Just and Sinner Podcast Arguments Against Physicalism
Dec 19, 2018
Dive into the captivating world of dualism as arguments against physicalism unfold. Explore the limits of materialism and scientism in understanding truth. Discover fascinating thought experiments like Mary's scenario and Nagel's bat, highlighting the depths of subjective experience. Unpack the distinction between thoughts and neural events and why the brain-as-computer analogy falls short. Delve into consciousness, rationality, and intentionality, which resist reduction to mere physical processes, and uncover the challenges materialism faces in explaining mental causation.
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Limits Of Science And Proper Domains
- Science has a proper realm: discovering natural physical laws, not answering every question about human experience.
- Philosophy, history, and theology use different methods suited to their respective domains.
Science Can't Self-Validate
- The scientific method cannot prove its own validity without circularity.
- We therefore accept some properly basic beliefs outside scientific proof.
Mary Thought Experiment
- Dr. Jordan Cooper describes Mary, a colorblind neuroscientist who knows all physical facts about color yet lacks first-person experience of red.
- When Mary sees red, she gains new subjective knowledge that material facts did not provide.