Wednesday, July 19, 2017

A Refutation Of Naturalism

Only a very illogical person would ever believe in naturalism, the belief that nothing exists but the material world, i.e. nature.  I want to prove this by referring to four things which I have absolute certainty of that all incontrovertibly falsify naturalism.  If anything exists which is not purely material, then naturalism is objectively false.  I have selected these four things because of the ease of understanding the concepts and because knowledge of them is available to any conscious, rational being--there is no way that they are either illusory or material.


Truth

Truth is an immaterial thing that applies to the material world.  The concept, as one will recognize upon rational reflection, is immaterial.  Even if no material world ever existed, truth would still exist as an abstract concept.  There would still be a way reality is--reality would just not involve anything material.  Thus, naturalism is impossible because the very notion of truth does not require a material world for its veracity and transcends materiality.  The only necessary truths are immaterial (examples: "there is a way reality is", "deductive reasoning is reliable", "words can convey truth") and would exist and hold even if there never was any material world at all.  If truth does not exist, then naturalism cannot be true, but if truth does exist (and it is impossible for it not to), then strict naturalism cannot be true.


Logic

It is also worth noting that many naturalists are likely believers in scientism, a self-defeating bullshit methodology that says science alone can reveal truth about reality (self-defeating because science cannot prove that statement, much less almost anything else).  Of course, science cannot even demonstrate that the senses someone uses to conduct scientific experiments are perceiving reality the way it is, and thus science does not ultimately give us certain knowledge of objective reality.  Logical truths, not scientific observations, are true by necessity.  And of the two only logic deals with immaterial reality.  Logic is a series of universal, inviolable, necessary laws that govern all of reality and cannot be escaped.  Although the laws of logic apply to the material world by inescapable necessity--for instance, a rock cannot both exist and not exist at the same time--logic itself is not a material thing that one can tangibly grasp or physically observe, and yet it is necessarily real and true in contrast to how there did not have to be any material world at all.  As an aside, just as in denying the existence of truth one must make a truth claim that is either true or false, ironically, anyone who denies the existence or innate reliability of logic must use both to make his or her case.  It is not possible for logic to not exist or be unreliable, just as it is impossible for truth not to exist.  Logic is not a part of the natural world and transcends it.


Consciousness

The fact that I have consciousness is one of several things which I cannot be deceived about and which I can know with absolute certainty.  The very fact that I perceive or think anything at all proves this to me incontrovertibly.  Nothing about consciousness necessitates that I have a physical body in order to perceive.  However, I know with absolute certainty that I do have a body of some sort [1]; all I am saying is that it is objectively true that nothing about consciousness logically requires that I have actual corporeal being in order to experience it.  It could exist totally independent of the material body, whereas the body is not animated without consciousness.  Mere matter is incapable of consciousness, and consciousness is all that separates things which possess it from mindless substances.  Consciousness, the ability to perceive, has no physical substance, even if the biologically living and material brain produces it.  It exists within the mind, which is not comprised of matter regardless of whether or not the mind dies with the brain or body.  And yet there mere logical possibility that consciousness and the mind can survive the death of the biological body proves that the two are not identical substances, as otherwise such a thing would be logically impossible.  This position is called substance dualism.

See the following syllogism for a quick logical explanation of what I am claiming:


1. If it is possible for the mind (consciousness) to exist independently from the body, then the mind and body are not synonymous.
2. It is possible for the mind to exist independently from the body.
3. Therefore the mind and body are not synonymous.


One may cause the other, yet the very fact that it is possible at all for a mind to exist without a body and vice versa proves that the two are not of identical substances: the former is immaterial and the latter is material.  Whatever connection or interaction or causal relationship they have does not affect the truth of my conclusion in any way: consciousness is immaterial and a body is material.


The Uncaused Cause

Logic proves incontrovertibly that an infinite regress of moments in time or events is impossible.  Though I have proven this several times before on my blog [2], I will briefly explain this again: if an infinite number of moments of time or events had occurred in the past, then this present moment and any activities occurring in the present would never have been reached.  As an analogy, try counting down from infinity to 6.  You can't count down to a particular number unless you have a fixed and finite beginning number from which you started counting.  Since infinite regress is impossible, there cannot have been an infinite number of past events and moments (or hours or days, and so forth) of time.  Thus the material world cannot have existed for an infinite amount of time in the past, because an infinite past is impossible and because there cannot have been an infinite number of events that have occurred in the material world.  And so the material world had a beginning.  This means it either 1) created itself, 2) began to exist without a cause, or 3) had an external cause.  No other possible options exist.  Self-creation is impossible, because something cannot exist before it existed to create itself.  Beginning to exist without a cause is impossible, as nothing cannot produce anything at all (logic and truth exist without the material world, but they cannot cause anything to begin or change, they merely exist and describe reality).  The only remaining option is that something outside of the material world created it.  Now, because infinite regress is impossible, at some point there was a cause that existed without beginning or a prior cause.  Because time and matter had not began to exist (they cannot have existed for an infinite amount of time as I demonstrated), this uncaused cause exists outside of time and independent of matter.  Therefore the uncaused cause that exists by pure logical necessity is immaterial.


As you can hopefully see, I do not need to prove that something like moral values (it is impossible to fully verify if any values exist) or an afterlife exist to disprove naturalism.  I merely need to examine what truths must be true regardless of what else is, and the only ones that survive this examination are immaterial facts about reality that hold by pure necessity even if there were never a material world at all.  The very core of reality--truth, logic, consciousness, and the uncaused cause--is entirely immaterial.  I only need to prove one immaterial thing exists to falsify the entirety of naturalism; I have proven that four immaterial things exist and cannot possibly be illusions or false.  Naturalism is thus metaphysically and logically impossible, and anyone who says otherwise contradicts reality and is no ally to either reason or knowledge.


[1].  While I do not know if the body I seem to have is my actual body, the fact that I experience physical sensations at all proves that I have some sort of physical being and organ (or organs), or at least a single nerve.  I can logically prove this to myself as follows:

1. A purely immaterial being cannot experience physical sensations.
2. I experience physical sensations.
3. Therefore I am not a purely immaterial being.
4. A being that is not purely immaterial has a physical body of some sort.
5. Therefore I have a physical body of some sort.

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-uncaused-cause.html

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