of all, Hilbert space is an abstract mathematical space. As such, "space-time" can't "emerge" from Hilbert space. As Peter Woit might say, that's not even wrong.
b. Also, Jones draws a parallel between Hilbert space being distinct from spacetime and the mind being distint from matter. That sounds like it's saying more than it is. However all it's saying is we can make a distinction between x and y. We can make a distinction between an abstract mathematical model (Hilbert space) and physical reality (physical spacetime). How does that get us to therefore idealism is true?
c. If Jones is attempting to imply Hilbert space is like the mind, let alone the mind of God, then how so? Sure, a mathematical model can model physical systems (including quantum systems), but that doesn't necessarily mean a mathematical model is identical or equivalent to the mind or the mind of God. Vector spaces like Hilbert spaces are useful in physics and math, but they're hardly reality. Again, at best, they might model reality, but can any mathematical model reliably model the mind of God?
d. Even if (arguendo) we agree with Jones that the human mind is quantum mechanical, that doesn't necessarily indicate the mind of God is likewise quantum mechanical.
Hey thanks for facing jones head on. Ive wondered about him for some time.
ReplyDeleteI hope jones can learn something from this exchange.
One time my pastor was blasted by charles feinberg. Fortunately he responded with a little humility.
I pray Jones can do the same.
In addition to being a Christian idealist, he’s a theistic evolutionist.
DeleteI’m sympathetic to idealism, but I think that’s because I tend to think the world is a different place given theism. There is a radicalness to contingent existence, given theism. The unwitting naturalism we take in at our parents knee blinds us to that reality unless we are given the grace and opportunity to grasp it. I’ve recently realized Idealism doesn’t really matter all that much. It’s the question of God’s power, and the teleology of creation in general that matters. I love Berkeley, but I’m fine with the existence of matter, but on a theistic view matter is a different type of thing than we see in non-Christian systems. And nothing is “independent” of the Creation’s Lord.
ReplyDelete