Teleology important for science

[Charlemagne_III]

If free will doesn’t exist we cannot be responsible for our thoughts, beliefs, choices, intentions, values, goals, ambitions, principles, ideals or principles. Self-determination cannot exist if there is no self! Even “meaning” becomes a meaningless term because it implies the existence of a rational mind whereas the brain is unaware that it or anything else exists. It simply responds to stimuli like any other bodily organ and cannot grasp the significance of events or even what it is doing. In short materialism is self-destructive and a hopelessly inadequate explanation of the richness of reality.

Materialism cannot even prove itself.

Just as atheists cannot prove there is no God, materialism cannot prove there is no spirit.

The materialist choose not to believe in God or spirit because it adopts a deliberately narrow methodology toward all knowledge without knowing for a certainty there is no other possible methodology to explore dimensions of life other than the material.

 

[tonyrey]

Sounds like a promissory note. It isn’t only propagandists who need to “raise their game.” It would seem that neuroscience needs to actually explain how free will and responsibility are compatible with chemistry and physics. It would seem very facile to make compatibilist claims and promises because “research is moving forward all the time;” another thing entirely to be certain about where “forward” actually gets us.

I mean, to know that any movement is headed in the direction of “forward” assumes with some degree of certainty the final destination and that any important “movements” with regard to what will be shown by relevant research will take us where it has been presumed to take us. The practical equivalent of begging the question – something like presuming the outcome.

“Let us not hold our collective breaths,” would be very good advice right about now.

It sounds as if the neuroscientists are heading backwards to the atomism of Democritus who revealed the same inconsistency:

       “Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.”

“Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity.”

       Yet:

“Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.”

“We know nothing truly about anything, but for each of us opining is a rearrangement of soul atoms.” :ehh:

 

[inocente]

Propagandists for scientific materialism really need to modify their game because they are merely succeeding in demonstrating they have absolutely no control over their beliefs and conclusions which, according to them, are the result of neurobiological processes - a view totally incompatible with Christ’s teaching that we are responsible for our behaviour. It is self-destructive into the bargain and answers the OP by rejecting the existence of teleology altogether, let alone being important for science!

I can cite mounds of evidence for what I say.

Whereas you’ve cited none. Despite being asked several times, you’ve not cited any evidence whatsoever for anything you claim.

And now you even claim the links I just cited don’t speak of responsibility, even after I gave you the title of the first - “Responsibility, mental illness and free will” - and told you it’s a class in a law school.

The profession most concerned with personal responsibility - the law - teaches the exact opposite of all that you claim.

Are you claiming judges and attorneys are part of some materialist conspiracy? Does that include the police, are cops in on it too? Oh, and don’t forget a majority of the world’s professional philosophers, in that survey I cited.

I believe Christ is in the light of reason. Christ is truth, not fiction. Unless you can belatedly start citing evidence for your claims on what materialists believe, I think we’re done here, don’t you?

 

[inocente]

Sounds like a promissory note. It isn’t only propagandists who need to “raise their game.” It would seem that neuroscience needs to actually explain how free will and responsibility are compatible with chemistry and physics. It would seem very facile to make compatibilist claims and promises because “research is moving forward all the time;” another thing entirely to be certain about where “forward” actually gets us.

I mean, to know that any movement is headed in the direction of “forward” assumes with some degree of certainty the final destination and that any important “movements” with regard to what will be shown by relevant research will take us where it has been presumed to take us. The practical equivalent of begging the question – something like presuming the outcome.

“Let us not hold our collective breaths,” would be very good advice right about now.

If you’re disagreeing with materialists for what they say then fine, but that’s a different conversation.

Tony made some specific claims (see earlier) about what he says materialists believe, which sounded very strange to me, so I asked him to support those claims with evidence. There are lots of materialists, including many professional philosophers (see survey cited earlier), so that should be easy for Tony.

But so far he’s not done so. He linked a few things, but they were nothing to do with what he claimed materialists believe. My only purpose was to point out that it would be vacuous to invent propaganda which has nothing to do with what materialists believe, and then debate that propaganda as if it isn’t a total fiction. For comparison I linked this CA article about what anti-Catholic propagandists invented without any evidence.

Until Tony produces evidence which actually supports his claims, can’t see there’s anything else to say.

 

[tonyrey]

I can cite mounds of evidence for what I say.

The only “evidence” for what you say are references to neuroscientists’ theories as if they are the Gospel truth, e.g:

The aim is to gain a sound understanding of the existing legal regulatory framework of neuroscience, and then to systematically explore if legal change is needed to maximise the benefits and minimise the dangers of this scientific paradigm.

“explore” is hardly a rational basis for a dogmatic conclusion of any description!

Whereas you’ve cited none. Despite being asked several times, you’ve not cited any evidence whatsoever for anything you claim.

One fact is sufficient: the **logical implications and consequences of the belief that all **our mental activity is caused by brain activity.

And now you even claim the links I just cited don’t speak of responsibility, even after I gave you the title of the first - “Responsibility, mental illness and free will” - and told you it’s a class in a law school.

Is a title a rational argument?

The profession most concerned with personal responsibility - the law - teaches the exact opposite of all that you claim.

You need to justify that dogmatic assertion. Cite a statement by anyone who is truly representative of **the majority **of judges, attorneys, police and professional philosophers to the effect that personal responsibility is an illusion because **all **our mental activity is caused by brain activity.:ehh:

Are you claiming judges and attorneys are part of some materialist conspiracy? Does that include the police, are cops in on it too? Oh, and don’t forget a majority of the world’s professional philosophers, in that survey I cited.

Are you claiming judges, attorneys, police and professional philosophers have totally rejected the concept of personal responsibility? If so why isn’t there a total absence of verdicts which find the accused “guilty”?

I believe Christ is in the light of reason. Christ is truth, not fiction. Unless you can belatedly start citing evidence for your claims on what materialists believe, I think we’re done here, don’t you?

There is certainly no point in continuing unless you produce specific evidence that personal responsibility is an illusion because all our mental activity is caused by brain activity.You seem to believe Christ taught that we are not responsible for anything we think, say or do…

 

[Peter_Plato]

I believe Christ is in the light of reason. Christ is truth, not fiction. Unless you can belatedly start citing evidence for your claims on what materialists believe, I think we’re done here, don’t you?

Let’s leave aside all the discussion about neuroscientists and behavioral determinists, and focus on whether your above belief is consistent with any form of materialistic determinism.

You say Christ is “truth” and the “light of reason,” yet Christ (AKA Second Person of the Godhead) incarnated as a human being, meaning he became fully man while remaining fully God. If a human being is merely the result of material interactions and nothing more, then how is it possible for Christ (fully God) to become a fully human man? His “becoming a man” would be nothing more than his becoming a specific collection of physical processes. How is that possibly consistent with God becoming man unless being a man entails something more than mere physical processes?

I wouldn’t think a Cartesian ghost in a machine or marionette on “spiritual” strings fully capture the idea of God becoming man. Something just seems to be missing in either. And yet something even more fundamental seems to be missing by claiming God becoming man entails merely that God became the agglomeration of ALL the biochemical processes which are all that are required to bring into existence a specific instance of any one particular “man.”

 

[inocente]

The only “evidence” for what you say are references to neuroscientists’ theories as if they are the Gospel truth, e.g:

“explore” is hardly a rational basis for a dogmatic conclusion of any description!

One fact is sufficient: the **logical implications and consequences of the belief that all **our mental activity is caused by brain activity.
Is a title a rational argument?
You need to justify that dogmatic assertion. Cite a statement by anyone who is truly representative of **the majority **of judges, attorneys, police and professional philosophers to the effect that personal responsibility is an illusion because **all **our mental activity is caused by brain activity.:ehh:

Are you claiming judges, attorneys, police and professional philosophers have totally rejected the concept of personal responsibility? If so why isn’t there a total absence of verdicts which find the accused “guilty”?
There is certainly no point in continuing unless you produce specific evidence that personal responsibility is an illusion because all our mental activity is caused by brain activity.You seem to believe Christ taught that we are not responsible for anything we think, say or do…

I asked you to back up your claims with some evidence. All you have to do is either produce the evidence or admit your claims were over the top. If instead you’re trying to bait me with yet more unwarranted claims, not tempted, sorry no dice.

 

[inocente]

Let’s leave aside all the discussion about neuroscientists and behavioral determinists, and focus on whether your above belief is consistent with any form of materialistic determinism.

You say Christ is “truth” and the “light of reason,” yet Christ (AKA Second Person of the Godhead) incarnated as a human being, meaning he became fully man while remaining fully God. If a human being is merely the result of material interactions and nothing more, then how is it possible for Christ (fully God) to become a fully human man? His “becoming a man” would be nothing more than his becoming a specific collection of physical processes. How is that possibly consistent with God becoming man unless being a man entails something more than mere physical processes?

I wouldn’t think a Cartesian ghost in a machine or marionette on “spiritual” strings fully capture the idea of God becoming man. Something just seems to be missing in either. And yet something even more fundamental seems to be missing by claiming God becoming man entails merely that God became the agglomeration of ALL the biochemical processes which are all that are required to bring into existence a specific instance of any one particular “man.”

Not sure I said anything about my beliefs on this thread recently, other than what you quoted. Really all I’m interested in currently is clarifying the strange claims made about materialism. As a moderate Christian I think it’s important to make a stand against fringe propaganda. It helps no one to misrepresent and disrespect others’ beliefs, particularly such large numbers of people.

Your questions are easily answered, thanks for asking, but I’d rather get that out the way first. Meanwhile, you may have noticed a style of thinking on the internet which I privately dub the Philosophy of Bafflement. It draws its conclusions by failing to find answers. For instance: IF only physical mind THEN baffled how X, THEREFORE it must be Y, QED.

Hmmm.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

You say Christ is “truth” and the “light of reason,” yet Christ (AKA Second Person of the Godhead) incarnated as a human being, meaning he became fully man while remaining fully God. If a human being is merely the result of material interactions and nothing more, then how is it possible for Christ (fully God) to become a fully human man? His “becoming a man” would be nothing more than his becoming a specific collection of physical processes. How is that possibly consistent with God becoming man unless being a man entails something more than mere physical processes?

Well said. Do not, I emphasize DO NOT, expect a rational reply to your remarks.

Or even a single reply from the materialists and their sympathizers.

 

[tonyrey]

I asked you to back up your claims with some evidence.

I produced the evidence in post 74 (long before you brought up your alleged counter-evidence which consists of nothing but references which don’t even contain information about the issue):

If it could be demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that all our mental activity has physical causes it would falsify the teleological claim that we are rational beings with free will who can choose what to believe, how to behave and who to love, thereby fulfilling the purposes for which we are created.

I have also pointed out it would violate the principle of conservation of energy - to which you still have not replied…

Since you continue to evade explaining how the theory **that all our mental activity is caused by brain activity is consistent with free will, belief in moral responsibility and the teaching of Jesus **there is no point in continuing to attempt to reason with you. I leave others to decide who is in the right…

All you have to do is either produce the evidence or admit your claims were over the top. If instead you’re trying to bait me with yet more unwarranted claims, not tempted, sorry no dice.

“yet more unwarranted claims” is clearly false because it is the very same point I made in post 74. If I were unChristian I would report you for making the unjustified accusation that I am “trying to bait” you but I shall simply advise you not to repeat it - unless you want to put it to the test…:tsktsk:
NB:

There has been much breathless talk of late about all the varied mysteries of human existence that have been or soon will be solved by neuroscience. As a clinical neuroscientist, I could easily expatiate on the wonders of a discipline that I believe has a better claim than mathematics to being Queen of the Sciences. For a start, it is a science in which many other sciences converge: physics, biology, chemistry, biophysics, biochemistry, pharmacology, and psychology, among others. In addition, its object of study is the one material object that, of all the material objects in the universe, bears most closely on our lives: the brain, and more generally, the nervous system. So let us begin by giving all proper respect to what neuroscience can tell us about ourselves: it reveals some of the most important conditions that are necessary for behavior and awareness.

What neuroscience does not do, however, is provide a satisfactory account of the conditions that are sufficient for behavior and awareness. Its descriptions of what these phenomena are and of how they arise are incomplete in several crucial respects, as we will see. The pervasive yet mistaken idea that neuroscience does fully account for awareness and behavior is neuroscientism, an exercise in science-based faith.

thenewatlantis.com/publications/what-neuroscience-cannot-tell-us-about-ourselves

I would add that "it reveals some of the most important conditions that are necessary for behavior and awareness in this world". Christians believe we shall continue to exist in a spiritual world without having to depend on our physical senses for awareness and activity because we are made in the image and likeness of God. The belief that this life and the next have nothing in common is incoherent because we shall be the same persons whose eternal destiny is affected by our choices and decisions on earth.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Not sure I said anything about my beliefs on this thread recently, other than what you quoted. Really all I’m interested in currently is clarifying the strange claims made about materialism. As a moderate Christian I think it’s important to make a stand against fringe propaganda. It helps no one to misrepresent and disrespect others’ beliefs, particularly such large numbers of people.

Your questions are easily answered, thanks for asking, but I’d rather get that out the way first. Meanwhile, you may have noticed a style of thinking on the internet which I privately dub the Philosophy of Bafflement. It draws its conclusions by failing to find answers. For instance: IF only physical mind THEN baffled how X, THEREFORE it must be Y, QED.

Hmmm.

Sounds like a deflection.

I never made a claim that “baffled about X” implies Y. I asked you if you could explain how your claims about Christ are to be reconciled with your apparent insistence that mind/person is completely to be explained by material processes.

So, AGAIN, I am not claiming anything implies Y. I am asking you to explain how your beliefs about Christ (X) are logically reconcilable with Y. X and Y appear to be completely contradictory, but you have the floor in terms of showing how they can both be true.

There is, I submit, at least a prima facie appearance of logical incongruity, which permits you the opportunity to show your thinking on the matter. Perhaps this apparent incongruity has never crossed your mind. Consider it crossed.

It will not do to deflect from the difficulty by claiming that my point is to insist that because there is incongruity, Y is necessarily implied. I never made that case, did I?

I am claiming X and Y seem to be contradictory, therefore ~X seems to imply Y but unless you can show that X and Y are not contradictory they continue to appear to be just that. The ball is in your court. It won’t do to point at the squirrel climbing the tree behind me.

 

[inocente]

I produced the evidence in post 74 (long before you brought up your alleged counter-evidence which consists of nothing but references which don’t even contain information about the issue):

I have also pointed out it would violate the principle of conservation of energy - to which you still have not replied…

Desperate stuff. O, what a tangled web.

None of your claims about materialists flow from any logic. I’ll repeat your claims, and ask the reader to imagine them said instead of people of a religion, ethnicity or nationality. According to you, they find freedom and consciousness meaningless; they don’t believe persons exist; to them they are unaware, mere bodies, without purposeful activity or personal responsibility, Synthesis is beyond their ability. Oh, and along with your conservation of energy gag, David Attenborough is their spearhead. [posts #225 - #265].

Nonsensical of course, but then Germans believed nonsensical propaganda, as did the KKK, as do ISIS. The fanatical dehumanizing of others. If you said it of any other group you’d be reported. “Members are not allowed to be disrespectful of anyone’s faith or religion, whether it is Catholicism or not”. Well, you disrespect Christ by dehumanizing others, so you disrespect my faith big time.

On a happier note, what can scientific materialism tell us of your purpose in this? I’m no expert but one factor is probably tribal - you’re dividing humans into them and us, Snips and snails/And puppy-dogs’ tails versus Sugar and spice/And everything nice. Another obvious factor is fear - the shock of the new, fear the old ways are being replaced. Fear drives crowds.

Presumably once important to group survival, it’s in our genes, we all have it in us to dehumanize others, to “burn a few witches” as a poster said the other day. All completely irrational, as proven by the propagandists going straight to the scientific materialist doctor whenever it’s in their self-interest. Have a look at the science. Might not be purpose as you expected, might not be teleology as she is done, but it contains a lot more truth about people than dehumanizing propaganda.

 

[inocente]

Well said. Do not, I emphasize DO NOT, expect a rational reply to your remarks.

Or even a single reply from the materialists and their sympathizers.

Charles, it’s been three months since I asked you to stop insulting me, and since then you’ve taken to insulting me by posts to third parties. Please have the courage to post your insults to me directly, or have the maturity to stop insulting me.

 

[inocente]

Sounds like a deflection.

I never made a claim that “baffled about X” implies Y. I asked you if you could explain how your claims about Christ are to be reconciled with your apparent insistence that mind/person is completely to be explained by material processes.

So, AGAIN, I am not claiming anything implies Y. I am asking you to explain how your beliefs about Christ (X) are logically reconcilable with Y. X and Y appear to be completely contradictory, but you have the floor in terms of showing how they can both be true.

There is, I submit, at least a prima facie appearance of logical incongruity, which permits you the opportunity to show your thinking on the matter. Perhaps this apparent incongruity has never crossed your mind. Consider it crossed.

It will not do to deflect from the difficulty by claiming that my point is to insist that because there is incongruity, Y is necessarily implied. I never made that case, did I?

I am claiming X and Y seem to be contradictory, therefore ~X seems to imply Y but unless you can show that X and Y are not contradictory they continue to appear to be just that. The ball is in your court. It won’t do to point at the squirrel climbing the tree behind me.

Well, I’ve said my piece to Tony so let’s get on with it. Regarding squirrels: you may not have noticed but one regular poster on CAF recently claimed X-ray pictures were taken before they were even invented, and another outed himself as a communist imperialist sympathizer. So imho squirrels are the least of our problems.

Regarding X and Y: You’re asking a religious question. Not sure of this as I’m not Catholic, but it seems to me that for your purposes here you could speak of transubstantiation or the Incarnation. If the bread is only physical, how does it become the body of Christ? It’s a miracle, a mystery. How can a physical man be Christ? It’s a miracle, a mystery.

Now I realize that might be a problem for Thomists, as they seem to expect everything can be rationally explained, but I’m not a Thomist, so squirrels to them. Metaphysically of course.

As far as the mind is concerned, all the evidence, and that’s mountains and mountains of evidence, is that there’s no immaterial substance involved, so squirrels to Descartes. And if all substance is physical, if there is no other kind of substance, logically that’s the end of it, the fat lady sings. The soul is the form of the body - the mind arises from the configuration of physical processes. Just like bread is a configuration of physical processes.

Can’t see the problem. I mean really, can’t see the problem logically, evidentially or biblically.

No squirrels were harmed writing this post.

 

[tonyrey]

Desperate stuff. O, what a tangled web.

None of your claims about materialists flow from any logic. I’ll repeat your claims, and ask the reader to imagine them said instead of people of a religion, ethnicity or nationality. According to you, they find freedom and consciousness meaningless; they don’t believe persons exist; to them they are unaware, mere bodies, without purposeful activity or personal responsibility, Synthesis is beyond their ability. Oh, and along with your conservation of energy gag, David Attenborough is their spearhead. [posts #225 - #265].

Nonsensical of course, but then Germans believed nonsensical propaganda, as did the KKK, as do ISIS. The fanatical dehumanizing of others. If you said it of any other group you’d be reported. “Members are not allowed to be disrespectful of anyone’s faith or religion, whether it is Catholicism or not”. Well, you disrespect Christ by dehumanizing others, so you disrespect my faith big time.

On a happier note, what can scientific materialism tell us of your purpose in this? I’m no expert but one factor is probably tribal - you’re dividing humans into them and us, Snips and snails/And puppy-dogs’ tails versus Sugar and spice/And everything nice. Another obvious factor is fear - the shock of the new, fear the old ways are being replaced. Fear drives crowds.

Presumably once important to group survival, it’s in our genes, we all have it in us to dehumanize others, to “burn a few witches” as a poster said the other day. All completely irrational, as proven by the propagandists going straight to the scientific materialist doctor whenever it’s in their self-interest. Have a look at the science. Might not be purpose as you expected, might not be teleology as she is done, but it contains a lot more truth about people than dehumanizing propaganda.

I shall leave you with your belief that mindless biological organisms have free will, moral responsibility and follow the teaching of Jesus…

 

[Wesrock]

Desperate stuff. O, what a tangled web.

None of your claims about materialists flow from any logic. I’ll repeat your claims, and ask the reader to imagine them said instead of people of a religion, ethnicity or nationality. According to you, they find freedom and consciousness meaningless; they don’t believe persons exist; to them they are unaware, mere bodies, without purposeful activity or personal responsibility, Synthesis is beyond their ability. Oh, and along with your conservation of energy gag, David Attenborough is their spearhead. [posts #225 - #265].

Nonsensical of course, but then Germans believed nonsensical propaganda, as did the KKK, as do ISIS. The fanatical dehumanizing of others. If you said it of any other group you’d be reported. “Members are not allowed to be disrespectful of anyone’s faith or religion, whether it is Catholicism or not”. Well, you disrespect Christ by dehumanizing others, so you disrespect my faith big time.

On a happier note, what can scientific materialism tell us of your purpose in this? I’m no expert but one factor is probably tribal - you’re dividing humans into them and us, Snips and snails/And puppy-dogs’ tails versus Sugar and spice/And everything nice. Another obvious factor is fear - the shock of the new, fear the old ways are being replaced. Fear drives crowds.

Presumably once important to group survival, it’s in our genes, we all have it in us to dehumanize others, to “burn a few witches” as a poster said the other day. All completely irrational, as proven by the propagandists going straight to the scientific materialist doctor whenever it’s in their self-interest. Have a look at the science. Might not be purpose as you expected, might not be teleology as she is done, but it contains a lot more truth about people than dehumanizing propaganda.

The proper argument isn’t that materialists deny that the mind and person exists, but that materialist assumptions ultimately lead to that conclusion by necessary logic. Whether a materialist recognizes it is moot, though at least something can be said if they understand the problem of intentionality (regarding whether material can explain our thoughts being about anything) and at least try to address it.

 

[Wesrock]

Well, I’ve said my piece to Tony so let’s get on with it. Regarding squirrels: you may not have noticed but one regular poster on CAF recently claimed X-ray pictures were taken before they were even invented, and another outed himself as a communist imperialist sympathizer. So imho squirrels are the least of our problems.

Regarding X and Y: You’re asking a religious question. Not sure of this as I’m not Catholic, but it seems to me that for your purposes here you could speak of transubstantiation or the Incarnation. If the bread is only physical, how does it become the body of Christ? It’s a miracle, a mystery. How can a physical man be Christ? It’s a miracle, a mystery.

Now I realize that might be a problem for Thomists, as they seem to expect everything can be rationally explained, but I’m not a Thomist, so squirrels to them. Metaphysically of course.

As far as the mind is concerned, all the evidence, and that’s mountains and mountains of evidence, is that there’s no immaterial substance involved, so squirrels to Descartes. And if all substance is physical, if there is no other kind of substance, logically that’s the end of it, the fat lady sings. The soul is the form of the body - the mind arises from the configuration of physical processes. Just like bread is a configuration of physical processes.

Can’t see the problem. I mean really, can’t see the problem logically, evidentially or biblically.

No squirrels were harmed writing this post.

All material substances are not simply material. Material is only one cause to their existence. They also have formal, efficient, and final causes. When Thomists speak of material they aren’t speaking of just the matter or substance that exists vs. some ghostly soul, but of limiting that substance to just material causes. It’s not like the form is removed and matter is left behind. All of these things are causes or principles of existence without which a material substance cannot actually be in being, not separate substances that merge together to make a living being or anything else, or come into being separately. Squirrels to Descartes indeed.

That said, any acknowledgement of angels seems to imply an acknowledgement of intellects and minds existing absent any material processes. It’s an acknowledgement of non-material substances. Why we must object to humans have intellects not fully explainable by efficient material causation, I don’t know.

 

[tonyrey]

The proper argument isn’t that materialists deny that the mind and person exists, but that materialist assumptions ultimately lead to that conclusion by necessary logic. Whether a materialist recognizes it is moot, though at least something can be said if they understand the problem of intentionality (regarding whether material can explain our thoughts being about anything) and at least try to address it.

Precisely!

 

[levinas12]

Just an historical note.

For Aristotle, “ends” are not “designs” or “purposes”. Natural beings have ends in the absence of a designer.

We know this because Aristotle’s God is blissfully unaware of the rest of the universe (i.e., is not a Creator). And Aristotle’s other non-human “intelligences” seem to be also blissfully unaware, at least of sublunar beings.

In other words, Aristotle left the whole question of “nous” in nature up in the air.

On the other hand, there’s always Plato (with his demiurge - some say myth, some say not so fast).

Regardless, it’s still important to distinguish between “ends” and “designs”, or “ends” and “purposes”.

 

[Wesrock]

The problem with materialism and the intellect, this intentionality or aboutness I am writing about, is in one manner very simple, and in another not something that clicks very easily. The point is that material representations have no aboutness intrinsic to them. That is, no neural pattern in my brain is ever actually about France, or about a cat, or about anything else. There is no intrinsic meaning to it that points to any concept beyond itself. Ultimately, it only ever actually can be about things in a derived way if it is interpreted to mean something by a mind. But we run into an issue here: If the mind is just material, and if material can’t be about anything, then any given material process that interprets another material process is itself not about anything, at pains of infinite regress. That is, a mind is something that can grasp meaning and concepts of things that in no way materially come to be anywhere in the mind. The concept of sitting, or of love, or of triangularity, or of dogginess. So either we deny that it’s impossible for the mind or thoughts to ever actually come to grasp or be these concepts, to be about anything that’s not self-referential, or we accept that material alone is not self-sufficient to explain an intellect in which thoughts can be directed to things outside itself. The human being is a substance that has a power to grasp these concepts in its mind, and if that is so, then physicalism is an insufficient explanation to account for this. Any by physicalism and materialism I’m not just speaking of physical events or material, but a dogmatic worldview that attempts to explain everything through quantifiable efficient causes and nothing more.