In Response to Dr. Vijaya Rajiva's The Rig Veda and Hindu Polytheism

The article I am responding to: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2012/04/rig-veda-and-hindu-polytheism-dr-vijaya.html

I was not very impressed with the article, partly because it did not address any of my concerns, being an atheist, and partly because it used some non-philosophical rhetoric. As an atheist, I do not have the one god prejudice any more than I have the prejudice for tooth fairies or transcendental sandwiches. As a philosopher, I kind of distrust any paper that uses common fallacies like appeal to tradition.

The first issue I had were the culture war sophistry for the superiority of the Hindu faith. There is significant number of examples of defining polytheism in opposition to monotheism, but these depend on appeals to common practice and other fallacies. The prejudice for many gods is just as bad as the prejudice for one god. The prejudice for the old is just as bad as the prejudice for the new. The prejudice for the wide-spread is just as bad for the prejudice for the parochial.

The other big fallacy in the first section is the reverse naturalistic fallacy. In short, this fallacy is the assumption that if there is something morally objectionable about a theory or a theory's practitioners, it is false. This is done mostly by correctly detailing an imperial expansion of the monotheistic meme around the world. The belief of your conquers is not made false just because they harm people in the name of it or change the worldwide belief economy. This is no better than those who rejected evolution by natural selection because they morally objected to survival of the fittest, which had some political edge to it because of the Social Darwinists.

The only reason why polytheism in general bothers me more than monotheism is because polytheism populates our ontology with way more entities than monotheism. I rather avoid the superstition of the demon-haunted world, not to say monotheists, especially Catholics, are any less demon-haunted by their ridiculous beliefs about saints and sin. Philosophical monotheism tends to separate the woo from the natural world and put it into some abstract eternal realm in which its causal functions are limited to causing universes. Superficially at least, I rather do science with someone who was talking about the same natural world as I was. In other words, I prefer the least spiritual outlook as opposed to Dr. Vijaya Rajiva commitment to a 'deep spirituality' because I prefer the most accurate worldview, which so happens to be a world without spirits, beyond number or otherwise.

As for the philosophical arguments, I know a few for both sides. One long lasting idea which is not directly addressed in this paper are the reasons that led to monotheism in philosophy separate from the ideas of the Abrahamic faiths. The idea of one god became popular by those who thought that perfection is complete wholeness, without limits. This wholism is the one in monotheism, and the without limits is the omnipotence, omniscience, etc. Some of the Ancient Greek thinkers thought that their polytheistic gods imperfections (being prone to fear, anger, fickleness) demonstrated that they were not really gods. Plato created developed this philosophy so that this perfection was immaterial, with the understanding that material things are imperfect because they deteriorate. Plato saw the goal of love as an aspiration for the perfect, which he called Logos, which in Christianity became the Word. (In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was God.")

As for polytheistic arguments, the one I am most familiar with is David Hume's The Natural History of Religion (1755) and Dialogues (1776). David Hume's The Natural History of Religion has similar arguments about the tolerance and social wellness of Polytheism compared to Monotheism, so I do suggest you read it if you have not already. The Dialogues include an argument from design, if my memory serves me right, that the universe is contains a variety of design therefore there should be variety amongst the creators as well. I am not sure if this was intended as a reductio ad absurdum, but you get the point.

As for the philosophical arguments given in the essay, it is interesting to note that she admits that there is no valid evidence that monotheists have for their god. As my atheist colleagues might say, 'what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.' I would only wish that Dr. Vijaya Rajiva would apply the same skepticism to polytheistic spirits.

The cosmological argument is weird because it feeds off a locally believed notion of the supreme cause that is particular to ancient India. That is that the supreme cause is beyond number. The argument that is presented in the text uses a reductio ad absurdum in order to attempt to demonstrate that the supreme cause must be beyond number because then 'number would be the cause'. In a sense, this is a gross misinterpretation of the monotheistic position. If oneness is understood as an aspect of perfection, it is perfection that is the cause not number. Wholeness (or oneness) is seen as essential to perfection in the theological and philosophical development of monotheism, and this is a gross misunderstanding of the term.

Beyond the objection from the way abstract concepts play in these a priori arguments, I reject the idea that there is a supreme cause anyways because there is no evidence that there is one and no logical need for one either. Speculation about how many metaphysical sandwiches exist outside our universe is just as fruitless an exercise of reason as positing entities and properties of those entities outside our universe. Most of this is because we do not know if what kind of causes cause universes or if universes are caused at all, so it is all speculation. This does not mean we cannot believe in theoretical entities beyond our direct observation, but the process of getting to those entities according to the most widely accepted epistemologies in post-analytic philosophy is too deep to discuss in this paper.

In Response to Michael Antony's Where's The Evidence?

The article: http://www.philosophynow.org/issues/78/Wheres_The_Evidence

I am Eric, the philosophy major people in main chat might have told you about. I read the article and have an opinion. Before that opinion, there are two things to point out: 

1) "Michael Antony is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Haifa, Israel. He is writing a book on how to approach the question of whether there is a divine reality, and what it might be like." This tells us where he is coming from. 

2) The use of the term New Atheist to label this generation of atheism is pejorative and often used to say that we are less rational and sophisticated than some Old Atheism. 

Responding to his some of his arguments: 

1) He believes from the common understanding (our understanding excluded) that agnosticism and atheism are mutually exclusive. The general response you might get from the atheist community is: Agnosticism deals with knowledge, and Atheism with belief, so you can be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist. 

I for one am fine with the falliblist version of Gnostic Atheism. I could logically be wrong, but I am justified in thinking I am right, and I call this knowledge still. This is why I can say I know you exist, even though I might be a brain in a vat being fed a simulation. I just does not make sense to let these extreme cases infringe on the practical pursuit of knowledge. 

Dr. Antony is right about one thing, atheists do need a reason to say god does not exist if they are talking about a positive belief what kind of world they live in. This is the same for why we might believe that there is only natural phenomena. One reason to reject god is that what makes an extraordinary claim extraordinary is that it is probably not true (does not fit with what we know to occur), especially given the strength of naturalism. 

2. For some philosophers like Karl Popper, science was only proving negatives. You would construct a hypothesis, and you pragmatically believed it was true until it failed a prediction, and there you would refine your hypothesis. Most scientists and philosophers are realists unlike Popper about our theories, meaning they think they are true, or at least approximately true. 

[I am skipping to 5 for the sake of brevity and not repeating  myself.]

5. While normally Dr. Antony would be right that any claim about the world would require evidence, even one about the non-existence of something, the issue in regards to the atheism debate is very different. When you already have a lot of background theory (naturalism in particular), atheism fits with our best understanding of the world in science more than theism does. We can make lots of predictions about the universe by ignoring god in our theories. This is why the burden is on theists in this case. 

These are five arguments that clarify and reinforce my position against the existence of a god. One can use the Russell's Teapot to demonstrate the problem of absence of evidence. I do not know with certainty that there is not a teapot in Saturn's rings, but I am very much justified in thinking there's not one. Another disproof of god is to ask which god. Since there are infinite number of possible gods, there is a certain incredulity of someone who says atheism versus my conception of god. Thirdly, there is the greater strength that the more conservative position holds. One person says there is an intangible, invisible dragon in their garage. Without evidence, we have good reason to believe it is true, the chances of it being false are high. Finally, there is the issue of most believed gods are falsifiable. If you say something about the world in regards to your gods interaction with it, then there should be evidence for it. When there is absence of evidence when you expect evidence, you are justified in rejecting the belief.

In response to pseudo-science peddling based on purposefully misinterpreted quantum mechanics

To quote the description of a book that someone referenced the emptiness of materialism by through quantum mechanics on a number of issues they thought quantum mechanics was related: "God Is Not Dead [the title of the book in question] will change how readers think and experience the nature of reality, the existence of souls, the power of dreams, the universality of love, the possibility of ESP, and the very mind of God." This is the kind of peudo-science peddling that really bothers me, not to mention many of my colleagues.

(That book: http://www.amazon.com/God-Is-Not-Dead-Quantum/dp/1571745637)

1) Quantum mechanics "provides a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics)This means it merely is trying to explain the behavior of sub-atomic particles. It is extremely dishonest to peddle the weirder findings of this science as dealing with anything with consciousness, god, ethics, or emotions. For instance, the posited effected of observation on subatomic particles is the counter-intuitive effect measurement has on collapsing particles into a state. Consciousness never really plays a role (though I am disagreeing with some theorist who think that brain states somehow cause subatomic states, but I think I am safe in that disagreement).2) One argument pseudo-scientists peddle is that it requires an observer for the universe to exist. This would mean something would have to exist in order to observe the universe. The issue being how does this observe exist. They might claim that it is god, but that is just making an exception to the rule that things need observers to exist. It is safer to say that we cannot know sub-atomic happenings beyond our consciousness of them, but we can easily say that existence persisted long before conscious organisms evolved.

3) It is often said that you cannot get an 'ought from an is' because no matter how the world is, that does not demonstrate how the world ought to be. Quantum mechanics is a descriptive account of sub-atomic happenings. It is hardly a perfect theory and scientists are still trying to figure out a better one that unifies observations on the large scale with the small scale. Being descriptive and restrictively about microscopic events that do no bubble up to anything relevant to the daily lives of humans, there is no way for quantum mechanics to feature into a substantive theory about right and wrong.

4) Souls do not exist. All major theories that are attempting to flesh out the relationship between psychology and neuroscience have long ago abandoned dualism as being too dubious a theory, especially in the realm of causation. The main reason that I reject dualism beyond the usual examples of being radically misleading to the nature of relevant phenomena like mental illness is that since materialism relies on what we know exists and has found that strong neuro-corelates to our mental reports that a project of at least a functional account is possible if not an eliminative materialist. Dualism depends on the positing of an unobservable substance that is immeasurable as a way of explaining away problems in the observable (in this case, mental phenomena). Just like the god hypothesis which is used to explain away any problem we do not know the solution to and are not curious enough or incapable of knowing, dualism has been rejected.(functionalism: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/)(eliminative materialism: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/)

5) The universality of love depends one on your definition. Greeks had many words that roughly translate into the English word. Even if every human organism had the brain functions associated with the love you are speaking of, the strange occurrences of sub-atomic particles does not bubble up to the neural level, so it irrelevant to the cognition of 'love'. Of course, you can probably make a ethical hypothesis along the lines of care ethics that is based on instances of whatever you want to count as love, but there are important objections to care ethics one should take into account whenever formulating the hypothesis no matter how sound it seems to the theorist. I have not come to a conclusion on what I think morality is, but if I were to incorporate love, I would probably reduce it into special kinds of desires concerning the states of affairs of others.

6)...You could win a million dollars if you could prove ESP from the James Randi Education Foundation (JREF). They are better suited for debunking ESP claims than I, but I doubt those skeptical of skepticism with their conspiracy-like over-thinking would appreciate anything JREF or I had to say about this. (JREF: http://www.randi.org/site/)

Eliminative Materialism

Eliminative Materialism best explains the nature of the mind. Eliminative materialism is the thesis that the brain is the ground of the mental and that science will eliminate significant portions of the language about the mind that came before brain science. Dualism and identity theory make explanatory mistakes, and it is because of these failures that highlight a reason to accept eliminative materialist view. Dualists posit entities beyond necessity that are more mysterious than what they are trying to explain. Identity theory keeps the language of the dualists when the language is radically misleading and false. Functionalism is the most defensible alternative to eliminative materialism, but this is only true because Multiple Realiziablility is compatible with a form of physicalism I defend. As long as physicalism is maintained, there is no contradiction between the eliminative position and functionalism.

When the dualists were attempting to explain the cause of human behavior, they posited many unobservable entities. The dualists were correct in noticing that there is a reason beyond what they could see that made the human body act intelligently, but they overpopulated their ontology of the mind. Most important to this is the soul or res cogitans. The soul was like a puppeteer that moved the body somehow. One of the big hurdles of dualism was explaining how two different substances could causally interact. This hurdle meant that not only did the dualists to explain the mind but also a series of very speculative laws.

In Paul Churchland’s Eliminative Materialism, he describes a history of eliminations of dualistic hypotheses. Like caloric fluid, philoston, and vitalism are examples of these eliminations.¹ Caloric fluid was a theory that posited an unobservable substance that explains heat (TPOM 131). Mean kinetic energy replaced this (TPOM 131).

Philgiston was a spirit-like substance which left rusting or burning objects (TPOM 131). Because philogiston was radically misdescriptive for what was actually occurring (i.e. combustion and oxidation), it was “not suitable for reduction to or identification with some notion from within the new oxygen chemistry, and it was eliminated from science” (TPOM 131).

Vitalism tried to explain why some matter was living and why some was not. It was believed that an animating spirit must explain the different sense at the time people did not know that physical processes could exhaustively explain life. In the case of vitalism, this conceptualization of life was so ingrained in people that it seemed to be a contradiction of terms.

The mind is similar to these, vitalism in particular, in that the properties attributed to it are in conflict with the observable (i.e. the physical). One of the reasons people reject physicalism about the mind is because the mind is said to have freewill but purely physical systems are deterministic. Another is that “it would make sense to say of a molecular movement in the brain that it is swift or slow, straight or circular, but it makes no sense to say this of the experience of seeing something yellow” (TPOM 91). At every turn it seems that the language we inherited for the mind fails to meet what we observe in the brain.

In Churchland’s explanatory argument, he demonstrates why this language ought to be eliminated. Folk psychology has “widespread explanatory, predictive, and manipulative failures” (TPOM 132). Since there has been insignificant progress in folk psycology in the last two thousand years, it makes sense that there would be significant explanatory errors given our scientific progress (TPOM 132). Just like the early Christians thought epilepsy was demon possession and the Greeks thought lunatics were influenced by the moon, our inherited language radically mischaracterizes intelligence, memory, sleep, and mental illness (TPOM 132). Some of these concepts, sleep in particular, will not be eliminated; however, the point here is that methodologically speaking, we should not start with our inherited language to figure out what the mind is but rather the brain. This will definitely help when exploring the causes and possible cures of mental illness which clearly has a physical basis in the brain.

Aside from the cultural and historical reasons for belief in substance dualism, people often appeal to the first-hand knowledge of the mind which gives them insight to its non-physical nature. Richard Rorty counters this with his witch doctor analogy in Mind-Body, Privacy, and Categories. In it, he characterizes a subclass of people called witch doctors who take a special drug (TPOM 114). When someone sick comes to these witch doctors, the drug enables them to see demons which correspond to his or her affliction and prescribe herbal remedies that the demons seem to hate (TPOM 114-5). From the scientifically informed, demon-talk is nonsense. It is germs that cause diseases and appeals to the supernatural only serve to add more mystery to the nature of illness (TPOM 115). Though Rorty appeals to the historical successes of using Occam’s Razor, the reason here is more a priori (TPOM 115). A more complicated theory is less likely to be true than a simpler theory when they both explain the same evidence sufficiently.

With these reasons to reject dualism in favor of eliminative materialism in mind, the identity theory makes the mistake of maintaining the flawed language of the dualists. While correct in identifying the brain as the seat of the mind, their hope that there will be identities for desires, beliefs, and sensations is misguided. Paul Churchland’s inductive argument demonstrates this. He argues from history that folk psychology belongs to a long list of failed hypotheses which will be eliminated (TPOM 133). The reason for this grouping has to do with the methods and general traits that ontologies have been eliminated before in science. Given a history of eliminations, we can reasonably conclude that remaining concepts that carry the same relevant explanatory traits as those already eliminated (i.e. dualistic, unobservable, and mysterious) will also be eliminated as the new science arrives. This means we should avoid grounding any theory of mind in this old language that definitely carries vague and inaccurate terminology (i.e. mental illness and intelligence).

Another argument against the identity theorists is that they make a methodological mistake. As Rorty argues, the identity theorist confuses a translation identity with a disappearance one. On one hand, there is translation identity which is when ‘X is nothing but Y’ (TPOM 113). For instance, chairs are nothing but atoms. On the other, there is disappearance identity which is also ‘X is nothing but Y’ but by the way ‘X does not exist’ (TPOM 113). For example, unicorn horns are nothing but narwhal horns, but by the way unicorns do not exist (TPOM 116). Rorty’s point is that the identity theorist commits to there being desires, sensations, and various other mental phenomena when they should be wary of such ontological commitments. For Rorty, committing to the existence of sensations is like saying that narwhals have unicorn horns, which implies that unicorns exist (TPOM 116). Given Churchland’s argument about the fatal weaknesses of folk psychology, we ought to take the disappearance route when it comes to the mind.

The last alternate theory to consider is functionalism. As already argued, any theory of mind that refers to folk psychology and attempts to draw identities with it is going to fail. This applies to functionalism as well; however, not every functionalism needs to appeal to folk psychology. While identity theory would just be eliminative materialism without folk psychology, functionalism is based on a different assumption and does not necessarily need to make identities between traditional mental ontology and functions. This more eliminativist form of functionalism is what I will address as the greatest competitor for eliminative materialism.

At the core of functionalism are two intuitions which are demonstrated by the multiple realiziability argument (MRA). These two intuitions are 1) properties can be realized by multiple non-identical structures and 2) if a property is held by multiple non-identical structures it cannot be identical with that structure (PM 121). The first intuition seems to imply the second, but there are reasons for rejecting this, which I will not address here.

MRA utilizes the transitive property in order to demonstrate the absurdity of the identity thesis and undermine the unity of science by disassociating properties. The argument can be stated as follows:

1. Identity thesis is only true if and only if every mental state is identical with a physical state (PM 97).
2. Two beings, A and B, have different kinds of brains such that P₁≠_def P₂.
3. When A is in mental state M, A is in brain state P₁.
4. When B is in mental state M, B is in brain state P₂.
5. If P₁≠_def M is true, P₂≠_def M is also true and vice versa.
6. If (P₁=_def M) and (P₂=_def M), P₁=_def P₂.
7. From 2, 5, and 6, (P₁≠_def M) and (P₂≠_def M).
8. From 1 and 7, it follows that identity theory is false.

One way the eliminative materialism may respond is to reject the folk psychological baggage that allows for disassociation of mind and body that makes positing the same mental event in non-identical brains possible. The functionalist has a reasonable response that we would be foolish if we thought that only one brain could achieve this property. This response is backed up by a whole realm of properties like color and shape that obviously have non-identical physical realizers. I agree with the functionalist in that eliminative materialist must account for the high probability that similar mental events could be multiply realized.

The only justifiable position in my opinion that the eliminative materialist can take in response to MRA is to embrace the difference between higher and lower properties without committing to a formal property dualism. A formal property dualism would imply that one property supervenes on the other. Since higher properties are derivative of the contextual existence of physical substance that is the basis of all that exists, there relation is importantly different than what supervenience implies. Jaegwon Kim in Philosophy of Mind describes other supervience relations to demonstrate this non-causal aspect the relation by comparing it to the relation some philosophers posit as lying between the physical and the ethical (PM 9). Since the intuition is that ethical properties are not ‘nothing but the physical’, supervience serves to divide two sets of properties as distinct and unbridgeable. This is a rejection of the unity of science.

Rejecting this distinction, Rather than the mental state of A and B being strictly identical with the physical story of their respective brain states, the mental is identical with only a particular part of the physical story while remaining completely a result of each physical story respectively. In other words, the fact that two physical things have the same function (i.e. mental state) does not undermine the physical story behind it. For example, I can cross the sea by plane or by boat. Both do the same thing but have different physical stories. It would be absurd to say that my crossing the sea was somehow not a physical occurrence just because the mode of transportation is different. Similarly, two non-identical molecules may be hit by white light and reflect the color red, but physicists can give detailed account of why the properties of each the molecules respectively and the properties of light result when the two interact to result in red light.

Since this theory of properties provides a sufficient physical account of why mental properties exist, there is no need to appeal to a more complicated theory which would divide the properties in a formally dualistic fashion. Returning to Rorty’s witch doctor example, when presented with two explanatorily sufficient theories, demon theory and germ theory, germ theory wins because it is far simpler. This theory explains why mental states exist but by using the physical laws that are already in our ontology. Formal property dualism would have it that these properties are unbridgeable, positing new kinds of relations like supervience. Like demons theory, this overly complicates and arguably mystifies the relation between the physical story and the mental. In conclusion, eliminative materialism is the best theory because it does not make the explanatory errors of folk psychology and it most simply while remain sufficient explains the nature of the mind.

1 Churchland uses heavenly spheres as his third example but I chose vitalism instead for two reasons. First, it directly relates to how a drive for translation identity between a dualistic concept and a physical instance hindered progress towards a coherent world view. Second, I will address the ‘observable’ elimination that Churchland is aiming for in his heavenly spheres example in Richard Rorty’s witch doctor thought experiment.

A New Theory of Epistemic Freewill

The two figures will be added later when I find a compatible way to add them.
         Because internalist (ITR) and externalist (ETR) theories of reference lead to mutually exclusive intuitions about freewill and ITR underlies the current understanding of epistemic freewill, ETR would yield a different account of epistemic freewill. Since the type of theory of reference inspires these intuitions about freewill, they are not intuitions in the proper sense (i.e. being pre-theoretical), so I refer to them as improper intuitions. ITR places the burden of correctly referring on adhering to a description, while ETR places the burden on something external to how the individual perceives the world like causal relations. Sometimes these different views are characterized as being the first-person and third person perspective respectively.

Origin of Metaphysical Freewill in Theories of Reference:

First is ITR and its notion of freewill. The internalist utilizes the mind's eye in referring to many phenomena directly relating to subjectivity. Since there are limits to introspection, it seems as if thoughts come out of the nether for internalists. It is impossible for the mind to have access to where thoughts come from. This leads to an absence of evidence of thoughts having origins. This does not mean there is evidence of absence, but the internalist is justified by their own theory that it seems to be the case that thoughts and intentions come from the nether of the self. This “nether” is well described by Nagel in his The Self as a Private Object:

The concept of the self seems suspiciously pure—too pure—when we look at it from inside. The self is the ultimate private object, apparently lacking logical connections to anything else, mental or physical.¹

The “ultimate private object” view is the origin of the short-lived philosophy called Existentialism, which had many anti-extropection themes about questions about humanity and freewill. Sartre made the view that the self is nothing famous in his work Being and Nothingness. This is relevant because Sartre's extreme internalists views demonstrate who ITR's improper intuitions of this nothingness applies to many metaphysical phenomena, especially freewill.

When a person refers to freewill, ITR identifies freewill with this assumed metaphysical status of indeterminacy. This leads to the improper intuition that Metaphysical Freewill (f) is identical with being a Uncaused Thinking Being (-D). The underlying argument for this belief is:

b(-D)

b(-D<=>f)

Therefore,

b(f)

There is an opening to question whether the transmission principle can logically apply to beliefs, but what is important that this is the underlying assumptions of the internalistic freewill. Since freewill is identified with indeterminism, the internalist is committed to the belief that if things are not as they seem and humans are completely determininistic beings, there is no freewill. In a way, the internalist puts an external condition on metaphysical freewill.

When a descriptor changes, the referent changes in ITR. For externalists, the metaphysical status of the referent does not change when its description changes. The focus is on underlying facts about the world of which a person may not be aware. In Self as a Private Object, Nagel defends the externalist approach:

I may understand and be able to apply the term “I” to myself without knowing what I really am. In Kripke's phrase, what I use to fix the reference of the term does not tell me everything about the nature of the referent.²

Nagel proceeds to argue that from the externalist position, when the word “I” is used, it refers to the rigid designator the brain. Following the same formula, the externalist fixes the referent of freewill to some activity in the brain without knowing precisely the nature of that activity.

Science is a major part of externalism, and the findings of science help in precision of what the referent is. Science has demonstrated that the universe is both materialistic and deterministic and that the referent for thought is rooted in the brain. Neuroscience has found many physical origins for human thought. These combined facts lead many externalists to identify freewill with a proper causal history rather than indeterminacy.³

While there are externalists who identify indeterminacy as part of their theory of freewill, their attempts to bring indeterminacy to the level of human cognition is unfounded. Robert Kane has one of the best arguments for naturalistic freewill based on indeterminacy:

There is a tension and uncertainty in our minds at such times of inner conflict which are reflected in appropriate regions of our brains by movement away from thermodynamic equilibrium—in short, a kind of stirring up of chaos in the brain that makes it sensitive to micro-indeterminacies at the neuronal level. As a result, the uncertainty and inner tension we feel at such sou-searching moments of self-formation is reflected in the indeterminacy of our neural processes themselves.⁴

While this is definitely externalist in language, the method is not. Kane does recognize that most of the time humans act deterministically, and there is evidence for this, but there is not enough evidence for this agency freewill that Kane proposes. Until there is evidence that micro-indeterminacies can bubble up to the cognitive level and be identified with the referent cognition for freewill, the externalist must restrict freewill to deterministic causal history.

Since the externalist identifies freewill with proper causation (i.e. particular cognitive activity correlating with consciousness), the externalist's improper intuitions lead to the conclusion that indeterminism would undermine freewill. As in Figure 1, external causal histories that lead to human actions like both a branch that causes a person to trip and indeterminism would not be proper causation, sothe externalist considers both unfree conditions. Indeterminism implies the Luck Principle, which Kane defines as:

If an is undetermined at a time t, then its happening rather than not happening at t would be a matter of chance or luck, and so it could not be free and responsible action.⁵

Figure 1

The only route left for externalist after accepting the intuition of proper causation is a deterministic story of how causes in the brain lead to free and responsible action. The matter of how external causes conspired to bring about that particular brain state is irrelevant to the degree that it does not undermine the rationality and responsibility of the agent.

There is an internalist improper intuition that critiques this aspect of determinism. How can one be free if events before his or her birth decided what he or she does now? The internalist sees this as obvious objection because the internalist places a condition on freewill on when the choice is made rather then how it comes about. Since a choice seems to originate within the self, the internalist identifies freewill with this act of choice. The externalist does not have this strict notion of when the choice becomes set, so this objection does not undermine externalist freewill.

A similar objection to determinism is that it takes away agency in the process of developing ones beliefs. If determinism is true, unintelligent forces have brought the agent to his or her beliefs. These beliefs cannot be considered reliable because they were not arrived to by reason. This objection contains the internalist improper intuition of how reasoning works. The internalist identifies reliable beliefs as coming through a process of consideration of possible beliefs. The externalist may make an analogy here to computers. We do not consider computers to have counter-causal freewill but often think that a computer's calculations are reliable. Though brains are not the same as computers, if thinking follows logical rules, its conclusions should be considered valid. Since the externalist can identify the Law of Non-contradiction in human cognition, the internalist would have to reject this law if he or she completely rejects the foundation of deterministic human thought.

The point here is not to prove internalism or externalism but to demonstrate that the both views have very different understandings freewill and the issues surrounding it. Some have attempted to demonstrate that these differences between the two views reveal a underlying metaphysics, especially concerning property dualism. The basic argument is that not only are internalist and externalist accounts have irreducible differences but actually these differences indicate that there are phenomena only discoverable in one of the two views. Before I can move forward with my thesis that internalism and externalism have different intuitions about the same phenomenon because these intuitions are improper, I must prove that using both a internalist and externalist theories of reference does not justify positing two phenomena.

Dualism and adopting both theories of reference:

There are three major arguments that stem from the combination of internalism and externalism, and they end up advocating metaphysical positions, most notably for property dualism. First, in What Is It Like to Be a Bat?, Thomas Nagel presents a novel Modal argument, which attempts to demonstrate that the truth-makers for the mind and brain are different and the difference is non-physical. Second, in Epiphenomenal Qualia, Frank Jackson presents the classic Knowledge argument which also carries the name Mary argument because of his essay. Jackson attempts to demonstrate that there are two real kinds of truth-makers because some facts cannot be accounted for in a strictly externalist approach. Third, John Searle, in Reductionism and the Irreducibility of Consciousness, and Nagel, in What Is It Like to Be a Bat, present irreducibility arguments. While the first two arguments attempt to demonstrate the need to adopt both theories of reference by finding a limit in externalism, this last argument is the most relevant for it directly utilizes both theories of reference to come to the same conclusion.

In his Modal argument, Thomas Nagel argues that since it is conceivable that a brain without a mid could exist with all the same external (that is, physical) facts as a brain with a mind, the mind is not identical with external references. In other words, the mind has more truth conditions than the brain since the brain is not sufficient for a mind. This argument translates:

1. m=>B
2. B≠>m
   Therefore,
   3. B+x=>m
   B+x=>m implies that there is something more (x) to the mind (m) than the brain (B), which is the point of Nagel's model argument. The internal account has a reference to this x which the external does not, and according to Nagel, this demonstrates metaphysical reality.

Patricia Churchland has an excellent externalist argument against this. Since the externalist does not have the improper intuition that the mind has these private objects, externalists like Churchland have arguments against any commitment to non-externalist definitions. She asserts that “what neurophilophy is really interested in is the actual empirical world,” so “a proper explanation must foreclose logical possibilities.”⁶ Churchland demonstrates that since externalists attempt to fix the reference in the actual empirical world, that arguments like Nagel's modal argument are irrelevant to metaphysical conclusions. Churchland proves this point by using the same logic of Nagel's modal argument to reach an absurd conclusion. She imagines another world where the speed of particles increase but temperature does not.⁷ Does this justify believing that temperature and kinetic motion are not identical in this universe? “No,” says the externalist.

Second, in the Knowledge argument (aka the Mary argument), Frank Jackson argues there are propositions that have first-person truth-conditions. Jackson provides a thought expierment of a person named Mary who knows all the physical facts about what happens in the brain when red is experienced.⁸ She has never actually experienced the color red, but when she does, she learns the color red. Since she learns a new fact that she did not have before and she had all the physical facts, she must have learned a non-physical fact.

Paul Churchland's argument against Jackson's Knowledge argument is neither convincing nor actually defending physicalism. Paul Churchland argues that if Mary new all the physical facts, she could visualize the color red.⁹ It seems very unlikely that Mary could visualize the color red if she had no impression of that part of the spectrum. Churchland's claim that Mary could somehow cause “spiking frequencies in the nth layer of [her] occipital cortex (or whatever)” through the imagining of a the proper brain state is ludicrous.¹⁰

A better argument against Jackson comes from John Perry in his Time, Consciousness and the Knowledge Argument paper. In that, Perry argues that if the truth-makers for the proposition “Mary has seen red” are physical, Mary has not learned a non-physical fact. Perry uses an example of a man named Larry who does knows all the relevant facts about an Interstate Road Map but does not know where he is.¹¹ When Larry learns his location on the map, he is not learning a non-spatial fact even though he knew the road map, rather he learned an additional physical fact (i.e. his physical location). Perry relates this to Mary, claiming in typical externalist fashion, that though Mary has the road map to the mind, Mary's new knowledge of red is only the universal external fact “A person named Mary had brain state A”.¹² Since the externalist has a method of finding externalist truth-makers for internalist propositions, arguments like Jackson's cannot demonstrate that there are two real kinds of truth-makers.

The last argument appears in both Nagel's What Is It Like to Be a Bat? and Searle's Reductionism and the Irreducibility of Consciousness and deals with properties. If extropection comes to one set of properties and introspection comes to another set, Nagel and Searle believe that this is grounds for claiming a form of property dualism. Paul Churchland originally breaks down Nagel's version argument in two forms.¹³

First as:

1. The qualia of my sensations are directly known by me, by introspection, as elements of my conscious self.
2. The properties of my brain states are not directly known to me, by introspection, as elements of my conscious self.
3. The qualia of my sensations≠the properties of my brain states
   Second as:
   1. Fa
   2. -Fb
   3. a≠b¹⁴
   This argument most directly addresses the issue of using introspection and extrospection to arrive at the conclusion that there are two unidentical phenomena. Nagel concludes that a objective phenomenology is only possible for those with a similar brain as humans which integrates the subjective and the objective.¹⁵ Searle concludes with a form of Emergentism.¹⁶ Both conclude that objective cannot contain all the facts alone and that the subjective adds something to the story that is also real.

This form, according to Paul Churchland, commits the intensional fallacy.¹⁷ The intensional fallacy occurs when the difference between two ways one thing is recognized, perceived, or known under some specific description is used to conclude that there are in fact two things.¹⁸ A classic of this is as follows:

1. Lois Lane believes that Superman can fly.
2. Lois Lane does not believe that Clark Kent can fly.
3. Therefore Superman and Clark Kent are not the same person.

The problem with intensional fallacy critique is that it exists only in externalism because in internalism description distinguishes referents. Something very much like the intensional fallacy is committed. In this case, the very theories of references is where the disagreement occurs.

While I used the first two arguments to demonstrate that it is not necessary to adopt both theories of reference in order account for supposed gaps in externalist account of phenomena, this third argument is a direct result of adopting both theories. Is it fallicous to utilize two opposing theories to make a metaphysical conclusion? Here, it is important to recognize that internalism and externalism could be made one theory if one assumes that they are compatible, so this formation of the question (i.e. “opposing theories”) is premature.

The best way usually to demonstrate any theory is false is that it is either self-contradicting or leads to absurdities. In the case of this combination approach, it leads to an infinite regress. Take the internalist and externalist stories about the stars the internalist calls the Morning Star and Evening Star and what the externalist calls Venus. Here, the internalist seems to come upon knowledge of two phenomena that externalists do not have (two stars instead of one). The fact that there are two stars becomes non-physical while the fact that there is one star becomes physical because of the irreducible conflict between the two kinds of reference. This process of dividing reality into objects of experience and objects beyond experience eventually leads to two distinct metaphysical realms.

While the Kantians may not be as disturbed by this division as its so far been described, the division starts leading to absurdities and impossibilities. A whole host of important metaphysical concepts get doubled. Since the externalist and internalist have two different accounts of the self, two selves exist (the object of experience self and the physical self). This means the idea of one-to-one identity must be thrown out if this is all within the same reality and there is come connection between the two selves. The combination must claim that the selves exist in one reality or the presumption that there are one distinct thing could not be used to two demonstrate two things.

The internalist self gets doubled again. Since the externalism can give account of objects of experience, the internalist self now has externalized internalist self.¹⁹ The externalization of internal phenomena does not rereference the internal phenomena but create a new phenomena, so this process continues create new phenomena ad infitum. This infinite regress is the absurd by product of the commitment to both views.²⁰ Since it would be better not to combine externalism and internalism, it should be considered that the difference between externalism and internalism is not a by-product of a metaphysical difference but the theories themselves. This is not to say that there must be one phenomena behind any disagreement between the two theories, but only that the disagreement does not entail dualism. Dualism will have to proven another way other than simply from theories of reference. Back to the thesis, this means the intuitions used on the concept of freewill can be improper since they are from the theory of reference.

Epistemic Freewill:

Any theory of freewill that places emphasis on the metaphysical consequences of knowledge is an epistemic theory of freewill. The regular theory of epistemic freewill has internalist improper intuitions, so it parallels the idea of not having causes with no having knowledge. This is parallel is not intuited but based on the resultant behavior. In Figure 2, the resultant behavior for not having knowledge of one's determinacy is the same as if one was indeterminant, so the internalist concludes that Behavior B is what it means to be free.

Figure 2

I call this Negative Epistemic Freewill because it is based on the absence of knowledge.

There are powerful improper intuition pumps at work under this version of freewill. Many distopias have been imagined to articulate the unfreedom being predestined through a perfected science of genetics, neuroscience, and psychology, but one does not even have to go that far. The internalist need only bring up the affect of knowing ones future. The individual no longer has any chaos in his or her life and in a sense become trapped by the future. Take a roulette. It is completely determined, but the players do not know its determined future. Without the epistemic chance that one might win, the roulette wheel loses its attraction. The same could be said for life when it loses its epistemic possibilities. The result is that people become robots following a script. This roboticness is the resultant behavior of knowing ones determined future.

The new theory from the externalist position I call a Positive Epistemic Freewill because it depends on a proper positive knowledge of ones causation. In this case, Behavior B is associated with being unfree, while Behavior A is associated with freewill. For Positive Epistemic Freewill, it is not enough to be properly caused, but one must also know about this causation.

Powerful improper intuition pumps exist in this version as well. The externalist argues that if one does not know what will happen when they act, it is indistinguishable from erratic, irresponsible behavior. Take a button that makes hot chocolate. One person knows what it does, the other does not. The first does not press the button because she does not want that drink now, but the second not knowing what it does presses it guessing it might give him tea. For the second, the result could just have been any drink because he did not know what the button did. There was epistemic chance involved. With epistemic chance comes an epistemic Luck Principle.

A strong criticism of the positive account can be articulated in the form of John Locke's thought experiment of a man locked in a room. In one case, the man does not know he is locked in the room but he wants to be in the room nonetheless so does not check. In another case, the man knows he is locked, and despite wanting to be in the room, he no longer acts as if he had a choice to be in the room. If knowledge of ones determinism works like this, how does the positive account provide a sense of freewill?

The way a defender of the positive account can defend this position against the negative's critiques is by flipping it around a bit. Go back to the room again, but this time, the man who does not know tries to open the door only to frustrate himself. The one who does know instead optimizes his time doing what he wants (i.e. staying in that room). A person who knew everything would simply accomplish more of what he or she wants, and his or her knowledge would be part of the causal chain of completing those tasks. Understood like this, the positive account has a sense of freewill as anyone who is competent at what he or she does has.

While both theories do not disprove each other, they evade each others criticisms by not having the improper intuitions that drive them. There might be intuitions about freewill that both theories of reference share, but those will not be the source of conflict for any theory that is completely consistent with those intuitions. Positive Epistemic Freewill will have benefits in addressing some of the conservative arguments against transhumanism and the like so will become a valued member of the group of freewill theories that philosophers will use to construct arguments as humanity gathers more and more knowledge of its own determinism.

1The Self as a Private Object 201

2Self as a Private Object 207

3This only applies to externalist who do not think that freewill is merely a folk psychological construct of internalism.

4Responsibility, Luck and Chance: Reflection on Free Will and Indeterminism 419

5Responsibility, Luck, and Chance: Reflections on Free Will and Indeterminism 415

6Dualism and the Arguments against Neuroscientific Progress 324

7Ibid. 325

8Epiphenomenal Qualia 295

9Reduction, Qualia, and the Direct Introspection of the Brain 310

10Ibid. 310

11Time, Consciousness and the Knowledge Argument 78

12Ibid. 78-79, 81-82

13Nagel claims that the version of the argument he is defending is the modalized version. The reason for bringing up this formulation is not to address Nagel but Searle. Since this formation has deeper consequences to my thesis, I will not address the other version.

14Reduction, Qualia, and the Direct Introspection of the Brain 307

15What Is It Like to Be a Bat​? 291

16Reductionism and the Irreducibility of Consciousness 317

17Reduction, Qualia, and the Direct Introspection of the Brain 307

18Ibid.307

19Kantians will not have this problem because they do not combined externalism and internalism, though recognizing the possibility of external reference called the noumenon.

20Nagel uses what he calls his Dual Aspect Theory differently for identity than for the mind-body issue. Nagel would probably object to claim that this theory always entails two metaphysical phenomena, but as far as I can tell, the theory would be inconsistent if conflicts between extrospection and introspection did not always entail two distinct phenomena accessible each of the methods respectively.