The Argument from Meaning

As my respectable interlocutor has mentioned, I am also a Christian, though he certainly does me too much credit to claim I'm a philosopher. In any case, I thank him for the opportunity to engage him in debate here, and I hope everyone involved, including the audience, of course, will benefit from our little exchange. My response here will be a comparatively short one since my opponent's argument from meaning is invalid. Even so, it also fails as an inductive argument for God, the stated, and unjustified, conclusion of my opponent's argument. To better show the argument's invalidity, I will clean it up a bit for clarity and formalize it. 1. If meaning exists, meaning is created by matter or meaning is created by a rational mind. 2. Meaning exists in a mind. 3. If naturalism is true, then matter is meaningless. 4. Meaning cannot arise from meaninglessness. 5. Therefore, naturalism is false. 6. Therefore, the best explanation for the existence of meaning is God. Formalized, this argument becomes this 1. E -> (M v R) 2. X 3. N -> ~O. 4. ~A 5. ~N 6. G There are no rules of inference in sentential logic, most probably the only formal logic my opponent is familiar with, or any other logic I've personally encountered that can justify such a conclusion, and it is invalid using a truth table. Be that as it may, I would be remiss if I did not attempt to formulate an argument that may be what my opponent meant to say, to be charitable, and I'll try that here. If my proposed argument is ultimately misguided, then I hope my argument will at least help him formulate an argument that's even stronger than the one I'm about to create. However, I am severely skeptical this type of argument can be made to be any stronger than the strength of the argument I am about to form. 1. If meaning exists, meaning exists physically or meaning exists in a rational mind. 2. If naturalism is true, then meaning exists physically. 3. Meaning does not exist physically. 4. Naturalism is true or God exists. 5. Therefore, naturalism is false. 6. Therefore, God exists. Formalized, my revision looks like this (please forgive the dots, as they are necessary due to formatting issues): 1. E -> (M v R)..........Pr. 2. N -> M..................Pr. 3. ~M.......................Pr. 4. N v G....................Pr. / G 5. ~N.......................M.T. 2,3 6. G.........................D.S. 4,5 To make my opponent's argument even more powerful, I recommend replacing premise 4 with the disjunction "Naturalism is true or there is a supernatural object", and the conclusion with "There is a supernatural object", since it seems that the falsity of naturalism entails that something supernatural exists. I chose not to do this since my opponent's argument has God involved, and it seemed important, at least to the argument, to have my opponent's conclusion placed placed in my rendition. Arguably, this argument could be stronger by making it longer and using some more (plausible) premises, but I believe this type of argument suffers from so many weaknesses even in this concise, entailing-the-falsity-of-just-naturalism form that trying to get God from meaning would be an exercise in futility. As stated, I believe this to be the most powerful form I can generate of this type of argument with the time allotted to me, and I believe I have behaved charitably in forming an argument that's not only valid, but arguably sound (I believe it is sound, actually), but I still think it is a very weak argument. This sort of argument is not very useful as a polemic against naturalism, since a contender will simply deny premise 3 and/or premise 2 (and premise 4 in the first argument, which is why I advocate replacing the disjunction with something a little less philosophically loaded) depending on how sophisticated the atheist is. Problems result for the theist since these premises may be agreed upon by the theist (assuming she is not a physicalist) but denied by the atheist simply because her naturalistic paradigm entails meaning exists in matter. In other words, the atheist can simply state meaning exists physically since the mind is ultimately physical. Physicalism, then, becomes the topic of discussion, instead of the argument from meaning, making the argument irrelevant since the truthfulness or falsity of physicalism takes primacy over the debate on the nature of meaning. Put another way, the argument from meaning reduces to a "preaching to the choir"-type argument. The only individuals who agree with the premises in the first place will be theists of the dualistic variety; physicalists will deny premise 2 since the mind is physical, and meaning exists in the mind, then meaning is something or exists in something that is physical. Convincing the physicalist of the soundness of this argument involves convincing them of the truthfulness of dualism, or, at very least, the falsity of physicalism, which means this argument contains absolutely no persuasive force for people who are not already convinced of the truthfulness of its premises, and convincing them of its truthfulness involves discussions of issues that are, at best, tangential to the argument itself and hotly debated in academic literature. Even if you ever do encounter and convince an atheist physicalism is false, whether or not this entails the falsity of naturalism may be debated, and the idea the falsity of naturalism entails God exists is yet another debatable point. My opponent would be better off studying dualism and physicalism thoroughly and what these entail for theistic and atheistic paradigms rather than focusing on some sort of "argument from meaning" that is, at best, irrelevant, and, at worst, demonstratively invalid.