{"id":44967,"date":"2017-11-20T10:26:55","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T17:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=44967"},"modified":"2017-11-20T10:26:55","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T17:26:55","slug":"the-disappearance-of-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/11\/the-disappearance-of-mind.html","title":{"rendered":"The disappearance of mind"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\"Dawn,<\/a>
Light piercing the darkness (Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The insistence of some militantly reductionist adherents of naturalism, that \u201cmind\u201d is merely a more or less illusory product of purely chemical\/physical processes, that consciousness and free will are hallucinations, seems to me transparently self-refuting. \u00a0Why should I pay any more attention to the neurochemical events in an atheist\u2019s brain than to his digestive process? \u00a0What significance would they have? \u00a0And, anyway, what, given such preconceptions, would it mean for \u201cme\u201d to \u201cpay attention\u201d to such things? \u00a0What on earth could it possibly mean to declare that the neurochemical events occurring at one GPS location are \u201cabout\u201d the neurochemical events occurring at any other?<\/p>\n

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Herewith, a few notes from a manuscript that touches briefly on that question:<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Danish philosopher S\u00f8ren Kierkegaard tells the story of a peasant who came barefooted to the capital city one day.\u00a0 He had made so much money recently that he could afford to buy himself a new pair of shoes and stockings, and, when he had made his purchase, he still had enough cash left over to buy liquor.\u00a0 He became thoroughly drunk and then, trying to find his way back home, finally lay down in the middle of the road and fell asleep.\u00a0 After some time had passed, a wagon came along on the narrow road.\u00a0 The driver of the wagon, somewhat irritated at having his way blocked by a drunkard, shouted to him to move or, the driver said, he would run over his legs.\u00a0 At that, the drunken peasant awoke and looked at his legs.\u00a0 Not recognizing them by reason of the new shoes and stockings, he said to the other man, \u201cDrive on!\u00a0 They\u2019re not my legs.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Commenting on Kierkegaard\u2019s story, theologian Thomas Oden asks, \u201cto what shall we compare the individual who does not even recognize that he has, or is, a self?\u201d[2]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Neither Kierkegaard nor Oden had in mind the disappearance of the mind that seems to be entailed by a materialistic view of the cosmos, but the question is still relevant:\u00a0 What are we to make of a person who argues, in effect, that rational argument is impossible, and who denies the existence of his own mind?\u00a0 Kierkegaard might have seen it, too, as a form of drunkenness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps another parable from Kierkegaard is relevant here.\u00a0 \u201cIt is quite in order to speculate within a presupposition,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

But if this philosophy which thus begins within a presupposition finally reaches the point where it subjects its own presupposition to speculative treatment, and so speculates the presupposition away, what then? . . .\u00a0 There is a story about the wise men of Gotham, they they once saw a tree leaning out over the water and thinking that the tree was thirsty were moved by sympathy to come to its assistance.\u00a0 To that end one of them took hold of the tree, another clung to the first man\u2019s legs, and so on until they formed a chain, all animated by the common idea of helping the tree\u2014under the presupposition that the first man held fast.\u00a0 But what happens?\u00a0 The first man suddenly lets go in order to spit on his hand so that he can take a better hold\u2014and what then?\u00a0 Why then the Gothamites fell into the water, because the presupposition was given up.<\/strong>[3]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

If the basis of human reason is surrendered, it isn\u2019t clear how that surrender, or any other notion based on it, can be defended by human reason.<\/span><\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> S\u00f8ren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death<\/em>, translated by Walter Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 187.\u00a0 In the original Danish, the parable occurs in Sygdommen til D\u00f8den<\/em> [1849], at S\u00f8ren Kierkegaard, Samlede Vaerker<\/em> 15:109-110.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Thomas C. Oden, ed., Parables of Kierkegaard<\/em> (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 19.<\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> S\u00f8ren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript<\/em>, translated by David F. Swenson and Walter Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941), 337. In the original Danish, the parable occurs in Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift<\/em> [1846], at S\u00f8ren Kierkegaard, Samlede Vaerker<\/em> 10:74.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Posted from Chicago, Illinois<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 The insistence of some militantly reductionist adherents of naturalism, that \u201cmind\u201d is merely a more or less illusory product of purely chemical\/physical processes, that consciousness and free will are hallucinations, seems to me transparently self-refuting. \u00a0Why should I pay any more attention to the neurochemical events in an atheist\u2019s brain than to his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe disappearance of mind<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    The insistence of some militantly reductionist adherents of naturalism, that "mind" is merely a more or less illusory product of purely\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, 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