Whenever I debate a theist on the topic of mental causation—which almost every theists believes in—I almost always hear the claim that if mental causation exists you wouldn't be able to tell scientifically; the mind is non-material. This strikes me as odd. Why would this be the case? Anything that can affect physical matter is in principle verifiable and open to science. So I thought of this dialogue to show why this view makes no sense:
Person A: The ghost is moving the cup across the table.
Person B: There's no way to tell if the ghost moved the cup across the table because the ghost is non-material.
Person A: What are you talking about? We can see the cup moving across the table with nothing touching it.
Person B: No, it's impossible to tell if a non-material thing affects a physical thing.
Person A: Are you insane? The cup is moving right now and nothing we can see is moving it.
Person B: No, it's impossible to tell if a non-material thing affects a physical thing.
Person A: It's moving! We can see the ghost affecting physical matter, and we've scientifically ruled out all other possibilities.
Person B: No, it's impossible to tell if a non-material thing affects a physical thing.
Person A:
No comments:
Post a Comment