The Ground Of All True Rational Knowledge Is "Dualism". Here Is The Reason Why

[MindOverMatter2]

tonyrey:

If thought is contingent upon the existence of brains **thoughts are determined solely and entirely by physiological ****(as opposed to logical) **processes which have no insight, choice or control over thoughts. That is hardly a rational basis for any form of knowledge…

This has been said before (plenty). I doubt that your opponents will ever accept the irrationality of their position. You are not posing arguments that are difficult to comprehend and so there is no excuse on their part. They will simply attempt to dodge reality by adorning themselves with an irrational degree of skepticism, or if that does not work they will simply give up logic all together.

But your post will serve as a good argument to those who have eyes to see it.

I perceive your argument as essentially being the following…

1. If all events are determined by non-rational physical processes, then effects can only be the produce of non-rational physical processes.

2. True knowledge of why a thought is rational involves a kind of process for which the freedom to think rationally is essential. Rational thought has to be the sufficient cause of inferential knowledge. Otherwise we only think what the physiological processes in our brains determines us to think, as opposed what we reason to be true. The perceptive Knowledge that a rational argument is correct can only take place if a rational will is the sufficient cause of understanding it.

3. Given metaphysical naturalism rationality cannot exist accept as an effect of physical processes, since only the physical can be a sufficient cause.

4. The rational-will, therefore cannot be the sufficient cause of any process, since any effect in the brain is always the sum total of non-rational physical processes.

5. Therefore given metaphysical naturalism, the effect is non-rational; and this is to say that the effect of any brain, although by chance it might happen to reflect objective true, doesn’t arise from true “reasoning”. And thus since the effects of the brain are only ever determined by events that are not rational, there is nothing in the brain that will allow it to reason to the “knowledge of the truth” or allow it to “understand” that a certain rational statement is true, because the existence of a rational argument behind which there is a free rational thinker sufficiently determining the truth of any syllogistic form, is ontologically absent given metaphysical naturalism.

6. Therefore in-order to rationally defend Metaphysical Naturalism, one must deny the very thing that is allowing them to freely reason to true knowledge.

Conclusion: since all true knowledge is grounded on the freedom to reason and discern rational truth beyond the dictates of non-rational physical processes, a true knowledge can only be grounded upon a-prior dualism; and this is to say that only a critical form of dualism can be the ground of true knowledge, and has to be by default an axiom of all knowledge, in-order for knowledge to proceed rationally.

 

[tonyrey]

If thought is contingent upon the existence of brains **thoughts are determined solely and entirely by physiological **

Thank you for developing my statement! It could be argued that idealism and solipsism are also consistent with rationality but I’m sure very few of us - if any - are likely to favour either of those views… Naturalism/materialism/physicalism/positivism/nihilism are all incoherent.

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

Love the argument, no debate here but is this quote,

1. If all events are determined by non-rational physical processes, then effects can only be the produce of non-rational physical processes.

another way of saying an effect is never greater then the cause? When an effect shows such properties, the cause, or causer, must be greater then the effect. Can be argued in a fashion of Thomistic ideal forms as well?

 

[Al_Moritz]

I fully agree with the argument. In fact, I believe it is one of the strongest arguments for the existence of God, if properly understood and thought through.

However, atheists will counter that evolution has endowed us with reliable faculties, since truth correspondence of our thoughts with the outside world selects for survival value. Thus, even non-rational processes will coalesce into logical processes in the end.

I have rebutted this kind of evolutionary argument in my article:

home.earthlink.net/~almoritz/naturalism_is_true.htm

 

[tonyrey]

Love the argument, no debate here but is this quote,

It is one instance of an effect is not being greater than its cause but of course there are others.

 

[tonyrey]

I fully agree with the argument. In fact, I believe it is one of the strongest arguments for the existence of God, if properly understood and thought through.

However, atheists will counter that evolution has endowed us with reliable faculties, since truth correspondence of our thoughts with the outside world selects for survival value. Thus, even non-rational processes will coalesce into logical processes in the end.

I have rebutted this kind of evolutionary argument in my article:

home.earthlink.net/~almoritz/naturalism_is_true.htm

“correspondence” is an intangible relation which seems inconsistent with materialism.

 

[anthony022071]

5. Therefore given metaphysical naturalism, the effect is non-rational; and this is to say that the effect of any brain, although by chance it might happen to reflect objective true, doesn’t arise from true “reasoning”. And thus since the effects of the brain are only ever determined by events that are not rational, there is nothing in the brain that will allow it to reason to the “knowledge of the truth” or allow it to “understand” that a certain rational statement is true, because the existence of a rational argument behind which there is a free rational thinker sufficiently determining the truth of any syllogistic form, is ontologically absent given metaphysical naturalism.

I think that naturalists would say that what we call reason or rationality is ultimately a matter of neurological mechanisms. Naturalists do not really believe in the existence of reason or order or life per se,in the metaphysical sense or as essences,they reduce all phenomena to natural mechanisms. They are phenomenalists. They think that metaphysical realities only appear to be real.

6. Therefore in-order to rationally defend Metaphysical Naturalism, one must deny the very thing that is allowing them to freely reason to true knowledge.

Naturalists are not much bothered by the absurdity of thinking that rationality can come from irrational matter. They are content to think whatever methodological naturalism leads them to think.

Conclusion: since all true knowledge is grounded on the freedom to reason and discern rational truth beyond the dictates of non-rational physical processes, a true knowledge can only be grounded upon a-prior dualism; and this is to say that only a critical form of dualism can be the ground of true knowledge, and has to be by default an axiom of all knowledge, in-order for knowledge to proceed rationally.

Knowledge does not need to be grounded upon a priori dualism,but upon the belief that things really exist and that reason can know them through the senses. The belief in two opposite realities comes after knowledge of things in themselves.

 

[Sair]

Knowledge does not need to be grounded upon a priori dualism,but upon the belief that things really exist and that reason can know them through the senses. The belief in two opposite realities comes after knowledge of things in themselves.

This is certainly the beginning of a refutation of the OP’s position.

In order to argue successfully that “the mechanism of knowing” pre-exists the interaction between the potential knower and the known, it would be necessary to demonstrate that the processes of knowing pre-exist the interaction of the potential knower with that which is to be known.

I like the fact that you’ve made passing reference to the reification of “knowledge” in the OP. That is important. Knowledge is a relational phenomenon - like many others, such as love, compassion, hatred, joy, even consciousness itself - that relies upon a relationship between a subject and an object (even if the object happens to be another subjective entity). Knowledge cannot exist without a knower and something to be known.

In short, what is knowledge apart from perceptible information that we store about phenomena we encounter? Even if we have what was, in past ages, referred to as “book-learning”, what we can claim to know is only the content that we have read. We can’t know that this corresponds to reality unless we have had relevant experience.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

I think that naturalists would say that what we call reason or rationality is ultimately a matter of neurological mechanisms. Naturalists do not really believe in the existence of reason or order or life per se,in the metaphysical sense or as essences,they reduce all phenomena to natural mechanisms. They are phenomenalists. They think that metaphysical realities only appear to be real.

Phenomenalists or not, such is irrelevant. They cannot deny the fact that all thoughts are by-products of non-rational processes given metaphysical naturalism. And thus there is no “I” whom starts or determines or is the sufficient cause of any reasoning process. Such thoughts are not the cause of any processes in the brain, but rather they are the inevitable result of non-rational causes. This has been explained in the OP.

Naturalists are not much bothered by the absurdity of thinking that rationality can come from irrational matter. They are content to think whatever methodological naturalism leads them to think.

However they should be bothered by the lack of rational credibility that results from reducing all inferential knowledge and thought processes to physical events. We cannot know whether any distinction or inference we make is valid (including the sciences) since we cannot think anything different than that which we are determined to think by non-rational processes. Thus a metaphysical naturalist cannot truly determine that his or her belief is a rational belief. Given this fact we can dismiss metaphysical naturalism as an irrational belief that does not correspond to the facts of our experiences.

They cannot have their cake and eat it. If you claim to be able to determine and know that which requires a free act of reasoning, then you cannot be a metaphysical naturalist.

I explained this in the OP. This is a problem concerning the relevance of a true epistemology given metaphysical naturalism.

Knowledge does not need to be grounded upon a priori dualism,but upon the belief that things really exist and that reason can know them through the senses.

Firstly, by a-prior I did not mean to say that dualism is a self-evident deductive fact. That’s my error. I am sorry if I gave that impression; I should not have used that word. But rather I mean that some form of dualism is necessarily required simply because true reasoning as a sufficient cause is required if we are to have a rational foundation to inferential knowledge; and I explained why a free rational will contradicts physical-causality in the OP.

Secondly I am talking about particular knowledge that requires a reasoning process in-order to become known to the knower. The knower cannot truly know anything in this context of knowledge if the thinking process is determined by and is the inevitable result of non-rational events. There is no rational reason to think that brain processes will result in rational information, and even if it did by chance at any given time reflect objective truth, the knower has no power to reason and therefore has no power to know it to be a true inference because the rational will of the knower is not a sufficient cause of any process given metaphysical naturalism. In fact true rationality is not possible given metaphysical naturalism which I explained in the OP. Since the free rational knower is required as a sufficient cause in order to know truth, it can never be valid to base a true epistemology on processes that are the inevitable and direct result of non-rational processes.

You cannot place rational and non-rational processes into two compartments and say that you are not practising dualism. Either they are the same thing (which is a self contradiction since the fundamental base of thought itself is non-rational) Or they are two distinct things which makes perfect sense of the fact that we are able to reason to and know the truth at-will.

Therefore your above statement is an irrational belief. You can only rationally believe that true reasoning is possible if you begin with the belief that a free-rational-knower exists. Such is evidently not the case given metaphysical naturalism.

 

[anthony022071]

Phenomenalists or not, such is irrelevant. They cannot deny the fact that all thoughts are by-products of non-rational processes given metaphysical naturalism. And thus there is no “I” whom starts or determines or is the sufficient cause of any reasoning process. Such thoughts are not the cause of any processes in the brain, but rather they are the inevitable result of non-rational causes. This has been explained in the OP.

People who accept only the naturalistic explanation for rationality don’t even care if it sounds absurd. They trust in methodological naturalism even if it leads to conclusions that are illogical. They don’t think in terms of logical causes and effects but natural causes and effects alone,which do not have to be logical but testable.

However they should be bothered by the lack of rational credibility that results from reducing all inferential knowledge and thought processes to physical events.

They aren’t bothered,because science and MN is credible to them and to many other people in society. Naturalistic science dominates in the schools,and naturalistic explanations for everything are promoted in the media and popular science books and magazines,and scientific explanations are supported with physical evidence.

We cannot know whether any distinction or inference we make is valid (including the sciences) since we cannot think anything different than that which we are determined to think by non-rational processes. Thus a metaphysical naturalist cannot truly determine that his or her belief is a rational belief. Given this fact we can dismiss metaphysical naturalism as an irrational belief that does not correspond to the facts of our experiences.

To people who trust in MN,the most rational beliefs are those that are supported with physical evidence that can be tested. Since the time of Francis Bacon,naturalistic explanations have been equated with reason and rationality.

They cannot have their cake and eat it. If you claim to be able to determine and know that which requires a free act of reasoning, then you cannot be a metaphysical naturalist. I explained this in the OP. This is a problem concerning the relevance of a true epistemology given metaphysical naturalism.

The scientific view of how the brain works implies that what we think of as free acts of reason is really mechanistic and deterministic. Some scientists don’t believe that human thought is free and they don’t believe in free will.

 

[Luke_K]

How can the mind reason to wrong conclusions, though? What determines whether the mind reaches a true or false conclusion? Is it free will?

I fully agree with the argument. In fact, I believe it is one of the strongest arguments for the existence of God, if properly understood and thought through.

Why does dualism entail God? Could you elaborate?

 

[tonyrey]

People who accept only the naturalistic explanation for rationality don’t even care if it sounds absurd. They trust in methodological naturalism even if it leads to conclusions that are illogical. They don’t think in terms of logical causes and effects but natural causes and effects alone,which do not have to be logical but testable.

They aren’t bothered,because science and MN is credible to them and to many other people in society. Naturalistic science dominates in the schools,and naturalistic explanations for everything are promoted in the media and popular science books and magazines,and scientific explanations are supported with physical evidence.

To people who trust in MN,the most rational beliefs are those that are supported with physical evidence that can be tested. Since the time of Francis Bacon,naturalistic explanations have been equated with reason and rationality.

The scientific view of how the brain works implies that what we think of as free acts of reason is really mechanistic and deterministic. Some scientists don’t believe that human thought is free and they don’t believe in free will.

Thereby destroying the foundation of their rationality - when they do think rationally!