Egnor's Dualism Of The Gaps

I see Michael Egnor is writing more of his dualist drivel, in what was presumably supposed to be a rebuttal to Steven Novella.  It is notable that in his latest piece, Egnor again fails to answer any of Novella’s actual points, but instead relies on more of the same fallacies of logic that he relied on before.  I’m sure that Novella will have a detailed rebuttal to this “rebuttal” out soon, but Egnor’s arguments are so bad I couldn’t resist getting in a quick response first.  Egnor’s main point seems to be that his invocation of dualism to explain the mind, purely on the basis that materialism cannot (yet) fully explain the mind, is not a dualism of the gaps argument.  He starts with:

I must say that I’ve never understood the rhetorical force of the ‘God of the Gaps’ argument.

And this is the only point that I agree with - Egnor does not understand this argument.  (Although I would dispute that it is rhetoric - it's actually logic.  Strictly speaking, fallacious logic.)  Egnor goes on to demonstrate his ignorance of what the God of the Gaps really is, with this:

The God of the Gaps sneer is invoked to imply the inexorability of materialism as a complete explanation in natural science.

No. You. Don’t. Understand. The. Argument.  Not even close.  Dualism of the Gaps means that if materialism cannot (yet) explain everything then dualism does not get to be the explanation by default.  It really is that simple.  For us to accept dualism you need to provide some evidence for dualism, and pointing out that not-dualism doesn’t yet explain everything is not evidence for dualism, it’s just evidence of our own lack of knowledge.  And as Novella pointed out, you can’t justify a positive claim with a lack of knowledge.

Having completely misunderstood the argument from ignorance fallacy that he relies on, Egnor’s next argument relies on another logical fallacy – the one that in my experience non-materialists always come back to:

Dr. Novella responded recently to my post in which I clarified my views on the mind-brain problem. He accuses me of using a ‘Dualism of the Gaps’ argument. I’ve merely pointed out that the salient characteristics of the mind, such as intentionality, qualia, free will, incorrigibility, restricted access, continuity of self through time, and unity of consciousness (the ‘binding problem’) seem to be impossible to explain materialistically.  Materialistic explanations for subjective mental states are not impossible merely because we lack experiments or evidence. Materialistic explanations for the mind are impossible within the framework of materialism itself, because mental properties are not physical properties.  [My bold.]

Because mental properties are not physical properties?  Because?  This is where he’s going wrong.  And I’m going to overkill this explanation in the hope that even Egnor might begin to understand.  (And apologies to those who already get this point, but I’m going to spell this one out in detail, so hopefully anyone can understand it.)  Here we go.  This is Egnor’s conclusion: the mind is not caused by the physical brain, or (to put it another way) mental properties cannot be caused by material properties.  That’s his conclusion.  That’s what he wants us to accept – that mental properties are non-physical so dualism is necessary to explain the mental.  OK so far?  But he just said that materialistic explanations for the mind are impossible because mental properties are not physical properties.  The “because” means that what follows is his premise.  And the premise that follows (“mental properties are not physical properties”) is the same as his conclusion. The premise being the same as the conclusion is the definition of circular reasoning. He has just assumed his conclusion, namely that mental properties are not physical.  But he does not know that mental properties are not physical.  He provides no evidence for this.  He just assumes it.  It’s a purely circular argument.  He does not and can not know that mental properties cannot arise from a physical brain. 

The next bit is just pure assertion - he just asserts as if it were fact, what he wants you to accept:

Nothing about matter as understood in our current scientific paradigm invokes subjective mental experience. The essential qualities on the mind are immaterial. Invocation of immaterial causation that incorporates subjectivity seems necessary for a satisfactory explanation of the mind.

Yes, I'm sure that invocation of immaterial causation "seems necessary" to Egnor, but that doesn’t mean it is necessary.

Yet we know nothing — nothing — about how subjective experience could arise from matter alone.

And we also know nothing — nothing — about how subjective experience could arise from non-matter.  The difference is that at least we know that matter exists.  Where is Egnor’s evidence that his “immaterial causation” even exists, let alone is necessary to explain the mind? 

Dr. Novella is wrong to attribute the inference to dualism to an argument from ignorance. The exact opposite is true. The reason that immaterial causation is invoked to explain the mind is because we know so much about the mind and about the brain, and it’s evident to most people (that is, people who aren’t dogmatic materialists) that the mind isn’t material. It isn’t an argument from ignorance. It’s an argument from deep knowledge — deep knowledge of the mind and of the brain. The invocation of immaterial causation for aspects of mental states is the result of our deep knowledge of the difference between mind and matter.

This is the bit that Egnor doesn’t get – Dualism of the Gaps is an argument from ignorance fallacy because we know nothing about the non-materialistic explanation that Egnor wants us to accept by default.  It’s just a made up magic placeholder non-explanation that he thinks fits the gap of our current knowledge.  It’s totally fallacious reasoning.  On the other hand, the “Materialism of the Gaps” argument that Egnor is trying to make into a fallacy is not a fallacy because we know the material world exists. (Unless you’re an idealist or a solipsist.)  It is a fallacy to insist that your explanation must include some unknown entity that you just made up; it is not a fallacy merely to exclude made up entities.  Ironically Egnor then writes about the “deep knowledge of the mind and of the brain” – and yet he provides no knowledge about where minds comes from.  None at all – just the undefined and un-measurable “immaterial” causation that Egnor thinks "seems necessary."  But "seems necessary" is not the same as “deep knowledge.”  His “deep knowledge” is really a lack of knowledge.

The materialist argument is essentially this: ‘materialism is the complete explanation for the mind, and if you ask questions, you’re a neuroscience denialist’.

Now Egnor presents the straw man materialist.  No, the materialist argument is that materialism is currently the best explanation for the mind, and we have no reason to invent magic “immaterial” explanations.

It gets worse.  Egnor goes on to claim that materialism is in trouble in the scientific world, and to support this he (drum roll) invokes quantum mechanics:

Quantum mechanics, in many of its interpretations, invokes an observer in order to collapse a waveform.

LOL – Woo Handbook #9.  Actually really only one interpretation, not “many of its interpretations.”  And even if the Copenhagen Interpretation is true and not just a metaphor to help scientists get their head around what is happening, it is well known that the “observer” could easily be just the equipment, not a human being.  The need for a conscious observer is completely unfalsifiable, which is why it is not part of the scientific theory.

Egnor can’t resist closing references to some authority figures:

It's notable that many of the leading neuroscientists — Sherrington, Penfield, Eccles, Libet — were dualists. Dualism of some sort is the most reasonable scientific framework to apply to the mind-brain problem, because, unlike dogmatic materialism, it just follows the evidence.

Personally I’d be very interested in following the evidence for dualism.  Unfortunately, Egnor didn’t provide any.  Not a shred.  Instead all we got was:

1. Misinterpretation of the Dualism of the Gaps argument
2. Circular reasoning
3. Argument from ignorance (Dualism of the Gaps )
4. Straw man
5. Appeal to quantum mechanics
6. Appeal to authority

Rather pathetic.

Comments

[Infophile]

Quite a nice takedown, but of course I have to quibble about the Quantum Mechanics. You said that the need for a conscious observer is unfalsifiable, and while this may be true if we extend this to the need to have a conscious observer somewhere in the future to puzzle things out, the more common interpretation can actually be falsified rather simply. In fact, it has been falsified, almost from the beginning of such experiments. It simply is the equipment which counts as the observer and causes collapse, not any human observing (otherwise the nature of experiments would change every time the human blinked, along with other easily-noticeable absurdities). Of course, this isn't to say that a human can't function as an observer, just that it doesn't necessarily have to be a human.

[pendens proditor]

The Cheshire Cat keeps coming to mind. I wonder what Egnor would have to say about a smile. Not the lips and teeth, but the smile itself. Or an ocean wave. Not the rushing water or the energy producing it but the wave itself. Is materialism unable to account for these things? Do we have to invoke dualism to make room for them?

The word "mind" is as much a noun as the word "brain" and for that reason it's surprisingly easy to get confused when talking about them by expecting them both to have a similar sort of material substantiality. But brain is something that is; mind is something that happens. That seems to be what Egnor is stuck on.

[Paul Crowley]

I'm less than convinced that it even makes sense to speak of the idea of non-material explanations. An explanation has to invoke a model, and AFAICT materialism covers whatever we can usefully model.

[Karl Withakay]

I fail to see the usefulness of a dualist, non-materialist view of the mind, since we lack any non-materialistic method of interacting with the mind, unless you believe in psychic powers.

All external interaction between the mind and the outside world (which in this context includes the mind's own body) is via the physical sensations of the five senses.

[John]

What always amazes me about these arguments is that no-one seems to notice that materialism is not identical to physicalism.

See the entry for physicalism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy: "Physicalism is sometimes known as materialism. Historically, materialists held that everything was matter -- where matter was conceived as "an inert, senseless substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist" (Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, par. 9). The reason for speaking of physicalism rather than materialism is to abstract away from this historical notion, which is usually thought of as too restrictive -- for example, forces such as gravity are physical but it is not clear that they are material in the traditional sense (Dijksterhuis 1961, Yolton 1983)"

See time and conscious experience for a physicalist, non-materialist approach.

[es58]

Dualism of the Gaps means that if materialism cannot (yet) explain everything then dualism does not get to be the explanation by default.

but it's not by default, it's by observation of complex information arising suddenly; which is consistent with design, and so far, in no way consistent with any of the total of "naturalistic" mechanisms of biological variation that have been identified; which makes design at least an alternative, and so far, a better alternative ;

[Skemono]

but it's not by default, it's by observation of complex information arising suddenly;

Suddenly? Suddenly when? How suddenly? What information suddenly arose? How are you defining "information"? Where is this taking place? What are you talking about?

which is consistent with design, and so far, in no way consistent with any of the total of "naturalistic" mechanisms of biological variation that have been identified;

Errant nonsense. Evolution does lead to increases in information, and we're well aware of this.

which makes design at least an alternative, and so far, a better alternative

No, it doesn't. Just for starters, it doesn't make "design" an alternative because that's still not actually a scientific hypothesis.

[Bronze Dog]

"" doesn't provide any explanation. That's why it's worthless as an alternative.

[Skeptico]

es58 :

but it's not by default, it's by observation of complex information arising suddenly; which is consistent with design…

It’s not, but regardless your argument is irrelevant, since dualism does not imply design. This post is not about the design/not design argument; it is about the materialism/dualism argument.

[Jimmy_Blue]

es58:

What is your evidence for intelligent design?

[es58]

Suddenly? Suddenly when? How suddenly? What information suddenly arose? How are you defining "information"? Where is this taking place? What are you talking about?

sudden:

-) eyes in the cambrian,
-) numerous occurrences in life's history
referred to explosions
(see koonin)
-) full blown appearance of dna/ribosome relationship from ???,
-) single celled life to multicelled life
-) appearance of numerous phyla
-) life from no life
-) big bang to universe that can support life
-) nothing(?) to big bang

info theory has definitions of information; dna is code - is that not information?
(is no code information?)
it from bit

point is, there are reasons to consider it;
g of gaps is an argument from ignorance; I have no idea so ascribe to god

here, there are things that point to there being intent; I'm not saying it's a theory or hypothesis, but an inference; it was the default inference; Darwin was responding to it; in some narrow areas his descriptions are very accurate, but the attempt to generalize them to all life, which at the time of his writing appeared strong, has weakened considerably as new details have been discovered, making them far less compelling, which leads to reversion to the original, default inference

by the way, agree that what I've said here doesn't necessarily affect the dualism discussion; was responding to response of Egnor's calling g of the gaps "rhetorical"

if you want to delete the posts on that basis, it's up to moderator;

[Jimmy_Blue]

es58;

What is your evidence for intelligent design?

The Cambrian explosion refers to a period of something like 70 to 80 million years in length, by what definition is that 'sudden'?

[Bronze Dog]

here, there are things that point to there being intent;

I'm not seeing it.

Darwin was responding to it; in some narrow areas his descriptions are very accurate, but the attempt to generalize them to all life, which at the time of his writing appeared strong, has weakened considerably as new details have been discovered, making them far less compelling, which leads to reversion to the original, default inference...

Who gives a damn about Darwin? We have modern synthesis, now. It covers all those details nicely without supernatural manipulation from "intent" based solely on the fallacy of argument from ignorance.

[Skemono]

es58, you haven't given any reason why any of those things you've listed require "design" to explain them, or how evolution (or abiogenesis, or cosmology, since you're randomly grabbing whatever you can, no matter how unrelated to evolution) suffer from an inability to explain them.

No, you don't get to say "We're not sure yet, therefore god." As you said, it's an argument from ignorance--it's a logical fallacy, not a scientific hypothesis.