A Theistic God - On Balance - Does NOT Exist

Thanks Pro. A note to the viewers. Pro and I have agreed to change the format a bit. I will respond to Pro’s arguments in this round and I will not give rebuttals in the last round. I will now present my argument while rebutting my opponent's. Argument from Idealism My first argument attempts to prove it is likely that reality is dependant on God. I argue this solves the problem Pro brings up and demonstrates God’s existence. I will list the premises, then justifications. 1. The Mind Exists. 2. The Mind is not Physical. 3. Dualism is false. C. Monistic Idealism entails. Premise one This one is quite obvious. You cannot doubt the mind’s existence. As that is a contradiction. To doubt the mind requires a mind. We are certain that there is thinking, we cannot deny this. This is famously stated by Descartes as “Cogito ergo sum” [1] Or in english “I think, therefore I am". Premise one is justified, the mind exists Premise two If the mind is just physical events, then this would be an a posteriori necessity. For example, if Sally is the tallest person in the room and Salley has a red coat on, then the tallest person in the room has a red coat on. It is inconceivable in any possible world where Salley = tallest person in the room does the tallest person in the room not have the same properties as Salley. So if our world is one where the mental = the physical, then this means we shouldn’t be able to conceive of the mind separate from the body. We can easily conceive of a zombie world in which there are physical beings like us that act in the world exactly like us, but have no consciousness. They say ouch when you poke them, they say the are conscious when you ask them if they are, but they are just responding the physical stimuli. They aren’t really conscious. Say God is creating the world. He creates everything physical. Everything is functioning the same. Humans are just unconscious zombies. He is essentially done. He doesn’t need to do anything else. However, if he wants consciousness, he must add something extra. Consciousness must be some type of extra ingredient to what we call the physical realm. Making premise two justified. Correlations Pro does attempt to show the mind is some physical byproduct by appealing to mind- body correlations. However correlation doesn’t equal identity. Gravity and mass are correlated, but this doesn’t mean gravity is mass. Species and DNA are correlated, but this doesn’t mean species is DNA or species causes DNA. Furthermore correlations require both correlates. We could never really know if a squid’s consciousness correlates with its brain activity as it doesn’t talk to us. If someone is having their C-fiber stimulated and feeling pain, but says he isn’t, we would never conclude there is a correlation. Someone could get their brain damaged and try act as if their minds haven’t changed. We can’t look inside their consciousness and conclude they are really damaged, we have to accept it from their first person reports. We still need that first person report, so correlations still need some mysterious aspect of consciousness that’s not just third person science. Premise three So far, we’re at dualism. There is a physical and mental. However, I argue that dualism is false. Cartesian dualism states there is a physical world and a mental world. However, how can these two things interact? If a physical object causes a mental event, there must be some interaction. There must be some type of shared property in between these things. However, this leads to a contradiction. Perhaps some part of the mind has a physical property, well then we have to account for how that interacts with the non physical parts of it. Then we’re eventually back at materialism. Which isn’t dualism. Perhaps the physical has some type of mental properties, but then we go down the slopes into idealism, which isn’t dualism. We need a monistic ontology. But couldn’t someone just claim property dualism? Well, many property dualistic views lead to epiphenomenalism. The view that the mind is just a byproduct of the brain. However, this view cannot account for many things leading to ad hoc views.. Reason being one of them. We see that mental events can cause other mental events. I reason that Socrates is mortal, I reason that all men are mortal, and I come to the conclusion that Socrates is mortal. Epiphenomenalism would tell us mental events didn’t cause anything and the process of this reasoning is just an illusion created by our physical brains. This is very ad hoc. One could say mental events can cause things, however when considering them causing physical events we see it leads to absurdities. There is a story to be told about the physical event of me raising my arm and a mental story. We would then have causal overdetermination. It’s like two privately funded snipers hired to kill the same target and they kill the same target at the very same time. Furthermore, a general absurdity that extends to reductive and nonreductive alike is the absurdity of physical events being equal to mental events. It sounds perfectly fine and nice to say when we have the mental event of pain, we’re in a physical pain state, however it gets bad when we consider specifics. I believe I’m on DDO right now, thus I have a DDO online brain state. I believe I am an American, thus I have a Murica brain state (known to be the most patriotic of brain states). I like dogs more than cats, thus I have a dogs are better than cats brain state. So on and so on. This is clearly absurd to think we have some specific brain state for absolutely everything in our minds. It is unparsimonious and absurd. Thus premise three is justified. Conclusion We need a monistic ontology. Physicalism won’t work, then we must go to idealism. Mind cannot interact with the non-mind, thus mind is fundamental and makes up reality. However, how do we prove it’s a grand mind projecting reality and not a solipsist universe? Well, if my mind (or yours) was the only one in reality, then we should be able to control reality. We can easily test this. When I conceive of something happening or try to make something happen with my mind, nothing happens. This means my mind cannot be the mind projecting reality, there must be a grand mind that sustains the physical universe. A Theistic God, is the best explanation. Relation to Pro’s arguments How is it that God could interact with the physical world if God himself is not physical? Because the physical isn’t ontologically there. Everything is mental, God changing some aspect of the world is just him conceiving of some aspect of the world being different. Casper can catch the ball because the ball is made up of the same things casper is. There is no dualism between the two. Amputees The God being defending is “A personal God; intervenes in human affairs e.g. answers prayers”. This doesn’t mean God must interact with humanity all the time or in any specific example every time. God may not interact in any major scale for some reason, such as wanting us to take care of ourselves and not rely on him which would prevent technological advancements in medicine. It’s like a mother helping her child at its early ages. Then when he gets older she does not take care of him anymore. Universe This argument doesn’t seem complete. He just defines the universe. He’ll probably complete it in the next round. [1] Descartes, René (1644). Principia Philosophiae. http://books.google.com...