That is only evidence that you can’t find a way. You are basing your argument on your ignorance of how it could happen naturally.
No burden of proof lies with you to produce evidence of an immaterial soul?
Part of the difficulty is that words typically have many definitions. I think agnosticism is certainly more about knowledge since its classical definition is the answer of no to the question of whether God exists is knowable. But then this links up to the question of what exactly is knowledge, and then we must deal with the possibility of more than one kind of knowledge.
But I think definitions based on a lack of knowledge or belief is absurd. I think anything like this has to be about decisions we make – about what we decide is knowable, believable, or what we decide we know or believe. Thus I think the best definition of “atheist” is one who has decided there no good reason to believe there are any gods. And for “agnostic,” this is one who has decided objective knowledge of God is impossible. I think this is in best agreement with the majority usage of these words.
To be sure some atheist have decided they simply don’t believe God exists, but most are agnostic atheists deciding they cannot know whether God exists but deciding there just isn’t sufficient reason to believe God or gods exist.
Probably most theists have decided they know God exists, but at least for me, I think this is a subjective knowledge and I can be described as an agnostic theist, thinking objective knowledge of God’s existence is impossible for faith is always required.
But I must oppose any empty rhetoric which tries to push the burden of proof on others. The burden of proof is always on anyone who expects others to agree with them, no matter what that may be. And thus trying put others who have made no decisions regarding these issues on your side by default is just plain dishonest.
That is a way to hide many premises, by building them into your definitions. I certainly do not have to accept any of them.
The burden of proof lies with those who claim that consciousness is a byproduct of the brain — especially if empirical evidence reveals phenomena that are incompatible with that premise. I don’t see how this is controversial. Materialism makes specific claims — and those claims need to align with what actually happens.
This is exactly why a growing number of neuroscientists no longer believe that consciousness is purely material — because the data simply doesn’t align with the premise.
Why doesn’t it lie with the people who claim consciousness is the byproduct of an immaterial soul?
I don’t doubt that some neuroscientists believe this. However, beliefs aren’t evidence.
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It does lie on him in this case but materialism also needs to account for abstract thought and ideas. If someone want to show everything is reducible to material objects, they at least need shown such an idea is coherent. Just as a modern Christian could be expected to explain how a good God is compatible with suffering, materialist should be expected to give an accounting of thoughts which seem immaterial on the surface of it.
Vinnie
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I agree. Any positive claim needs positive evidence. If we don’t know how the physical brain can produce these things, then we just don’t know. At the same time, I would suggest it’s a lot more straightforward trying to find answers in the material realm than in the immaterial realm.
Burden of proof lies with any who expect others to agree an immaterial soul exists.
Burden of proof lies with any who expect others to agree consciousness is a byproduct of the brain.
Certainly these are not either/or. I reject both of these. Don’t believe in an immaterial soul or that consciousness is a byproduct of the brain. I believe in a resurrection to a spiritual body but I do not believe in any supernatural thing inserted into bodies to make them alive, conscious, or a person. I believe consciousness is an innate property of life itself, though highly quantitative and thus greatly enhanced by many things such as nervous systems and language.
Though… of course… if I expect anyone to agree with me on such things, then the burden of proof is on me to show that these are the case.
Those who claim that consciousness is merely a byproduct of the brain are making a falsifiable assertion — or at least, it should be. And if it’s falsifiable, that means it has to be compatible with what actually happens. Otherwise, it’s not science anymore; it’s an unfalsifiable doctrine.
I have no problem admitting that if consciousness were fully explained within a materialist framework, then belief in an immaterial and immortal soul would be no more reasonable than belief in the tooth fairy. Why aren’t materialists willing to do the same — to accept the falsifiability of their theory? After all, that’s the only way a theory can legitimately claim to be scientific.
Roy,
If we look at how Wicca resolves the theodicy issue, we find the following:
”Wicca resolves theodicy—the problem of evil—by rejecting the concept of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and singular deity, instead viewing divine power as immanent within nature and balanced by duality. Evil is not viewed as a cosmic force opposed to God, but as a byproduct of human free will, nature’s neutrality, and karmic consequences.”
Key elements of the Wiccan approach to theodicy include:
The Law of Threefold Return: The belief that energy—positive or negative—sent out will return with amplified force ensures that those who cause harm face consequences, placing the burden of justice on universal law rather than divine intervention.
Nature’s Neutrality: Suffering is often interpreted as part of the natural, uncontrollable cycles of life (e.g., natural disasters) rather than a punishment from a deity.
Free Will: The focus on personal empowerment and responsibility places the ability to create “good” or “evil” directly in the hands of individuals, not a cosmic deity.
[End of Excerpt]
I should point out, @Roy , that Wicca intentionally withdraws from the Modern triune
of monotheism:
Wicca frequently embraces two deities, neither of which are All Powerful.
Needless to say, I believe that of things one might propose to Christians:
- The Lord used Evolution to create Humankind.
- The Lord is not ALL POWERFUL.
- There is no principle of Evil or Sin that pervades the Universe.
The first proposal might be the LEAST objectionable.
G.Brooks
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That was my point.
I am saying we don’t currently know what causes terminal lucidity. You are saying that it is caused by an immaterial soul. Where is the evidence for this? How is it falsifiable?
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The problem lies in the premise — the assumption that consciousness is necessarily produced by the physical brain. That claim should be proven, not merely asserted. And if it can’t be proven, then we need to be honest and admit that we simply don’t know.
But that “I don’t know” has to be a genuine “I don’t know” — one that remains open to the possibility that consciousness may, in fact, have an immaterial nature. Otherwise, it becomes a philosophical assertion disguised as temporary ignorance. If the truth is that we don’t know, then we don’t know. “I don’t know” cannot be code for:
“We know it must be explainable within a materialist framework, and all spiritual or dualist explanations are nonsense — even if respected neurosurgeons and neuropsychiatrists support them — we just haven’t figured it out yet.”
That’s not skepticism. That’s intellectual dishonesty. The core materialist assumption — that materialism is true — is being smuggled in under the guise of uncertainty, then treated as an established fact. If that isn’t circular reasoning, I don’t know what is.
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Can you show us anyone who is conscious and doesn’t have a brain? We have many, many examples of damage to the brain damaging consciousness. Chemicals that affect the physical brain affect consciousness (e.g. anesthesia).
So what experiments do you propose that could determine if the immaterial soul is responsible for terminal lucidity? Is anyone doing any research on the immaterial soul? How are they trying to answer this question?
I’m not claiming that these cases prove the existence of immortal souls. What I’m saying is that they’re compatible with the existence of immortal souls — and in tension with materialism. That’s all I’m asserting.
Yes, I do believe that a person with a severely damaged or devastated brain who suddenly regains full consciousness and memory is far more compatible with the idea of an immaterial soul than with a strictly materialist model of consciousness.
And I’ve also made it clear that if it were ever definitively proven that consciousness is only a byproduct of brain activity — which, let’s be honest, is still a long way off (they don’t call it “the hard problem of consciousness” for nothing) — then I would accept materialism, even if doing so would have devastating personal or existential consequences for me.
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You are asking the EASY questions about conscioiusness.
The HARD question is:
The “hard problem” of consciousness, coined by David Chalmers, is the challenge of explaining why and how physical brain processes produce subjective, first-person experiences (qualia). It questions why brains are not just data-processing machines, but beings with inner worlds—like “what it is like” to see red or feel pain.
The “Why” Question: It asks why physical processes are accompanied by conscious experience at all. It is often described as a fundamental limitation of current scientific methods, as a description of physical facts does not necessarily explain the experience itself.
A key thought experiment associated with it is that one could imagine a “philosophical zombie”—a being that behaves exactly like a human but has no inner experience. The “hard problem” is often viewed as the largest outstanding obstacle in understanding the mind and a central topic in the philosophy of consciousness.
@T_aquaticus There are those who think “consciousness” is not CREATED by the brain,
but is more CHANNELED by the brain from some other realm or dimension. Speaking personally, I consider the BELIEF IN THE BROAD MANIFESTATIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS AS
SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE THAT THERE IS A GREATER POWER THAT IS ALSO CONSCIOUS.
G.Brooks
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That was exactly my point: people with severely damaged brains — individuals who haven’t “been themselves” for years, sometimes even decades — suddenly regaining full clarity and lucidity. This simply isn’t compatible with our current scientific understanding of the brain, or more precisely, with the materialist/reductionist model that often presents itself as science. And yet, it happens.
The real question is why it happens. And if someone is intellectually honest, they can’t afford to rule out any explanation prematurely. In fact, there are scientists who have studied and published work on this phenomenon (not just terminal lucidity, I’m talking about the broader nature of consciousness and why it’s high you unlikely for materialism to be correct)— for example, Mario Beauregard, a neuroscientist and author whose work is available on platforms like Amazon. Amazon.com
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Absolutely this.
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- On “strong atheism” and fundamentalism
This claim trades on a category error. In philosophy of religion, strong (positive) atheism simply means making the propositional claim that God does not exist, as opposed to weak (negative) atheism, which is merely the absence of theistic belief (a distinction standard since Antony Flew’s The Presumption of Atheism, 1972). It says nothing about certainty, temperament, or “faith.”
What makes a position resemble fundamentalism is gnostic certainty combined with resistance to criticism, not the fact that one makes a positive claim. A strong atheist can be tentative, revisable, and evidence-responsive; a theist can be dogmatic; and vice versa.
If the target is dogmatism, then the criticism should be directed at epistemic posture, not at “strong atheism” as a category. As stated, the claim conflates a semantic distinction with a psychological vice.
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Again, to be fair to the scientists referred to in the article (while not personally buying into the reductionist model of consciousness), they were not denying that the patient’s brain had physically changed as a result of disease and that some patients showed a remarkable short-term recovery of mental function. Rather, the scientific hypothesis was that particular groups of neurons sometimes remained intact and that certain physical causes could could trigger and re-stimulate persisting neural connections to cause greater functionality. The scientists hoped that by finding out how and why these residual neural pathways were triggered might lead to useful therapies for dementia. This was the reason the scientific research was moving to more closely monitor the patterns of neurons and neural activity in the brain of patients over time because no such data yet existed to test that hypothesis.
I guess the jury is still out whether or not that hypothesis is supported, but it seems at this point that materialism is not theoretically incompatable with terminal lucidity, only that the physical (neural) processes have not been closely monitored yet. In other words, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence?
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There seems to be a hidden presumption in here. Can you prove consciousness is entirely material? Can you show me how abstract thoughts are entirely material? Can you even show a single one is entirely material? Can you resolve the hard problem of consciousness? Can you show me any rational human being who engages in conscious abstract thoughts that doesn’t have a rational soul? If not, the presumption should be dropped. People of all persuasions agree the brain plays a role in conscious thought. That the brain plays a role in conscious thought is not a support for materialism over and against other worldviews that also accept that. Science is wonderful at finding material causes for material things.The exact issue under discussion is if consciousness is material or not. To give science presumption here does not follow.
Scientific descriptions of reality are based on abstractions (especially mathematical). They can’t in theory describe the fullness of anything. They are wonderful at doing what they do but it’s more like seeing the world in black and white. That a materialists could offer a rational explanation in no sense demonstrates such is true, that Jesus was wrong about souls or those arguing for hylomorphic souls using metaphysics in the Thomist tradition are incorrect. Can we even move from neuroscience to first person phenomena and experience in a scientific fashion?
Vinnie