A view of the Grand Canyon (Wikimedia Commons public domain)
Is the Grand Canyon about medieval Indian history, perhaps, or contemporary Russian cinema?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
A while ago, in two or three responses to comments on my blog, I referred to my blog\u2019s most prolific atheist respondent in the third . . . um, third \u201cperson,\u201d as \u201cit.\u201d \u00a0(For the same reason, I\u2019ve once or twice referred to him as a \u201cmeat unit\u201d or a \u201ccell colony.\u201d)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The context, as I recall, was a discussion of the nature of consciousness, which he, in truly reductionist-materialist fashion insists on understanding \u2014 if, given his viewpoint, understanding<\/em> is the appropriate word \u2014 as a function, pure and simple, of electrochemical brain states.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
A small handful of my critics huffed and puffed for a day or two in righteous indignation at my use of the word it<\/em>, until they found some new reason (what it was I can\u2019t now recall) to lament my meanspirited viciousness. \u00a0(One might think, at this point, that the flat fact that I breathe would be enough.) \u00a0They couldn\u2019t believe how vicious and demeaning I was being toward the poor fellow.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
But I was just having some good clean fun while attempting to make a fairly serious (and, to me, fairly obvious) point. \u00a0(At least one other commenter on my blog picked up the it<\/em> for a short while.) \u00a0I bear the fellow no ill will. \u00a0He is, after all, a pretty likeable guy on the whole and, while I sometimes find him a bit exasperating, he\u2019s always been civil and he\u2019s sometimes even amusing \u2014 a trait that I value quite highly.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
My point was simply this:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
If \u201cthinking\u201d or \u201cconsciousness\u201d is simply a physical process, if the brain secretes \u201cthought\u201d in a way not fundamentally unlike the liver\u2019s secretion of bile, if \u201creasoning\u201d is the product merely of physical processes that follow from prior physical processes, if it\u2019s really nothing more than a train of biochemical events, then I wonder what value or relevance or significance it has. \u00a0Is a mere chemical process really \u201cabout\u201d anything? \u00a0Can neurochemical events in an astronomer\u2019s brain really be said to be \u201cabout\u201d Mars or Proxima Centauri? \u00a0Is oxidation \u2014 rusting \u2014 \u201cabout\u201d anything? \u00a0Do we ever utter or write sentences like \u201cThe iron rusted about the sea water\u201d? \u00a0Does anybody imagine that soil erosion is \u201cabout\u201d anything else? \u00a0Is it ever about, say, what caused the decline of the Roman Empire, or about whether Bach is a greater composer than Mozart, or about the interpretation of Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet<\/em>? \u00a0Is human digestion, another physical\/chemical process, \u201cabout\u201d the appreciation of paintings by Botticelli or the application of\u00a0sp\u00a0= sqrt [ (n1\u00a0\u2013 1) * s12\u00a0+ (n2\u00a0\u2013 1) * s22\u00a0] \/ (n1\u00a0+ n2\u00a0\u2013 2) ]?<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
And if there is, arguably, no real \u201cthinking\u201d going on in humans, but merely electrochemical processes that are determined and, in principle, thoroughly predictable from previous electrochemical states, what sense does it really make to speak of a \u201cpersonality\u201d or a \u201cperson\u201d?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hence, the \u201cit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are other possible entailments and implications, but those are for another day.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 A while ago, in two or three responses to comments on my blog, I referred to my blog\u2019s most prolific atheist respondent in the third . . . um, third \u201cperson,\u201d as \u201cit.\u201d \u00a0(For the same reason, I\u2019ve once or twice referred to him as a \u201cmeat unit\u201d or a \u201ccell colony.\u201d) \u00a0 […]<\/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":[2794,216,219,237,2755,2791,171,117,2337],"class_list":["post-69271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-body","tag-consciousness","tag-mind-and-body","tag-mind-and-brain","tag-mind-body","tag-problem-of-consciousness","tag-reductionism","tag-scientism","tag-spirit"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"The](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/04\/800px-Scorpion_Ridge.jpg\")
<\/a>