Creation Questions

Tag: consciousness

  • The Idealist Argument from Contingency

    The Idealist Argument from Contingency

    Introduction: Observing Ex Nihilo Creation

    As I have been promoting the Kalam cosmological argument, I’ve been thinking deeply about its particular criticisms. To be clear, most criticisms of Craig’s Kalam fail, however some are fascinating and get you thinking about the particulars such as what existence means and whether ex nihilo (out of nothing) is an ontologically distinct kind of creation which we don’t observe.

    On one hand, most proponents of the Kalam are perfectly willing to grant that we don’t observe ex nihilo creation and redirect the skeptic to the metaphysical entailments of creation (usually from the principle of sufficient reason), suggesting that the universe, and all things which have ontology in and of themselves, do need efficient causes. Yet, I really don’t think we need to cede ground here. As I’ve meditated on this, I’ve come to the conclusion that we do in fact observe ex nihilo creations—from our minds.

    What do I mean by this? Well, take any concept of a “thing”, let’s say a wooden chair (it’s the favorite of philosophers), and ask ourselves how it is that this thing exists in the “real” world. When we examine a chair carefully, we discover something remarkable: the chair as a unified object—as a chair—does not exist in the physical substrate at all. What exists physically are atoms arranged in a particular configuration. The “chairness” of this arrangement, the ontological unity that makes these atoms one thing rather than billions of separate things, is something imposed by mind. In this sense, we observe minds creating genuine ontological categories ex nihilo—not creating the matter itself, but creating the very thingness that makes a collection of particles into a unified object.

    This realization leads to a profound philosophical argument that I believe has been insufficiently explored in contemporary philosophy of religion.

    The Nature of Composite Objects

    We land on a few interesting features when we examine any purported “thing” in the material world. For one, a thing is instantiated in the world separate from its physical parts. This chair, for instance, may be made of wood, but many metals, plastics, and fabrics can be substituted and the identity of a thing within a category (or genus) is not changed. There is something higher than just mere components which brings the composition into a unified whole.

    But what is this “something higher”? The materialist wants to say it’s just the arrangement of particles. But this raises immediate problems. Consider: when exactly does a collection of wood atoms become a chair? When the carpenter has assembled 50% of the pieces? 75%? 90%? What if one leg is broken—is it still a chair, or merely chair-shaped atoms? What if the leg is cracked but still functional? The materialist has no principled answer to these questions because “chairness” is not a property that can be reduced to particle arrangements.

    The problem becomes even clearer when we consider boundaries. A chair has clear boundaries to us—we know where the chair ends and the floor begins. But at the atomic level, there are no such boundaries. Atoms are constantly exchanging electrons, being shed and replaced. Air molecules intermingle with the chair’s molecules at the surface. There is no physical demarcation that says “here the chair ends.” The boundaries we perceive (form) are imposed by our minds based on function and purpose.

    This leads to several different possible conclusions about where a “thing” must be sustained. We are asking where something really exists, ontologically speaking. To be precise, there are three exhaustive options: (1) the thing is sustained in a domain of itself (like Platonic Forms), (2) the thing is sustained in the material domain (by physics and chemistry alone), (3) the thing is sustained in the mental domain (by a mind). I offer the reader to consider alternate hypotheses and notice that these choices really do cover the gamut.

    The Trilemma of Ontology

    Let us examine each option in turn to see which can bear the weight of explanation.

    Option 1: Material Sustenance (Reductionist Materialism)

    For the materialist position, we run into the logical contradiction of unified-composite objects. The materialist must assume that composite objects, like a rock, have no inherent boundaries. Physical things are mere indifferentiable clusters of atoms. From here, the materialist has two options. They can either accept a form of object nihilism, where no composite objects actually exist, or they can turn to a nominalistic approach.

    In regards to nominalism, we must ask: what is the reason we would call a rock “rock” if separate from its ontology or it actually being a rock? If things, like a rock, exist in name only, then they do not really exist within distinct categories or kinds. This renders their definitions completely meaningless, because a good definition requires classification within the context of genus-species relationships. If things really exist as distinct objects, it is only because we have determined some aspect of their ontology over and above what reductionism or materialism can explain. So in reality, there is no sustainable nominalist approach for the materialist: one is either an object nihilist, or one must accept that real things are established some other way.

    It seems to me that something like a rock is a perfect example of what would be impossible to be established as ontologically distinct without a mind. Is a pebble a rock? Is a handful of sand many small pebbles? Why do we call a variant quantity of small rocks a singular category? Why do we delineate between singular grains of sand and groups of pebbles? Is it not an arbitrary size distinction relative to our observational abilities and purposes?

    For another example, consider why people groups such as Inuit tribes, who live in snowy environments, have many particular names for snow, whereas those tribes who live near the equator do not. It is because words are conventions within social groups to establish meaningful concepts. To someone who may see snow one day of the year, different textures and variations of snow are not meaningfully distinct. All composite objects that exist—including the very words that I am writing—are things minds have established as meaningful and bounded.

    Therefore, a rock is meaningfully different from a pebble and a group of pebbles from sand only insofar as our use or intent dictates. Our experience of snow presupposes our naming conventions of snow. If you learn a language with seven words for snow, but you have always lived in a desert, you will not suddenly understand snow differently—you need to experience snow differently first.

    But the materialist might object: “Even if our labels are arbitrary, the physical arrangements are real. When I sit in a chair, something physical holds me up.” This is true, but it misses the point. Yes, atoms arranged in a certain configuration will bear weight. But those atoms bearing weight is not the same as a chair existing. The chair, as a unified object with identity over time, with the capacity to be the same chair even if we replace parts, with clear boundaries—this is not present in the physical substrate. It is a mental construct imposed on that substrate.

    Consider the philosophical puzzle of the Ship of Theseus. If we replace every plank of a ship, one by one, is it the same ship? The puzzle has no answer in purely physical terms because the ship’s identity is not a physical property. Identity over time, unity, and boundaries are all features imposed by minds, not discovered in matter.

    If you accept Object Nihilism for composite objects and argue for a fundamental realist view where only quarks and leptons (or quantum fields) exist, then you face equally severe problems. What is your evidence that you exist ontologically? An entity which doesn’t exist as a unified object cannot consistently argue that some things do exist as unified objects. Moreover, what is your basis for assuming you know the “stuff” which is fundamental to reality? Even the quantum field is not necessarily the bottom line. Who can say what energy ultimately is? What’s to say that what’s fundamental isn’t also mind-contingent? That it isn’t mathematical in nature—which would itself require mental grounding?

    This view has made a distinction where everything composite is nominal except for something that has never been directly observed as a truly fundamental “thing.” How does one justify this distinction in the first place? It seems to me a contradiction in reasoning to deny mind-dependent categories for composite objects while affirming mind-independent categories for fundamental particles. Both require the same kind of ontological boundary-drawing that only minds can provide.

    Option 2: Self-Sustaining Forms (Platonism)

    From here, a skeptic might say, “Okay, the chair or rock isn’t purely material. But maybe it’s just a Platonic Form. It sustains itself in an abstract realm. Why do we need a Mind?”

    This is a more sophisticated response, but it ultimately fails for several reasons.

    First, abstract objects have no causal power. A Platonic Form of “chairness” cannot reach down into the physical world and organize atoms into a chair configuration. It cannot explain why this particular collection of atoms instantiates the form rather than some other collection. The relationship between abstract forms and concrete particulars remains deeply mysterious in Platonic metaphysics—so mysterious that even Plato himself struggled with it in dialogues like the Parmenides.

    Second, and more fundamentally, it is unintelligible to think of abstract objects like propositions, mathematical truths, or forms existing without a mind to think them. As Alvin Plantinga has argued, propositions are the contents of thoughts. They are the sort of thing that exists in minds. To say they exist “on their own” in some abstract realm is to commit a category error—it’s like saying colors exist independently of anything colored, or that motion exists independently of anything moving.

    Consider what a Platonic Form would have to be: a truth, a concept, a logical structure. But these are precisely the kinds of things that exist as thoughts. A thought cannot exist without a thinker any more than a dance can exist without a dancer. The Platonist wants to affirm that 2+2=4 exists eternally and necessarily, and I agree. But this truth exists as an eternal thought in an eternal mind, not as a free-floating abstraction.

    Third, many Platonic forms presuppose relationships, which themselves presuppose minds. Take the concept of justice. Justice involves right relations between persons. But “right relations” is an inherently normative concept that makes no sense without minds capable of recognizing and valuing those relations. Or consider mathematical sets. A set is defined by a rule of membership—a mental act of grouping things together according to a criterion. Sets don’t group themselves.

    Therefore, if the “Blueprint” of the universe is real—if there truly are eternal structures, categories, and forms that ground the intelligibility of reality—these cannot be free-floating abstract objects. They must be Divine Thoughts, eternally sustained in a Divine Mind.

    Option 3: Mental Sustenance (Idealism)

    This leaves us with the third option: composite objects exist insofar as they are sustained by minds. This may sound counterintuitive at first, but it’s the only option that avoids the contradictions of the previous two.

    When a carpenter builds a chair, he doesn’t merely arrange atoms—he imposes a conceptual unity on those atoms. He creates boundaries where there were none. He establishes identity conditions (this is one chair, not four separate legs plus a seat plus a back). He determines a function and purpose that gives meaning to the configuration. All of these acts are mental, not physical.

    But here’s the crucial question: once the carpenter stops thinking about the chair, does it cease to exist? In one sense, yes—the carpenter’s mind is no longer actively sustaining it. But in another sense, no—the chair continues to be recognized as a chair by other minds. As long as someone conceptualizes those atoms as a unified object called “chair,” it exists as such.

    This actually goes back to Bishop George Berkeley’s famous argument: “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” In a sense, if we stipulate that there is no wildlife and trees lack the ability to register sound frequencies, the fall really does not make a sound. This is because sound is a perception, a mental phenomenon. There are pressure waves in the air, certainly, but “sound” as we experience it requires a mind to interpret those waves.

    However, Berkeley went further than this, and so must we. Berkeley argued that material objects continue to exist when no human observes them because God’s mind perpetually perceives them. I want to make a similar but distinct claim: composite objects, categories, and the conceptual structure that makes reality intelligible all require perpetual mental sustenance. Not just observation, but active ontological grounding.

    An analogy may help: consider an author writing a novel. The characters in the novel have a kind of existence—they’re not nothing. But their existence is entirely dependent on the author’s creative act and the mind of any reader engaging with them. If every copy of the book were destroyed and everyone forgot the story, the characters would cease to exist in any meaningful sense. They have no “existential inertia” apart from minds sustaining them.

    I propose that composite objects in our world are similar. The atoms may have mind-independent existence (though even this is debatable), but the chairness—the unified object with boundaries, identity, and purpose—exists only in minds. And since these objects continue to exist even when finite human minds aren’t thinking about them, they must be sustained by an infinite, omnipresent Mind.

    The Formal Argument

    All this contemplation leads me to the first formulation of a new kind of contingency argument which I call the Argument from Ontological Sustenance (or Idealist Argument from Contingency):

    Premise 1: All composite objects require a mind to sustain their ontology.

    Premise 2: The universe is a composite object.

    Conclusion: Therefore, the universe requires a mind to sustain its ontology.

    This is a logically valid argument, meaning if the premises are true, the conclusion must be as well.

    The first premise has been defended at length above. The key insight is that composite objects—things made of parts organized into a unity—have no ontological status in the physical substrate alone. Their unity, boundaries, and identity exist only as mental constructs.

    The second premise should be relatively uncontroversial. The universe is composed of parts (galaxies, stars, planets, particles) organized into a whole. It has boundaries (even if those boundaries are the limits of spacetime itself). It has an identity that persists through time. All of these features require the same kind of mental grounding that chairs and rocks require.

    Therefore, the universe itself must be sustained in its existence as a unified, bounded entity by a mind. And since the universe contains all finite minds, this sustaining mind must be transcendent—beyond the universe, not part of it.

    Why Not Pantheism?

    An obvious objection arises: couldn’t the universe itself be the Mind that sustains all these categories? This would be a pantheistic solution—identifying God with the universe itself rather than positing a transcendent deity.

    This fails for several reasons:

    Step 1: A mind is a container for concepts. It is the sort of thing that has thoughts, holds ideas, and maintains logical relationships between propositions.

    Step 2: Necessary truths (logic, mathematics, metaphysics) exist outside our finite minds. We discover them; we don’t invent them. This implies a Greater Mind contains them.

    Step 3: Could this Greater Mind be the Universe itself?

    Refutation: No. A “Universe Mind” would be composed of parts (galaxies, energy fields, quantum states) and subject to entropy (time, change, decay). But anything composed of parts is contingent—dependent on those parts and their organization. Anything subject to entropy requires external sustenance or an explanation for why it continues to exist through change.

    Moreover, the universe is precisely the kind of composite object that needs mental grounding. To say the universe grounds its own categories is circular—it’s like saying a novel writes itself, or a dance choreographs itself.

    Conclusion: The Ultimate Sustainer cannot be the Universe. It must be Transcendent (distinct from creation) and Non-Contingent (self-existent, not dependent on anything external to itself).

    The Divine Attributes

    Once we establish that a Transcendent, Non-Contingent Mind sustains all reality, we can derive further attributes through the classical logic of Act and Potency (pure actuality).

    Premise: A Non-Contingent Mind has no external cause, and therefore no external limitations or deficiencies. It is “Pure Act”—fully realized, with no unrealized potential.

    Omnipotence

    To possess “some” power but not “all” power is to have a limitation—an unrealized potential to do more. But a Non-Contingent Being has no unrealized potentials by definition. Nothing external limits what it can do. Therefore, it possesses all power—omnipotence.

    Omniscience

    Ignorance is a lack, a privation of knowledge. A Fully Realized Mind has no lacks or privations. Moreover, if this Mind sustains all reality through its thoughts, it must know everything it sustains—otherwise, how could it sustain it? Therefore, it knows all things—omniscience.

    Omnibenevolence

    Evil, in the classical metaphysical tradition, is a privation—a lack of goodness or being. It is not a positive reality but an absence, like cold is the absence of heat or darkness the absence of light. Since this Mind is Fully Realized Being with no privations, it contains no evil. It is Pure Goodness—omnibenevolence.

    Eternity and Immutability

    Change implies potentiality—the ability to become something one is not yet. But a Non-Contingent Being has no potentiality. Therefore, it does not change. It exists eternally in a timeless present, not subject to temporal succession.

    Personhood

    This Mind thinks, knows, and creates categories. These are the activities of a person, not an impersonal force. Moreover, the categories it sustains include moral values, relational properties, and purposes—all of which presuppose personhood. Therefore, this Being is personal.

    The Christian Specificity

    We have now established the existence of a Transcendent, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent, Eternal, Personal Mind that sustains all reality. This is recognizably the God of classical theism. But can we go further and identify this God with the specific God of Christianity?

    The Argument from Relational Necessity

    Premise 1: A God who is Personal, Truthful, and Loving is inherently Relational. Love seeks connection; truth seeks to be known; personhood seeks communion.

    Premise 2: To be fully known and to establish a perfect relationship with finite creatures, this Infinite God must bridge the ontological gap. He cannot remain purely transcendent and abstract.

    Consider: if God is perfectly loving, His love must be expressed, not merely potential. If God is truth, He must reveal Himself, not remain hidden. If God is personal, He must enter into relationship with persons He has created. But finite creatures cannot reach up to an infinite God—the ontological distance is too vast. Therefore, God must reach down to us.

    The Filter

    With this criterion, we can evaluate the world’s major religious traditions:

    Deism/Pantheism: These fail immediately because they offer no relationship. Deism presents a God who creates and withdraws. Pantheism identifies God with the universe, making genuine relationship impossible.

    Unitarian Monotheism (Islam/Judaism): These traditions affirm God’s transcendence and offer prophetic revelation—books and laws sent from on high. But God remains fundamentally separate. He sends messages but does not cross the boundary to unite with creation. The relationship is external, mediated through texts and commandments, never achieving full intimacy or union.

    Christianity: This succeeds as the only worldview where the Sustainer becomes the Sustained. In the doctrine of the Incarnation, God doesn’t merely send a message about Himself—He enters history as a human being. The Infinite becomes finite. The Creator becomes a creature. The Mind that sustains all reality subjects Himself to the very categories He created.

    This is not merely unique—it’s philosophically necessary. If God is to bridge the ontological gap between infinite and finite, between Creator and creature, He must do so by becoming both. The Incarnation is the only way for perfect relationship to be achieved.

    Verification Through Human Experience

    The Christian worldview also uniquely and truthfully describes the human condition. We experience ourselves as simultaneously possessing great dignity (made in God’s image, capable of reason and love) and great depravity (prone to selfishness, cruelty, and irrationality). We long for meaning, purpose, and redemption, yet find ourselves unable to achieve these on our own.

    Christianity explains this through the doctrine of the Fall and offers a solution through Redemption—not by our own efforts, but by God’s gracious action in Christ. This narrative aligns with both our philosophical conclusions about God’s nature and our existential experience of ourselves.

    Conclusion

    The Mind that sustains the rock, the chair, and every composite object in reality is the same Mind that entered the world as Jesus of Nazareth. From the seemingly simple question “What makes a chair a chair?” we have traced a path to the central truth of Christianity: God is not distant or abstract, but intimately involved in every aspect of reality, from the smallest pebble to the vast cosmos, from the categories that make thought possible to the incarnate life that makes redemption possible.

    This is the Argument from Ontological Sustenance. Like all philosophical arguments, it invites scrutiny, challenges, and further refinement. But I believe it opens a fruitful path for natural theology—one that begins not with cosmological speculation about the universe’s beginning, but with careful attention to the ontological structure of everyday objects and the categories that make them intelligible.

    Every time we recognize a chair as a chair, a rock as a rock, or the universe as a cosmos, we are implicitly acknowledging the work of the Divine Mind that makes such recognition possible.

  • The Incoherence of Naturalism

    The Incoherence of Naturalism

    Introduction

    Naturalism—the philosophical position that reality consists entirely of natural entities governed by natural laws—presents itself as the most rational and empirically grounded worldview. Yet despite its scientific veneer, naturalism suffers from foundational incoherence that undermines its viability as a comprehensive philosophy.

    This critique demonstrates that naturalism is self-defeating, arbitrarily restrictive, explanatorily inadequate, and internally inconsistent. Each of these failings stems not from temporary limitations in scientific knowledge but from structural contradictions within naturalism itself. Together, they render naturalism philosophically untenable and point toward the necessity of a more pluralistic metaphysical framework.

    Premise 1: Self-Defeating Foundations

    Naturalism’s first fatal flaw lies in its inability to justify its own foundations without circularity or special pleading.

    Scientific inquiry rests on several non-empirical assumptions that cannot be empirically verified: the reliability of human reason, the uniformity of nature, the correspondence between our perceptions and external reality, and principles like logical consistency and parsimony. These assumptions cannot be proven through scientific methods—they are preconditions for scientific inquiry itself.

    This creates an insurmountable problem for naturalism. If reality consists entirely of natural entities governed by natural laws, then human cognition is merely the product of evolutionary processes that selected for survival value, not truth-tracking capacity. As philosopher Alvin Plantinga argues, if our cognitive faculties evolved primarily for reproductive fitness rather than truth detection, we have no reason to trust them for accurately grasping metaphysical truths like naturalism itself.

    The naturalist might counter that evolutionary adaptiveness correlates with truth-tracking, particularly regarding immediate environmental threats. But this defense fails to bridge the gap between adaptive perceptual reliability and justified abstract metaphysical beliefs. There is no evolutionary advantage to having accurate beliefs about quantum mechanics, consciousness, or cosmic origins. Natural selection has no mechanism to select for metaphysical accuracy.

    This creates what philosopher Thomas Nagel calls an “intolerable conflict” in naturalism—it relies on rational faculties that, by its own account, evolved for survival rather than metaphysical accuracy. The naturalist faces what Barry Stroud terms “irrecoverable circularity”: they must presuppose the reliability of faculties whose reliability they then try to explain through evolutionary processes.

    Even sophisticated attempts to escape this circularity through epistemic externalism merely shift the problem. Reliabilism claims beliefs formed through reliable processes are justified regardless of whether we can prove their reliability. But this begs the question: how do we establish which processes are reliable without presupposing their reliability? At some point, non-empirical axioms must be accepted on non-natural grounds.

    If naturalists retreat to pragmatism, accepting these axioms as “useful fictions” rather than truths, they have conceded that naturalism cannot justify its foundations within its own framework. This pragmatism is itself a non-empirical philosophical commitment that naturalism can neither justify nor dispense with.

    Premise 2: Arbitrary Restriction of Inquiry

    Naturalism’s second critical flaw lies in its arbitrary restriction of legitimate inquiry to natural causes alone.

    Philosophical naturalism makes an unwarranted leap from methodological naturalism (the practical scientific approach of seeking natural causes) to a metaphysical claim that only natural causes exist. This represents a category error—moving from a useful methodological heuristic to an ontological assertion without sufficient justification.

    By defining reality exclusively in terms of what natural science can study, naturalism creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: it finds only natural causes because it defines all discoverable causes as natural by definition. This circular approach prejudices investigation rather than allowing evidence to determine the boundaries of reality.

    The most powerful demonstration of this limitation is consciousness. Despite tremendous advances in neuroscience, the qualitative character of subjective experience—what philosopher Thomas Nagel calls the “what it is like” aspect of consciousness—resists reduction to physical processes. Neuroscience can correlate neural activity with reported experiences but cannot explain why these physical processes are accompanied by subjective experience at all.

    This limitation isn’t temporary but structural—scientific methods are designed to study third-person observable phenomena, not first-person subjectivity. The scientific method, by its very nature, abstracts away subjective qualities to focus on quantifiable properties. This creates what philosopher David Chalmers calls the “hard problem” of consciousness—explaining how and why physical processes give rise to subjective experience.

    Naturalists often respond by incorporating consciousness as a “fundamental” feature of an expanded natural framework—what Chalmers calls “naturalistic dualism.” But this semantic maneuver doesn’t resolve the ontological problem. If consciousness is fundamental and irreducible to physical processes, then reality includes non-physical properties—precisely what traditional naturalism denies. This exhibits what philosopher William Hasker calls “naturalism of the gaps”—expanding the definition of “natural” to encompass whatever resists reduction.

    Unlike historical examples like electromagnetism or vitalism, which were unexplained physical phenomena eventually incorporated into expanded physical frameworks, consciousness presents a categorically different challenge—explaining how subjective experience arises from objective processes. This isn’t merely an unexplained mechanism but a conceptual chasm between fundamentally different categories of reality.

    Premise 3: Explanatory Gaps

    Naturalism’s third major flaw lies in its persistent failure to explain fundamental aspects of human experience, despite centuries of scientific progress.

    Beyond consciousness, naturalism struggles to account for several phenomena central to human existence:

    Intentionality: The “aboutness” of mental states—the fact that thoughts, beliefs, and desires are about something beyond themselves—resists physical reduction. Physical states aren’t intrinsically “about” anything; they simply are. Yet our mental states exhibit this irreducible directedness toward objects, concepts, and possibilities. Philosopher Franz Brentano identified intentionality as the defining characteristic of mental phenomena, creating an explanatory gap that naturalism has failed to bridge.

    Rationality: Logical relationships between propositions aren’t physical connections but normative ones—they describe how we ought to reason, not merely how matter behaves. The laws of logic and mathematics exhibit a necessity that natural laws lack. Natural laws describe contingent regularities that could theoretically be otherwise; logical laws express necessary truths that couldn’t possibly be different. This modal difference creates another category distinction that naturalism struggles to accommodate.

    Morality: Moral imperatives involve inherent “ought” claims that cannot be derived from purely descriptive “is” statements. As philosopher G.E. Moore identified, any attempt to define moral properties in natural terms commits the “naturalistic fallacy.” Evolutionary accounts may explain the origins of moral psychology but cannot justify moral claims as true or authoritative. If moral judgments are merely evolutionary adaptations, their normative force is undermined, creating what philosopher Sharon Street calls the “Darwinian Dilemma.”

    Naturalists often respond to these gaps through eliminativism or emergentism. Eliminativism denies the reality of these phenomena, claiming they are illusions or folk-psychological confusions. But this approach is self-defeating—an illusion of consciousness must be experienced by someone, making consciousness inescapable. As philosopher John Searle notes, “Where consciousness is concerned, the appearance is the reality.”

    Emergentism fares no better. To claim consciousness “emerges” from physical processes without explaining the mechanism of emergence merely restates the mystery. Unlike other emergent properties (like liquidity emerging from H₂O molecules), consciousness involves a transition from objective processes to subjective experience—a categorical leap, not a continuous spectrum. The naturalist must explain how arrangement of non-conscious particles yields consciousness, a challenge philosopher Colin McGinn calls “cognitive closure.”

    These explanatory gaps aren’t temporary limitations in scientific knowledge but principled barriers arising from naturalism’s restricted ontology. After centuries of scientific progress, these gaps remain as profound as ever, suggesting a fundamental inadequacy in naturalism’s conceptual resources.

    Premise 4: Inconsistent Verification

    Naturalism’s fourth fatal flaw lies in its criterion for knowledge, which cannot justify itself without inconsistency.

    The naturalist privileges empirical verification—the idea that meaningful claims must be empirically testable. Yet this verification principle itself cannot be empirically verified. It is a philosophical position, not a scientific discovery. This creates an internal contradiction: if we accept only what can be demonstrated through scientific methods, we must reject the very principle that demands such verification.

    Even if naturalists reject strict verificationism, they still privilege empirical evidence above all else. Yet this privileging itself cannot be empirically justified. It’s a meta-empirical value judgment about what counts as legitimate evidence—precisely the kind of non-empirical philosophical commitment that naturalism struggles to account for.

    Attempts to resolve this inconsistency through naturalized epistemology (following Quine) don’t solve the problem—they institutionalize it. Treating epistemology as a branch of psychology assumes the reliability of the psychological methods used to study epistemology. This creates what philosopher Laurence BonJour calls “meta-justification”—how do we justify our justificatory framework? Naturalized epistemology ultimately relies on pragmatic success, but this pragmatism itself requires non-empirical criteria for what constitutes “success.”

    Even if we accept Quine’s web of belief, some strands in the web must be anchored independently of empirical verification. These include logical principles, mathematical truths, and the assumption that reality is comprehensible. These principles aren’t empirically derived but are preconditions for empirical inquiry. Their necessity reveals naturalism’s dependence on non-natural foundations.

    Naturalism thus faces an inescapable dilemma: either it consistently applies its verification standards and undermines its own foundations, or it makes special exceptions for its core principles and thereby acknowledges limits to its explanatory scope.

    The Inescapable Dilemma of Naturalism

    These four premises reveal that naturalism faces an inescapable dilemma:

    1. Strict naturalism maintains a coherent ontology (only physical entities exist) but fails to account for consciousness, intentionality, rationality, and its own foundations.
    2. Expanded naturalism accommodates these phenomena but sacrifices coherence by stretching “natural” to include fundamentally non-physical properties.

    This isn’t merely a limitation of current knowledge but a structural impossibility within naturalism’s framework. The problem isn’t that naturalism hasn’t yet explained consciousness; it’s that consciousness is categorically different from physical processes, requiring explanatory principles that transcend physical causation.

    A “richer naturalism” that embraces consciousness as fundamental, accepts non-empirical axioms pragmatically, and incorporates abstract objects has abandoned naturalism’s core thesis that reality consists entirely of natural entities subject to natural laws. This isn’t evolution of inquiry but conceptual surrender.

    Beyond Naturalism: The Case for Metaphysical Pluralism

    The most coherent alternative to naturalism is metaphysical pluralism—recognizing that reality includes physical processes, conscious experience, abstract entities, and normative truths, without reducing any to the others.

    This pluralistic approach acknowledges that different domains of reality require appropriate methods of investigation:

    1. Physical phenomena are best studied through empirical scientific methods
    2. Conscious experience requires phenomenological approaches that honor subjectivity
    3. Logical and mathematical truths demand rational analysis independent of empirical verification
    4. Normative questions involve philosophical reflection on values, not merely empirical facts

    Unlike naturalism, pluralism doesn’t face self-defeat (it can ground rational faculties non-circularly), doesn’t arbitrarily restrict inquiry (it allows appropriate methods for different domains), and doesn’t face explanatory gaps (it acknowledges irreducible categories without eliminating them).

    Naturalists often appeal to Ockham’s Razor (parsimony) and the practical success of science (pragmatism) as reasons to prefer naturalism over more metaphysically rich views like pluralism. However, as your text implicitly and explicitly argues, these critiques are problematic when leveled by the naturalist themselves, given the internal difficulties naturalism faces.

    1. Problems with the Parsimony Critique:

    • False Parsimony: Naturalism’s claim to parsimony often amounts to ontological stinginess achieved by explanatory inadequacy. It claims to be simpler by positing only one fundamental kind of “stuff” (natural/physical). However, as your text details, this simplicity is bought at the cost of being unable to adequately account for or integrate crucial aspects of reality like consciousness, intentionality, rationality, and normativity (Premises 2 & 3). A theory that is simple but leaves vast swathes of reality unexplained is not genuinely more parsimonious than a theory that posits more fundamental categories but can actually explain or accommodate all the relevant phenomena. True parsimony should be measured not just by the number of types of entities posited, but by the overall complexity of the explanatory framework required to account for the data. Pluralism, by assigning different phenomena to different appropriate categories, might require a more diverse ontology but arguably a less strained and more comprehensive explanatory structure than naturalism, which must resort to eliminativism, mysterious emergence, or redefining terms to handle outliers.
    • Redefining “Natural” Undermines Parsimony: Your text notes that naturalists trying to accommodate phenomena like consciousness might resort to calling it a “fundamental feature” within an “expanded naturalism” or “naturalistic dualism.” This is an attempt to absorb irreducible phenomena by broadening the definition of “natural.” But this move itself adds fundamental categories or properties to the naturalist ontology. If “natural” now includes irreducible subjective experience or fundamental abstract objects, the initial claim to radical simplicity (“only physical stuff”) is surrendered. This “naturalism of the gaps” (as your text puts it) demonstrates that naturalists, when pressed, do feel the need to add fundamental categories, thereby undermining their own parsimony argument against pluralism.
    • Parsimony Itself is a Non-Empirical Principle: Ockham’s Razor is a meta-scientific or philosophical principle guiding theory choice. It’s not something discovered through empirical science. As your text argues in Premise 4, naturalism struggles to justify such non-empirical principles within its own framework. If the naturalist insists that all legitimate knowledge must be empirically verifiable or grounded, they face a difficulty in appealing to a principle like parsimony, which is a criterion of theoretical virtue, not an empirical fact. Using parsimony to critique pluralism requires the naturalist to step outside their own purported empirical-only standard, or at least rely on a principle they cannot ground naturally.  

    2. Problems with the Pragmatism Critique:

    • Conflation of Methodological and Metaphysical Pragmatism: Naturalists often point to the undeniable success of science (which operates using methodological naturalism – seeking natural explanations within its domain) as evidence for metaphysical naturalism (the philosophical claim that only natural things exist). As your text argues in Premise 2, this is a category error. Methodological naturalism is pragmatic for the specific goal of studying the physical world empirically. Metaphysical naturalism is a comprehensive worldview claim. The pragmatism of the former doesn’t automatically transfer to the latter. Pluralism fully embraces methodological naturalism for understanding the physical realm but recognizes that other realms (subjective experience, logic, morality) require different, though equally valid, approaches.  
    • Pragmatism for What Purpose? If pragmatism means “what works as a comprehensive worldview,” then naturalism is arguably not pragmatic because it fails to provide a coherent or satisfactory account of fundamental aspects of human reality (consciousness, meaning, values, reason’s validity), as detailed in Premise 3. It might be pragmatic for building bridges or predicting planetary motion, but it’s arguably deeply unpragmatic for understanding what it means to be a conscious, rational, moral agent in a world with objective truths. Pluralism, by acknowledging different domains and methods, is arguably more pragmatically successful as a philosophical framework because it provides conceptual resources to engage meaningfully with the full spectrum of human experience and inquiry, not just the physically quantifiable parts.
    • Naturalism May Rely on Pragmatism for its Own Foundations: Your text suggests (Premises 1 & 4) that naturalists, when pushed on how they justify the reliability of reason or the empirical method itself, might retreat to a pragmatic defense (“these methods just work”). If naturalism must ultimately appeal to pragmatism to ground its own core principles, it’s in a weak position to then turn around and critique pluralism solely on pragmatic grounds, especially when pluralism can argue it is more pragmatically successful in making sense of all of reality. This creates a kind of “pragmatism of the gaps” where pragmatism is invoked precisely where naturalism’s internal justification fails.

    In summary, the naturalist critiques of pluralism based on parsimony and pragmatism often miss the mark. Naturalism’s parsimony is frequently achieved by ignoring significant data or by subtly expanding its ontology, undermining the claim to unique simplicity. Its appeal to pragmatism often confuses the success of scientific method (which pluralism utilizes) with the philosophical adequacy of metaphysical naturalism as a total worldview, and ignores naturalism’s own potential reliance on pragmatic grounds it cannot fully justify. Pluralism, while positing a richer ontology, can argue it offers a more genuinely explanatory parsimony and a more comprehensive pragmatism by acknowledging the irreducible complexity of reality.

    Metaphysical pluralism doesn’t entail supernaturalism or theism by necessity. One can reject both naturalism and supernaturalism by acknowledging that reality may include non-physical aspects (consciousness, mathematical truths, values) without positing supernatural entities. Philosophers like Thomas Nagel, John Searle, and David Chalmers have developed non-materialist frameworks that don’t entail theism.

    Conclusion

    Naturalism fails as a comprehensive worldview. Its success in explaining physical phenomena doesn’t justify its extension to all aspects of reality. Its persistent explanatory gaps in consciousness, rationality, and value—coupled with its inability to justify its own foundations—reveal its fundamental inadequacy.

    A truly rational approach follows evidence where it leads, even when it points beyond the boundaries of naturalistic explanation. This isn’t an abandonment of rationality but its fulfillment—acknowledging that different aspects of reality may require different modes of understanding.

    Metaphysical pluralism offers a more coherent framework that honors the multidimensional character of reality. It maintains the empirical rigor of science within its proper domain while recognizing that human experience encompasses dimensions that transcend physical reduction. In doing so, it avoids both the reductionism of strict naturalism and the supernaturalism it rightly criticizes, providing a middle path that better accounts for the full spectrum of human knowledge and experience.

  • An Argument for Agent Causation in the Origin of DNA’s Information

    An Argument for Agent Causation in the Origin of DNA’s Information

    NOTE: This is a design argument inspired by Stephen Meyer‘s design argument from DNA. Importantly, specified complexity is changed for semiotic code (which I feel is more precise) and intelligent design is changed to agent causation (which is more preferencial).

    This argument posits that the very nature of the information encoded in DNA, specifically its structure as a semiotic code, necessitates an intelligent cause in its origin. The argument proceeds by establishing two key premises: first, that semiotic codes inherently require intelligent (agent) causation for their creation, and second, that DNA functions as a semiotic code.

    Premise 1: The Creation of a Semiotic Code Requires Agent Causation (Intelligence)

    A semiotic code is a system designed for conveying meaning through the use of signs. At its core, a semiotic code establishes a relationship between a signifier (the form the sign takes, e.g., a word, a symbol, a sequence) and a signified (the concept or meaning represented). Crucially, in a semiotic code, this relationship is arbitrary or conventional, not based on inherent physical or chemical causation between the signifier and the signified. This requires an interpretive framework – a set of rules or a system – that is independent of the physical properties of the signifier itself, providing the means to encode and decode the meaning. The meaning resides not in the physical signal, but in its interpretation according to the established code.

    Consider examples like human language, musical notation, or traffic signals. The sound “stop” or the sequence of letters S-T-O-P has no inherent physical property that forces a vehicle to cease motion. A red light does not chemically or physically cause a car to stop; it is a conventionally assigned symbol that, within a shared interpretive framework (traffic laws and driver understanding), signifies a command to stop. This is distinct from a natural sign, such as smoke indicating fire. In this case, the relationship between smoke and fire is one of direct, necessary physical causation (combustion produces smoke). While an observer can interpret smoke as a sign of fire, the connection itself is a product of natural laws, existing independently of any imposed code or interpretive framework.

    The capacity to create and utilize a system where arbitrary symbols reliably and purposefully convey specific meanings requires more than just physical processes. It requires the ability to:

    Conceive of a goal: To transfer specific information or instruct an action.

    Establish arbitrary conventions: To assign meaning to a form (signifier) where no inherent physical link exists to the meaning (signified).

    Design an interpretive framework: To build or establish a system of rules or machinery that can reliably encode and decode these arbitrary relationships.

    Implement this system for goal-directed action: To use the code and framework to achieve the initial goal of information transfer and subsequent action based on that information.

    This capacity to establish arbitrary, rule-governed relationships for the purpose of communication and control is what we define as intelligence in this context. The creation of a semiotic code is an act of imposing abstract order and meaning onto physical elements according to a plan or intention. Such an act requires agent causation – causation originating from an entity capable of intentionality, symbolic representation, and the design of systems that operate based on abstract rules, rather than solely from the necessary interactions of physical forces (event causation).

    Purely natural, undirected physical processes can produce complex patterns and structures driven by energy gradients, chemical affinities, or physical laws (like crystal formation, which is a direct physical consequence of electrochemical forces and molecular structure, lacking arbitrary convention, an independent interpretive framework, or symbolic representation). However, they lack the capacity to establish arbitrary conventions where the link between form and meaning is not physically determined, nor can they spontaneously generate an interpretive framework that operates based on such non-physical rules for goal-directed purposes. Therefore, the existence of a semiotic code, characterized by arbitrary signifier-signified links and an independent interpretive framework for goal-directed information transfer, provides compelling evidence for the involvement of intelligence in its origin.

    Premise 2: DNA Functions as a Semiotic Code

    The genetic code within DNA exhibits the key characteristics of a semiotic code as defined above. Sequences of nucleotides (specifically, codons on mRNA) act as signifiers. The signifieds are specific amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins.

    Crucially, the relationship between a codon sequence and the amino acid it specifies is not one of direct chemical causation. A codon (e.g., AUG) does not chemically synthesize or form the amino acid methionine through a direct physical reaction dictated by the codon’s molecular structure alone. Amino acid synthesis occurs through entirely separate biochemical pathways involving dedicated enzymes.

    Instead, the codon serves as a symbolic signal that is interpreted by the complex cellular machinery of protein synthesis – the ribosomes, transfer RNAs (tRNAs), and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. This machinery constitutes the interpretive framework.

    Here’s how it functions as a semiotic framework:

    • Arbitrary/Conventional Relationship: The specific assignment of a codon triplet to a particular amino acid is largely a matter of convention. While there might be some historical or biochemical reasons that biased the code’s evolution, the evidence from synthetic biology, where scientists have successfully engineered bacteria with different codon-amino acid assignments, demonstrates that the relationship is not one of necessary physical linkage but of an established (and in this case, artificially modified) rule or convention. Different codon assignments could work, but the system functions because the cellular machinery reliably follows the established rules of the genetic code.
    • Independent Interpretive Framework: The translation machinery (ribosome, tRNAs, synthetases) is a complex system that reads the mRNA sequence (signifier) and brings the correct amino acid (signified) to the growing protein chain, according to the rules encoded in the structure and function of the tRNAs and synthetases. The meaning (“add this amino acid now”) is not inherent in the chemical properties of the codon itself but resides in how the interpretive machinery is designed to react to that codon. This machinery operates independently of direct physical causation by the codon itself to create the amino acid; it interprets the codon as an instruction within the system’s logic.
    • Symbolic Representation: The codon stands for an amino acid; it is a symbol representing a unit of meaning within the context of protein assembly. The physical form (nucleotide sequence) is distinct from the meaning it conveys (which amino acid to add). This is analogous to the word “cat” representing a feline creature – the sound or letters don’t physically embody the cat but symbolize the concept.

    Therefore, DNA, specifically the genetic code and the translation system that interprets it, functions as a sophisticated semiotic code. It involves arbitrary relationships between signifiers (codons) and signifieds (amino acids), mediated by an independent interpretive framework (translation machinery) for the purpose of constructing functional proteins (goal-directed information transfer).

    Conclusion: Therefore, DNA Requires Agent Causation in its Origin

    Based on the premises established:

    1. The creation of a semiotic code, characterized by arbitrary conventions, an independent interpretive framework, and symbolic representation for goal-directed information transfer, requires the specific capacities associated with intelligence and agent causation (intentionality, abstraction, rule-creation, system design).
    2. DNA, through the genetic code and its translation machinery, functions as a semiotic code exhibiting these very characteristics.

    It logically follows that the origin of DNA’s semiotic structure requires agent causation. The arbitrary nature of the code assignments and the existence of a complex system specifically designed to read and act upon these arbitrary rules, independent of direct physical necessity between codon and amino acid, are hallmarks of intelligent design, not the expected outcomes of undirected physical or chemical processes.

    Addressing Potential Objections:

    • Evolution and Randomness: While natural selection can act on variations in existing biological systems, it requires a self-replicating system with heredity – which presupposes the existence of a functional coding and translation system. Natural selection is a filter and modifier of existing information; it is not a mechanism for generating a semiotic code from scratch. Randomness, by definition, lacks the capacity to produce the specified, functional, arbitrary conventions and the integrated interpretive machinery characteristic of a semiotic code. The challenge is not just sequence generation, but the origin of the meaningful, rule-governed relationship between sequences and outcomes, and the system that enforces these rules.
    • “Frozen Accident” and Abiogenesis Challenges: Hypotheses about abiogenesis and early life (like the RNA world) face significant hurdles in explaining the origin of this integrated semiotic system. The translation machinery is a highly complex and interdependent system (a “chicken-and-and egg” problem where codons require tRNAs and synthetases to be read, but tRNAs and synthetases are themselves encoded by and produced through this same system). The origin of the arbitrary codon-amino acid assignments and the simultaneous emergence of the complex machinery to interpret them presents a significant challenge for gradual, undirected assembly driven solely by chemical or physical affinities.
    • Biochemical Processes vs. Interpretation: The argument does not claim that a ribosome is a conscious entity “interpreting” in the human sense. Instead, it argues that the system it is part of (the genetic code and translation machinery) functions as an interpretive framework because it reads symbols (codons) and acts according to established, arbitrary rules (the genetic code’s assignments) to produce a specific output (amino acid sequence), where this relationship is not based on direct physical necessity but on a mapping established by the code’s design. This rule-governed, symbolic mapping, independent of physical causation between symbol and meaning, is the defining feature of a semiotic code requiring an intelligence to establish the rules and the system.
    • God-of-the-Gaps: This argument is not based on mere ignorance of a natural explanation. It is a positive argument based on the nature of the phenomenon itself. Semiotic codes, wherever their origin is understood (human language, computer code), are the products of intelligent activity involving the creation and implementation of arbitrary conventions and interpretive systems for goal-directed communication. The argument posits that DNA exhibits these defining characteristics and therefore infers a similar type of cause in its origin, based on a uniformity of experience regarding the necessary preconditions for semiotic systems.

    In conclusion, the sophisticated, arbitrary, and rule-governed nature of the genetic code and its associated translation machinery point to it being a semiotic system. Based on the inherent requirements for creating such a system—namely, the capacities for intentionality, symbolic representation, rule-creation, and system design—the origin of DNA’s information is best explained by the action of an intelligent agent.