just the ones that falsify the claim that mind can never, ever, under any circumstances, be more than an epiphenomenon of the brain... oh, wait a minute, that's all of them
from Why Science is Wrong
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The Dopey Science Creed:
1. I maintain that my life has no purpose and no meaning. The same is true for the entire universe. There is no purpose to anything.
I affirm that my morals come from my genes and my con-ditioning, not from decisions I make. Free will is an illusion. My personal identity is an illusion.
2. There are no “good” deeds, or “good people.” There is no “bad,” “evil,” or “wrong” either.
3. Every report of encounters with spirits, angels, ghosts, and supernatural beings is bunk. The credibility or number of witnesses doesn’t matter—it’s all bunk.
4. I am my physical brain and nothing more. The death of my body is the death of me.
Most of us are rightfully put off by at least some parts of this creed. Even the most scientifically-minded parent can’t look their son or daughter in the eye and tell them they are a meaningless il-lusion. But while you might feel uneasy with the Dopey Science Creed, science-as-we-know-it doesn’t allow for wiggle room on these points.
Take the first element of the creed, “Life has no purpose or mean-ing.” Although the claim sounds harsh, it’s not as though science is trying to tell us we’re meaningless peons. The problem is science has cornered itself into a position that allows for nothing else. If life has meaning, then what is the meaning of life? Who determines life’s meaning? How do we measure it?
To suggest anything in the universe has “meaning,” other than illusions of meaning we ascribe with our robot brain, is blasphe-
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mous to science because it’s an admission there’s more to life than science is able to measure.
And then there’s the question of bodily death. Even though sci-ence-as-we-know-it is totally incapable of explaining how that little voice inside your head (i.e. consciousness) got started, they’re sure about one thing—when you die it’s gone for good. Again, it can’t be otherwise for science because you, they claim, are your brain. The end of your brain has to mean the end of you.
But this assumption creates another “meaning” problem for sci-ence. If your physical death is the end of you, then what possible meaning could there be to your life. Why love? Why care? Why do anything? If everything is going to disappear when you die, then why live? It’s an impossible question. And, if you think the future of your children can get you out of this mess, they can’t. Why pass along your genes if only to perpetuate an absurd illusion of exis-tence? What possible purpose could there be in this meaningless universe science has postulated? Death, it would appear, is the great teacher science chooses to ignore.
Matt Dillahunty
The Dopey Science Creed has become inseparable from main-stream science. It’s the framework for everything science could know about life. It’s also the lens through which atheists see the world. Modern-day atheists sometimes referred to as “New Athe-ists,” use this brand of science as the basis for their belief system. On
Skeptiko, I’ve managed to incorporate elements of the Dopey Science Creed into a number of my dialogues, but never more di-rectly than during this short email interview with public speaker, internet personality, and former president of the Atheist Community of Austin, Texas, Matt Dillahunty.
In response to point #1 of the Dopey Science Creed (There is no purpose to anything), he replied:
Matt Dillahunty: I see no reason to accept assertions that there
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is some externally imposed, agent-guided purpose to life. My life has plenty of meaning and purpose—we imbue things with meaning and purpose. We even specifically create things with an intended pur-pose in mind—so it’s hyperbolic, at best and simply false, at worst to claim, “There is no purpose to anything.” It’s sloppy wording that attempts to straw man the actual position, which is: The assertion that life has an externally-imposed, agent-guided purpose has not met its burden of proof.
Me: Ok, but that is logically inconsistent... that’s why [Tufts University Professor, and well known thinker in the New Atheism movement] Daniel Dennett asserts that “consciousness is an illu-sion.” Either the meaning and purpose you give life is an illusion, or it’s not.
Moreover, this is nonsense because no one lives their life like this. No one thinks the love they have for their family, their children, their closest friends is all a trick of the mind. In fact, anyone who really believes this would have no reason to live... why perpetuate an absurd illusion?
In response to point #2 (There is no “right” or “wrong”), he re-plied:
Dillahunty: This is a mess of combining issues. Free will may be an illusion, depending on how it is defined—but that might be irrel-evant to issues of morality. I’ve lectured on the superiority of secu-lar morality many times (there are several different talks online) and I not only advocate for right and wrong (not as extant things but as non-subjective values) but also moral absolutes (with the caveat that each situation is considered independently) and I make no ap-peal to genes or conditioning or claim that there is no “me.” I have consistently and repeatedly rejected moral relativism...as has Sam Harris.
Me: Well, you might have to lecture us one more time because “secular morality” doesn’t make any sense in a meaningless uni-verse. The fact that you and others have bought into [neuroscientist
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and best-selling author on atheism] Sam Harris’s sleight of hand doesn’t make it any more defensible.
In response to point #3 (There are no “good/bad people”), he replied:
Dillahunty: This is another mess of combining issues. What does “good people” mean? If I had to guess, I think I’ll accept the no-tion that people, generally speaking, aren’t wholly good or bad...or intrinsically good or bad, but instead there are people who do good things and people who do bad things. There are certainly people for whom the quality or quantity of good or bad things they’ve done is most easily summarized by calling them “good” or “bad”...but that’s a shortcut generalization that is more colloquial than philo-sophical.
There are most definitely people who have been labeled mystics, sages, prophets and saints. Whether or not the abilities attributed to them are real, or not, is a separate question. But I don’t (and most skeptical atheists I’ve met wouldn’t) assert that these claims are false...merely that these claims haven’t met their burden of proof and can’t rationally be considered to be true.
Me: Again we’re hashing over the same issue... if there is no “meaning” then there’s no objective reality to such ideas as “good” and “bad”... forget about your notions of “wholly good or bad” there’s not even “somewhat good or bad.”
Your buddy Sam Harris (Skeptiko #189 and #192) tries to get around this problem by appealing to neuroscience and claiming that we know enough about the brain and its relationship to the physical world so as to allow a new “scientific mapping of good and bad.” This is silly on a number of levels, but most importantly for our dis-cussion it is rigidly wed to the idea that mind equals brain. If there’s any case where mind is not equal to brain, then his idea crumbles.
In response to point #4 (Encounters with spirits, angles, ghosts and supernatural beings are bunk), he replied:
Dillahunty: The response here is the same as for the last one. I
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don’t believe the claims are true. That doesn’t mean that I believe the claims are false. The truth of a claim isn’t in any way impacted by the number of people who accept it, nor by their apparent credibil-ity, nor by the sincerity or degree of their conviction. But pointing out that a claim hasn’t met its burden of proof and cannot rationally be considered “true” is NOT the same as claiming that the claim is false.
You’ve constructed a straw man that equates “I don’t believe this is true” with “I believe this is false”...which is simply false.
Me: Well, thank goodness for scientific methods, and peer re-view and all that stuff or we’d just have an endless chain of “straw man” charges by those who claim to be standard bearers for the “burden of proof.”
In response to point #5 (I am my brain. The death of my body is the death of me), he replied:
Dillahunty: In many ways, “I am my brain” is true. Is it ex-haustively true, in all contexts? Nope. But when talking about who I am, those aspects produced by my brain certainly have primacy. As far as we can tell, when my brain dies, I cease to exist. There’s no demonstrated mechanism for consciousness to persist beyond death. There are a lot of complicated discussions to be had about identity and self... but you gloss over that in the creed for a simple assertion followed by another exaggerated straw man. I do not assert that the claimed encounters people have had are ALL an illusion. I don’t propose an explanation for ALL of them. I don’t necessarily propose an explanation for ANY of them (though we can be reasonably con-fident that delusions do occur).
My position isn’t “All encounters with those who have died are an illusion.” It’s “No encounters with those who have died have been confirmed to actually be as claimed.”
There’s a big difference there—and it’s one you’ve repeatedly misrepresented in your creed.
But when talking about who I am, those aspects produced by my
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brain certainly have primacy. As far as we can tell, when my brain dies, I cease to exist. There’s no demonstrated mechanism for con-sciousness to persist beyond death.
Me: Great....now we’re getting somewhere....tell me when mind-equals-brain is not true? Also, you say, “There’s no demonstrated mechanism for con-sciousness to persist beyond death.” What is the “demonstrated mechanism” for consciousness to exist before death?
Ok, Matt, this has been a great first round of dialogue...hope we can keep it going as I think we’re quickly moving into the issues we care most about on Skeptiko
—what does consciousness science tells us about who we are?
I had planned on a lengthy point-by-point debate with Dillahunty when I created a thread on the
Skeptiko forum for us. But Dillahunty, like so many of the atheists I’ve encountered, seemed to disappear when the conversation veered away from the talking points atheists usually lean on.
While Dillahunty isn’t a heavyweight scientist like some of the guests that have appeared on
Skeptiko, he performed no worse when handling these tough questions in our email exchange. But he didn’t do very well either. Of course, it’s all not his fault. The materialist, science-as-we-know-it creed he’s following is contradictory and ab-surd. If life is meaningless, then why assert anything? Why defend anything? Why do anything?
Conversely, if you think your life does have meaning, where does that meaning come from? And, before you answer, remember you can’t say “you” give your life meaning because “you,” accord-ing to science-as-we-know-it, are an illusion.