The Argument from Meaning

By "object", I merely meant there is some supernaturally existent thing; it does not imply either a rational or irrational thing. By positing a supernatural object, we can allow for any sort of transcendent thing, from Zeus to the number two to God. Be that as it may, even if we grant the idea that naturalism is falsified, it does not get us to God. After all, there may be some religions who agree meaning is not reducible to physical phenomena yet nonetheless do not believe in God, instead there is some other rational being(s) or perhaps some irrational, transcendent force(s) that accounts for the "meaning" present in the human experience. But that is neither here nor there. My main criticism is not that the atheist would not agree to the premises (this is obviously the case), but that the premises rely on a superordinate discussion regarding physicalism and dualism, among other things. In other words, this argument is subsumed by the mind/body problem, rendering it, as I concluded, irrelevant. The argument from meaning does not get off the ground until physicalism and even property dualism have been extinguished as potential solutions for the mind/body problem that the argument from meaning can get off the ground. I am far more comfortable with property dualism than I am with substance dualism, and I am a theist myself. And this is only one issue. As far as the naturalist is concerned, meaning exists instead of meaninglessness because naturalistic forces are capable of generating a physical system capable of experiencing and producing meaning. The brain is, they argue, just such a physical system capable of this feat. The brain, also, shows that meaning is really just a physical phenomena. Indeed, the brain is actually a machine operating on deterministic mechanisms, just as much a machine as a computer with the rather spectacular ability to produce sensations and consciousness; this is no mean feat. However, there are problems with such a view, but these concerns must be dealt with first since there are some arguably independent reasons for thinking the brain is reducible to physical mechanisms, and so this is no ad hoc rebuttal to your argument and cannot be attacked on those grounds. This fact is why I gave the advice I did concerning studying the mind/body problem. Since there are some rather weighty concerns that must be dealt with before the argument from meaning gets off the ground, this makes the argument from meaning essentially irrelevant since if dualism is agreed to, naturalism is essentially falsified. That is, if naturalism is equated with physicalism, though this may not necessarily be the case, and the clever atheist may indeed argue why they are not to be equated. Now, property dualism does not necessarily imply meaning cannot come from physical processes either, since meaning could be caused by, but not identical to, some physical happening in the brain, but, ultimately, meaning is caused (or created) by some physical process, i.e. meaning can indeed be caused by some meaningless, physical process, which seems to potentially undercut the truthfulness of premise 2. A clever reworking of "naturalism" can be made to accommodate property dualism, yet meaning does not exist in anything physical. There are other metaphysical assumptions that appear to be at work in my opponent's argument, but I'll refrain from mentioning them since I think my concerns are already quite damning to opponent's argument. I would like to repeat another point since I think is worthy of some clarification. My concerns are not over the soundness of my opponent's argument, since I think it is indeed sound. My complaint is that it is irrelevant since even a robust discussion with the mind/body problem will not be enough to lend credence to this argument. Even if meaning is shown to only exist in a rational mind, there appears to be a very long road to God, since naturalism (if it's a very cleverly composed definition) and many other worldviews absent a concept of God (that is, there exists some omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent being) can possibly account for meaning existing a rational mind, and these concerns must also be dealt with. However, the main thrust of this is that all of these concerns, if properly rebutted, will imply the truthfulness of theism long before we arrive at the argument from meaning. Imagine some discussion where the clever theist has already shown that substance dualism is true and that naturalism and all other worldviews except bare bones theism don't have a chance of ultimately explaining all of the many features of the universe. Having accomplished this feat (and I applaud the theist who manages to do this), he then brings up the argument from meaning. His interlocuter will simply respond: "Well, you have already shown that theism is true by way to discrediting all other contenders, so why are showing me this argument?" In other words, there will be no persuasive force to this argument unless a person is already convinced of the truthfulness of the premises, but if the premises are already agreed to, this argument appears to be completely redundant to such a person, unless the person is, and this is not for comedic effect, an idiot to some degree or another. Even so, this argument may be used some catalyst (i.e. as a tool in the theist's little box of arguments) to engage in the discussion of the mind/body problem and the incoherency/implausibility of all atheistic worldviews, but these are such interesting subjects to begin with that you probably (indeed, it appears Christian apologists and every other philosophically inclined individual have been discussing these issues without ever hearing of this argument) don't even need to bring in the argument from meaning to discuss them. To put it even more simply, the issues involved in the argument from meaning that make it a poor argument are that the metaphysics assumed in it are so debatable (and indeed are debated very extensively in the literature) that it would be better to focus on those issues first. They will surely come up during the discussion of this argument, since they are necessary to argue for the truthfulness of the premises, and it is better to argue for the truthfulness of theism via that route than using this argument as the piï¿½ce de rï¿½sistance. Your interlocuter, already having exhausted the mind/body problem and found substance dualism to be the solution and convinced of the non-existent viability of atheistic worldviews, will find this argument to be completely redundant, which is precisely what I think it is. So, I maintain that this argument at best irrelevant and at worst invalid.