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Philosophy of Religion 19:127-143 (J 986)
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SWINB.URNE'S ARGUMENT FROM CONSCIOUSNESS
Lr~
SELMER BRINGSJORD
Department of Philosophy.lJrown University. Providence. RI 02912
In The Existence of God, the second book in his trilogy on issues in philosophical
theology, Richard Swinburne presents a sequence of inductive arguments for God's
existence. 1 In this paper I try to refute one interesting but hitherto overlooked
member of this sequence, viz., "The Argument From Consciousness.,,2
Here is the plan I follow. Section I is a brief characterization of the general
program Swinburne adopts in The Existence of God: I describe therein his overarching goal, define what he calls "C" and "P" inductive arguments, give a roughand-ready account of his terminology, and cite certain of his presuppositions.
Section II contains an explicit version of the argument from consciousness, and a
rough summary of the attack I bring against it. In III I begin this attack: I search
for but fail to find a needed sub-argument for a premise in the argument presented
in II. But instead of ending this section with a rejection of Swinburne's argument,
I postpone a decision about the truth or falsity of the premise he apparently
doesn't support. In IV I sketch a theory of events, and then use that theory to
develop with tolerable precision what Swinburne calls the "Mind-Brain Identity
Theory." In V I consider and ultimately reject Swinburne's arguments against this
theory. But then I assume, for the sake of argument, that Swinburne's attack on the
Mind-Brain Identity Theory succeeds. I proceed to show, in VI, that his argument
from consciousness fails -even under this assumption. In VII, the final section,
I briefly summarize my refutation, and then offer a few suggestions for building a
stronger version of Swinburne's argument.
I
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I
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'.'1' I
The structure of the overall program Swinburne adopts in The Existence of God is,
I think, innovative. The first stage of this program is an attempt to show that a
number of good C-inductive arguments for the existence of God 3 can be formulated (e.g., The Cosmological Argument, The Argument from Providence, The
Argument from Religious Experience, The Argument from Consciousness, etc.);
where, roughly, according to Swinburne, A is a good C-inductive argument in phi-
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losophy of religion iff A's premises (i) add to the probability of its conclusion and
(ii) "are known to be true by those who argue about religion.,,4 The second stage
in the program is a demonstration that these (six) C-inductive arguments, when
combined, yield a good P-inductive argument to the existence of God; where,
again roughly, and again according to Swinburne, A is a good P-inductive argument
in philosophy of religion iff A's premises (i) make A's conclusion more probable
than not and (ii) are known to be true by those who argue about religion.
This program can be made more perspicuous if we follow Swinburne and employ
a fragment of the symbolism of confirmation theory. Since we are trying to assess
the probability, on certain evidence, for the hypothesis that God exists, the cornerstone of our notation will be 'P(h/e & k),' where this abbreviates 'the probability
of hypothesis h given evidence e and background knowledge k.' (The generalized
schema is 'Pea/b)', where a and b range over propositions.) With this symbolism,
and with standard numerical representations of probability ranging from certain
(1) to certainly not (0), we may say with Swinburne that
(Dl) With background knowledge k, an argument A from e to h is a good Cinductive argument in philosophy of religion =df (i) P(h/e & k) >
P(h/k); and (ii) A's premises are known to be true by those who argue
about religion.
(02) With background knowledge k, an argument A from e to h is a good Pinductive argument in philosophy of religion =df (i) P(h/e & k) > .5;
and (ii) A's premises are known to be true by those who argue about
religion.
(03) With background knowledge k, an argument A from e to h is a good
deductive argument in philosophy of religion =df (i) P(h/e & k) = 1;
and (ii) A's premises are known to be true by those who argue about
religion.
The overarching program can now be clarified. Where each of el, ... , e6 represent evidence in a series of six purportedly good C-inductive arguments, Swinburne's ultimate conclusion is that, where h = 'God exists,' P(h/el ,... , e6 & k) > .5.
This is an innovative program because almost always philosophers of religion consider arguments for God's existence one at a time and in isolation; they usually
don't attempt to ascertain whether a weak argument, when conjoined with other
arguments, establishes God's existence.
But my aim in this paper isn't to overthrow Swinburne's broad P-inductive argument to God's existence. s What I want to show herein is that, where 'h' is the hypothesis that God exists, where 'e' stands for 'there exist conscious men with brains
of the kind they have', and where ok' stands for 'there is an orderly (and beautiful)
universe,'6 Swinburne doesn't manage to show that P(h/e & k) >P(h/k). This
amounts to showing that the argument from consciousness is not a good C-inductive argument to the existence of God; the consequences of this refutation with
respect to Swinburne's overarching P-inductive argument are not clear, but of
course if I succeed it can only hurt the broader argument. 7
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A few more preparatory remarks before we consider the argument from consciousness. In The Existence of God Swinburne presupposes Bayes's Theorem, viz.,
(BT) P(h/e & k) = [P(e/h & k) -;- P(e/k)] x P(h/k).
I accept this theorem. Also: Swinburne claims that it follows from (BT) that
(Tl) [P(h/e & k) > P(h/k)] iff [P(e/h & k) > P(e/k)] ;
and that it follows from (Tl) that
(T2) [P(h/e & k) > P(h/k)] iff [P(e/h & k) > Peel ~ h & k)]
I accept these inferences. 8
II
We are now in a position to consider the argument itself. One construal of this
argument, where we employ both the notation and the assignments for h, e, and k
introduced above, is as follows: 9
Al
(1) (It is unlikely that there is a complete explanation of e not involving
God's agency & it is unlikely that e occurs without explanation) :::> (P(e/
~ h &k) is low).
(2) It is unlikely that there is a complete explanation of e not involving
God's agency & it is unlikely that e occurs without explanation.
:.(3) Peel - h & k) is low.
1,2 MP
(4) (God, given his postulated character, is likely to bring about e):::> (P(e/h
& k) is high - or substantial).
(5) God, given his postulated character, is likely to bring about e.
:.(6) P(e/h & k) is high - or substantial.
4,5 MP
(7) (Vp,q)((P(p) is low & P(q) is high - or substantial) :::> (P(q) > pep))).
:.(8) P(e/h & k) > Peel - h & k).
3,6,7 &1 UI MP
(9) (P(h/e & k) > P(h/k)) iff (P(e/h & k) > Peel ~ h & k)).
:.(10) P(H/e & k) > P (h/k).
8,9 MP
AI' if sound, would constitute a good C-inductive argument for h.IO
'I
Now, Al is formally-valid; (1) and (4) are principles I concede to be intuitively
plausible; (9) is just (T2), the consequence of Bayes's Theorem I've already conceded to be true; (7), though not perfectly clear, is plausible even as it stands;
and (3), (6), and (8) are intermediate conclusions. This leaves (2) and (5) as the
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only vulnerable premises in AI' And, not surprisingly, it is these two premises I
find problematic.
III
If Al is a good argument in Swinburne's sense of the word, then, by clause (ii) of
(D1)-(D3), it's premises must, in Swinburne's own words, be known to be true by
atheists and theists, indeed by all who argue about religion. But is premise (5)
known to be true by all such people? The answer would seem to be "No." For I am
a counter-example. I say this because of the following simple reasoning. It is a relatively uncontroversial principle that
(P)
If S knows that-p, then S believes that-po
But I don't believe that (5) is the case. Hence it follows that I don't know it; yet
(given what I'm currently doing) I'm a person who argues about religion. The upshot of this is that if Al is not to fail immediately, we'll need to find support,
outside AI' for (5). And, if a defense of (5) is to be found anywhere in Swinburne's book, I think it's safe to say it must be located in the section consisting
of pages 155-160, the section entitled "Reasons For God to Create Man." So let's
examine this section.
To start our search for a sub-argument in support of (5), let's assume for the
sake of argument (i) that there is, in this section, an identifiable argument; and (ii)
that this argument is sound. We can then ask what the conclusion of this argument
is. I have read the section fairly carefully, and I'm confident that, with respect to
this question, only the following three answers can be plausibly extracted from
the text:
(11) God has reason for bringing about e.
(12)
God has reason for bringing about something close to e. ll
(13) e itself (or, again, perhaps something close to e) is intrinsically good.
But now notice that neither (11) nor (12) nor (13) is equivalent to (5) in AI'
Of course, it may very well be, for all we know at this point, that P(el '" h & k) is
low. And it may be that P(e/h & k) > 0: that Swinburne has established this by an
argument in this section. But an argument in support of premise (5), I think, it
just plain absent.12 So, because (5) is not defended, and because, as I pointed out
above, not everyone who argues about religion knows that (5) is true, AI' according to (Dl)-(D3), is not a good C-inductive argument.
However, I'm willing to give Swinburne the benefit of the doubt. Though I've
'.-
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searched in vain through the relevant section for an argument in support of (5), it
just may be that I missed it. Or perhaps there is, in this section, some inchoate
argument which is such that when reconstructed it establishes (5). In light of these
possibilities, let's suspend judgement on the truth or falsity of (5), and see what
Swinburne has to offer us in the way of a defense of AI's other vulnerable premise: (2).
IV
Does (2) fare better than (5)? I think it does. For at least Swinburne clearly trys to
support it with an argument which, sound or unsound, has the first (left) conjunct
of (2) "as a conclusion. Specifically, in support of this part of (2), Swinburne first
trys to overthrow what he calls the "Mind-Brain Identity Theory," or what I will
call the Identity Hypothesis (lH). Whether true or not, it is clear that Swinburne
thinks showing (lR) to be false would provide support for (2); and it is clear that
he attacks (lH). But before we consider, first, the soundness of this attack, and,
second, the relation between (IH) and (2), some preparation is in order.
Fi~st, let's grant for the sake of argument that the second conjunct in (2) is
trueY Second, in order to get a handle on (IH) and Swinburne's attack upon it,
and in order to avoid embroiling ourselves in the task of trying to distinguish type
from token materialism (etc.), I suggest we settle on a theory of events which con/lates the two (Le., conflates token and type materialism) and yet is still promising
in its own right, viz., Jaegwon Kim's view on the matter. 14
Kim's view, in a nutshell, is that an event is an entity consisting of an individual's
instantiating a property at a time; and (where 'INST' is a three-place predicate
ranging over the variables x, F, t) identity conditions can be set out in the following
manner:
(Ie)
[INST(x,F,t)] = [INST(y,G,t')] iff(i)x=y;(ii)F=G;(iii)t=t'Y
Now let's assume, again in order to ease exposition, that there is a set P = {PI' ... ,
Pn J composed of all the psychological properties (believing, fearing, etc.); then
(roughly following Kim) we can say
(D!) [INST(x, F, t)] is a mental event =df F [ P.
And we can say the same sort of thing for a brain event, viz.,
(D2) [INST(x, F, t)] is a brain event =df F [ N,
where N is the set {N l , ... , Nn } of all neurological properties. Now, if we introduce predicates 'B' and 'M' to stand for 'Is a brain event' and 'Is a mental
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event', respectively, and a set (e l' ... ,e n 3 of meta-variables to represent events, we
can say that (lR) boils down to the following:
It's worth pointing out, I think, that Swinburne would be happy taking (IH) as
an encapsulation of The Mind-Brain Identity Theory. This is true because Swinburne wouldn't mind having (IH) be his target for attack. For if, on our scheme,
there is (say) an event like [INST(Jones, being sad, t)] , being sad must be identical
with some neurological property; and since Swinburne thinks this sort of identity
is demonstrably false, he is likely to be sanguine about his chances against (IH).
Before turning to Swinburne's attack upon (IH), I want to point out that if(IR)
is -true, then Al is in deep trouble; so Swinburne has good reason to attack this
principle. I say this because I take it that (2) will be false if (IH) is true; for if (lR)
is true it will not be the case that It is unlikely that there is a complete explanation
of e not involving God's agency. And why is this true? Because if (IH) is true then
e seems to have a very good explanation independent of h. In order to see this
suppose that (IH) is true. Now consider our stock event [INST(Jones, l?eing sad,
t)]. Since being sad is (in our Kimean scheme) identical with some neurological
property, if some person were to ask for an explanation of being sad (or an explanation of why being sad is correlated with (a) certain brain state(s)), the response could be: "Why, being sad just is the very same thing as the neurological
property or state." This response, albeit compressed, is, I take it, plausibly viewed
as a complete explanation of e not involving God's agency.16 This, then, is why
(2) is threatened by (IR).
v
Let's now turn to Swinburne's argument against (lR).
I have, after some thought, settled on the following reconstruction of his argument. The argument turns on the notion of 'reduction': Swinburne seems to argue
that since phenomenal properties (let's stick to our Kimean scheme and talk instead
of psychological properties instantiated by individual things) of events cannot be
reduced to physical properties, (lR) is false. The argument, as I think it appears
in the text, runs as follows:
A2
(14) If (IH) is true, then psychological properties are identical with neurological properties.
(15) No reduction from psychological properties to neurological properties
has been accomplished.
:. (16) (IH) is false.
14,15
---- -
--
-----------
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A2 is of course a non sequitur - for a number of reasons. Though it's perhaps
a little overkill, we can make A2 's invalidity transparent by conducting a brief
thought-experiment in whfch we imagine a situation where A2 's premises are true
while it's conclusion is false. First, note that (14) is true. Next, suppose that it's
also true that no reduction from psychological properties to neurological properties has been accomplished; indeed suppose that no reduction from psychological
properties to neurological properties will ever be accomplished by a human person.
But now suppose that this is true'just because human persons are so constructed
psychologically that they cannot affect any of the sort of reductions needed in
this case. Now, would it follow from this inability that (IH) is false? I don't think
so.
Of course, Swinburne is certainly a competent philosopher; so perhaps it would
be prudent to read A2 as an enthymeme. A rather straightforward way of modifying A2 so that it appears valid does, in fact, present itself. Consider the following
argument, with suppressed premises supplied:
A3
(17) If (IR) is true, then psychological properties are identical with neurological properties.
(IR)
(18) If psychological properties are identical with neurological properties,
then psychological properties can be reduced to neurological properties.
:. (19) If (IH) is true, then psychological properties can be reduced to neurological properties.
17,18 RS
(20) It is not the case that psychological properties can be reduced to neurological properties.
:. (21) (IH)is false.
19,20 MT
Is A3 valid? Yes. Is it sound? Well, I don't know the answer to this question in
the absence of a tolerably precise construal of the term 'can' used within it. But it's
easy enough to hazard such a construal; two competing construals come to mind.
According to the first, 'can' may be taken as the 'can' of ordinary language: the
sense employed in such utterances as "John can lift that one-hundred pound
weight." About such statements we often say (perhaps uninformatively) that it is
within John's power to lift the weight. Suppose that A3 employs this (confessedly
vague) sense of 'can.' If it's this sense of can which A3 uses, then I believe (18) is
false. So, by the same straightforward application of (P) used above, it follows that
(18) isn't known to be true by all who argue about religion. But then, by Swinburne's own standard, since it is one according to which good arguments (in philosophy of religion) must have premises known to be true by those who argue
about religion, A~ is unacceptable. In order to see that (18) is controversial, return to my little thought-experiment above. Isn't it possible that there are identical
properties, but that we are so constructed psychologically that it's not within our
power to accomplish a reduction from (talk of) one property to (talk of) the
other? I think so. It would seem, then, that some who argue about religion would
not affirm (18).
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There is, however, another version of A2 that may surmount these difficulties.
It is a version which uses another, broader, sense of 'can.' What I have in mind is
this: perhaps Swinburne wants to say that the proponent of (IH) is committed to
reduction in principle. Then the argument might go as follows:
A4
(22) If (IH) is true, then psychological properties are identical with neurological properties.
(lH)
(23) If psychological properties are identical with neurological properties,
then psychological properties can in principle be reduced to neurological
properties.
:. (24) If (IH) is true, then psychological properties can in principle be reduced
to neurological properties.
22,23 HS
(25) It is not the case that psychological properties can in principle be reduced to neurological properties.
:. (26) (IH) is false.
24,25 MT
Like its ancestor A3 , A4 , as far as I can see, is formally valid. And the counterpart to (18), viz. (23), seems to me to be true. So now assume that A4 is what
Swinburne wants to advance. Wil A4 do the trick? Again, I don't think so. Even
if we constrain ourselves under the assumption that A4 is what Swinburne means
to champion, things are not entirely rosy. For surely there is no consensus that the
reduction he attacks in (25) is in principle impossible. There have been, and indeed
continue to be, attempts at this reduction. 1? Indeed, I don't think it's unreasonable to hold that as neuroscience advances, the reduction will be slowly made.
Clearly, then, A4 fails to meet one of Swinburne's requirements for a good argument: (25) is not known to be true by all who argue about religion.
Nonetheless, I'm prepared to assume that A4 is sound. Now, is Al vindicated
by A4 , on the assumption that A4 is sound? The answer, I'm afraid, is that A4
does not immediately support AI' For we are still left with an issue I mentioned
above but bracketed, viz., whether or not the falsity of (IH) substantiates (2).
Let me be more specific. The falsity of (IH) isn't a panacea because the falsity
of (IH) doesn't entail (2). This is true because even if (IH) is false, there may be
other, weaker, accounts of the relation between mental events and brain events
which undermine (2). That is, there may be other accounts which allow us to
explain the relation between brain events and mental events without bringing God
into the picture. In fact, one such account currently enjoys some popularity, and
can be spelled out quickly, with tolerable precision. It is an account which says
that psychological properties supervene on neurological properties. And this relation can be explicated in the follOWing manner: 1&
(S)
Psychological properties supervene on neurological properties iff necessarily, for every thing x and psychological property Pi' if x has Pi then
there is a neurological property Ni such that (i) x has Ni ; and (ii) necessarily, whatever has Ni has Pi'
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But how does (S) threaten (2)? It threatens (2) in much the same way that (IH) did.
If (S) is in fact the case, then it would seem there is an explanation of psychological
properties which doesn't involve God's agency. Note that (S) says that, roughly, the
relation of supervenience holding between the psychological and the neurological
is one that holds in all possible worldS. 19 What better explanation, then, could one
give of why a psychological property is correlated with a neurological one than to
say that the former supervenes upon the latter?2o
VI
It is true, however, that we haven't spelled out in detail how (S) could be used to
explain: e. (But see notes 16 and 20). So once again let's give Swinburne the benefit
of the doubt: let's assume that (lH) is false, and that supervenience does not
provide a "God-less" explanation of e. Once we make these assumptions, we must
note that destroying (IH) still does not establish (2). Swinburne himself is aware of
this, and he's ready to continue the argument for (2) beyond a refutation of (IH).
Mter disposing of (IH) Swinburne argues that because the materialist cannot
appeal to (lH), he cannot explain e without appeal to God's agency. As a step on
the way to my eventual refutation of AI' I now consider this argument of Swinburne's.
Swinburne says that after the materialist sees that (IH) is false, he will attempt
to "tame" mental events: he will try to set up a scientific explanation of the occurrence of mental events which appeals to (i) correlations between these events
and brain events and (ii) laws con~ecting the two. The attempt to accomplish both
(i) and (ii) is what Swinburne calls the "Materialist Program," or what we, for
short, will call MP.
Swinburne thinks there are a number of obstacles in the way ofMP.21 However,
as far as I can tell, he concedes that all but one of these obstacles are superable.
Accordingly, I'll deal only with the obstacle Swinburne thinks MP cannot surmount.
What, then, is the allegedly fatal objection to MP? This objection claims, for
reasons soon to be examined, that part (ii) of MP is impossible, Le., that it's impossible for the materialist to set out laws which specify when you can expect certain
mental events because of the presence of certain brain events.
Before we evaluate the argument behind this claim, it may be useful to pause a
second and get a very rough schematic representation of MP out in the open. The
materialist, I suppose, has established correlations like
<Bel & Be2 & Be3' Mel>,
where Bei is a brain event, and Mei is a mental event. And the second ingredient
needed to complete MP is a set oflaws (which we needn't spell out) which connect
Bel & Be2 & Be3 with Mel' This schematic stuff doesn't make anything very clear,
but perhaps it will enable us to understand Swinburne's objection.
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So what's the meat of the objection? This: that the laws needed in part (ii) of
MP are unattainable because they will never be laws which make a natural connection between the mental and the physical. Here's the argument:
But why should not the materialist devise a theory showing the kinds of correlation discussed to be natural ones? Why should he not postulate entities
and properties from whose interactions ....it would follow that you get the
correlations which you do between brain events and mental events? Although
it is theoretically possible that a scientific theory of this kind should be
created, still the creation of such a theory does not look a very likely prospect. Brain states are such different things qualitatively from experiences,
intentions, beliefs, etc. that a natural connection between them seems almost
impossible. For how could brain states vary except in their chemical composition and the speed and direction of their electro-chemical interactions, and
how could there be a natural' connection between variations in these respects
and variations in the kind of respects in which intentions differ - say the
difference between intending to sign a cheque, intending to square the circle,
and intending to lecture for another half an hour? There does not seem the
beginning of a prospect of a simple scientific theory of this kind and so of
having established laws of mind-body interactions as opposed to lots of
diverse correlations; which, just because they are unconnected in an overall theory, are for that reason not necessarily of universal application. If we
cannot have scientific laws we cannot have scientific explanation. The materialist's task of giving a full explanation of the occurrence of man's mental
events, and of his intentions, beliefs, and capacities seems doomed to failure. 22
Now I believe there are, in general, three different paths we can take in response
to this somewhat compressed argument. (1) Because the argument is, I think,
rather cryptic, we could say, somewhat harshly, but with considerable, and perhaps
adequate, justification, that Swinburne simply begs the question: he seems to assume precisely what he needs to show. (2) A nicer response, of course, would be to
try to fill in the argument. (3) Or we would grant for the sake of argumentthat his
objection regarding the unnaturalness of these laws goes through. These are our
three choices. I'm tempted to take (1), but our policy has been to go the way of
(2), and then eventually the way of (3). I'll maintain the status quo. What follows,
then, is a reasonable construal of the argument presented in the quote above.
AS
(27) Brain events differ in an enormous qualitative way from mental events.
:. (28) Natural scientific laws connecting brain events and mental events are not
formulable.
27
(29) If natural scientific laws connecting brain events with mental events are
not formulable, then no full scientific explanation of brain event-mental
event interaction is formulable.
:. (30) No full scientific explanation of brain event-mental event interaction is
formulable.
28,29 MP
:. (31) (2) - actuaily only its first conjunct, but recall that we've conceded the
second.
30
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Is AS sound? Well, (28), (30) and (31) are conclusions, and the inference from
(28) and (29) to (30) is unexceptionable. The inference from (27) to (28) is enthymematic; I believe the hidden intermediate premise is a not implausible principle
to the effect that
(P)
If one set of events SI differs in an enormous qualitative way from
another set of events S2' then natural scientific laws connecting the
events in SI with events in S2 are not formulable:
Though (P) is vague and probably controversial, I'm willing to accept it. The inference from (30) to(31), since we have granted the truth of the second conjunct
in (2), seems okay. I believe (29) is plausible, and since it is an instance of a general
principle Swinburne affirms regarding scientific explanation, I have no intention
of arguing against it. (27), though vague, is intuitively plausible. But the argument
does founder, and I will now show this.
Hitherto, when formulating arguments, we haven't time-indexed statements
therein. Perhaps this has not undermined what has been said so far, but now, faced
with AS' I would like to be a little more careful. Specifically, my claim is that when
AS'S premises are clarified in such a way that times are explicit, (30) no longer
supports (2). In order to defend this claim, it's helpful to have before us the timeindexed version of AS' It goes like this:
(27;) Brain events now differ in an enormous qualitative way from mental
events.
:. (28') Natural scientific laws connecting brain events and mental events are
not now formulable.
27'
(29') If natural scientific laws connecting brain events with mental events are
not now formulable, then no full scientific explanation of brain event-mental
event interaction is now formulable.
:. (30') No full scientific explanation of brain event-mental event interaction is
now formulable.
28',29' MP
:. (31) (2)'s first conjunct.
30'
Now if this is the way we must read the argument Swinburne offers in support
of (2), then I think he's in trouble. Why? Because I don't think the inference from
(30') to (31), and thus the inference from (30') to (2), is valid. In order to see the
invalidity, suppose that there is a certain cancer virus called 'v' which interacts in
some still mysterious way with human cells. 23 And now consider an argument
parallel to the relevant part of AS':
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A6
(32) No full scientific explanation of virus v-human cell interaction is now
formulable.
:. (33) It is unlikely that there is a complete explanation of virus v-human cell
interaction not involving God's agency.
This argument just isn't valid. And there are probably better examples.
Suppose, on the other hand, that Swinburne resists our interpretation of the
above quote; suppose he says that his premises oughtn't be weakened in the manner
we've specified, but that they ought to be read as making strong claims - claims
about the future. Then the argument might go like this:
AS"
(27")Brain events will always differ in an enormous qualitative way from
mental events.
:. (28")Natural scientific laws connecting brain events and mental events will
never be formulable.
27"
(29")If natural scientific laws connecting brain events with mental events
will never be formulable, then no full scientific explanation of brain eventmental event interaction will ever be formulable.
:. (30")No full scientific explanation of brain event-mental event interaction
will ever be formulable.
28",29" MP
:. (31) (2)'s first conjunct.
30"
If all the premises in AS" were true, then (2), I suppose, would be supported.
Unfortunately, I think (27") is false.
The heart of my argument against (27") is a thought-experiment designed to
show that the enormous current qualitative difference between mental and physical events could, at least in good part, evaporate:
It is the year 2020, and the wealthy, having a tremendous amount of leisure time
at their disposal because of automation, are able to amuse themselves by buying
"brain boxes." Brain boxes were designed by neuroscientists in 2015, and then
some health administrators got the idea of selling them as high-tech, exorbitantly
priced toys in order to raise money for tenuous hospital budgets. A brain box is a
sophisticated scanning device which can be painlessly connected up with a person's
brain in such a manner that it gives to its bearer, when the unit is activated in conjunction with a video monitor, detailed information about current brain events.
If you play with a brain box for a year or two, like a musical genius able to discern
subtleties in a symphony that elude the untrained ear, you get awfully good at associating mental states with brain states. If you are angry at your wife, you know
that should you switch on your unit and take a peek, it would tell you that, say,
the third quadrant of your bipolar neocortical region is fluttering at a rate of 1000
blips per second. If you become downright violent you know that should you take
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a peek the screen would reveal that the blip rate had increased and the quadrant
had shifted. And so on. It seems to those ignorant of astronomy that there is a
vast qualitative difference between a glimmering on the horizon and a quasar light
years away; but a trained astronomer is likely to see the connection as a natural
one. 'Natural,' in the context of our discussion, seems a time-relative, person-relative conception. Accordingly, I submit that with the proliferation of brain boxes,
and the fine-grained discrimination of brain events they would bring, the qualitative differences between the mental and the physical would diminish considerably,
perhaps disappearing altogether. 24 Since in general the advance of neuroscience
may breed the sort of familiarity brought about by the advent of brain boxes, I
take it that there is good reason to think that (27") is false.
Now Swinburne would no doubt say that this thought-experiment doesn't
show that (27") is false. But certainly he must admit that this thought-experiment
is such that in light of it some who argue about religion will not believe that (27")
is true. And this fact, recall, because of (P}and (Dl)-(D3), is all I need for a refutation.
Nonetheless, it's interesting to see what follows if we grant the soundness of
AS'" If we do, then (2)'s first conjunct seems to be established. But the question
still remains, after we've granted this, as to whether or not bringing God's agency
into the picture provides a remedy to the unnaturalness upon which AS" relies.
In other words, does God's agency allow us to formulate laws which can support
explanation of the mental? The answer, I think, is a negative one. In order to see
this, Le., in order to see that God's agency doesn't remedy the unnaturalness of
mere correlations between mental events and brain events, we need but turn to
Swinburne's theistic account according to which the correlations are supposed to
be natural.
Swinburne's first point, it seems, is that
(C)
If God wills (say) <Be I' Me 1>, then <Be I ' Me I > obtains.
(C) is true presumably because God is omnipotent and so his willing (at least when
restricted to the logically possible) is by definition efficacious. Now the problem
with MP, recall, was that there was no natural correlation between, say, Bel and
Mel' Says Swinburne:
The trouble with the materialist's programme was that there was no natural
connection between brain events and correlated mental events. But the intention of an agent to join them binds them together. There is a very natural
connection indeed between an agent's intention to bring about x, and the
occurrence of x, for the intention has written into it one thing with which
it is naturally correlated: its fulnIlment - whereas a brain-event does not
have written into it a mental event with which it is naturally correlated. 25
But this, unfortunately, is mysterious. Swinburne appears to miss the point.
We're not looking for a natural connection between the event
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S's intending to bring about <Be l' Me1>
and the event
we're looking for a natural connection between Bel and Mel! Swinburne fails to
provide the naturalness he has found lacking in the Materialist Program. I fail to
see how God's agency helps resolve the perplexity we feel about the connection
between, say, intending to go to the orchestra and a certain configuration of
electro-chemical impulses swimming in our heads. Yet this is what must be resolved if a theistic explanation is to be superior to a scientific explanation.
VII
Let me clarify, then, my final position on AI' First, I've disposed of Al because
I've shown, after giving Swinburne the benefit of the doubt on occasion, that
some who argue about religion will surely believe that (2) is false. Second, recall
that when we couldn't find a Swinburnean argument defending AI's (5), we suspended judgement on this premise. The time has come to decide the issue. It
seems to me that we have discovered reasons for thinking not that (5) is true, but
that it's perhaps false. I say this because there is little reason to think that (5) is
true: there is little reason to think that God, given his postulated character, is
likely to bring about e. For ifit was the case that God, given his postulated character, was likely to bring about e, it would follow that God, given his character, was
likely to bring about that part of e consisting of the correlations the materialist
couldn't explain, e.g., <Bel' Mel>' But, because <Bel' Mel> is unnatural even
with h presupposed (as was shown), there is simply little reason to think it likely
that God, given his postulated character, would bring about <Bel' Mel>.26 So,
charitable though I think we've been, Al fails.
On the other hand, I can end on a positive note: I think that if Al is treated
as an argument schema, there are ways of filling it in which result in more formidable versions than the one articulated by Swinburne. More specifically, let
'h' and 'k' denote what they do in Swinburne's version, but let 'e' denote 'there
exist human persons making free decisions', where making a free decision is to be
. understood in libertarian fashion. The idea is to focus on what Swinburne only
hints at: free decisions which depart radically from normal causality, decisions
which are the product of what is sometimes called "agent causation." A number of
philosophers have given strong deductive arguments for this freedom,27 and I suggest that the conclusions of such arguments can be used in sub-proofs for the problematic premises (2) and (5) in AI' Agent causation, if there is such a thing, is
surely an astonishing power, and I believe that if there is any phenomenon which
is unlikely to be explained scientifically, this is it. I also think that treating such
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causation as an unexplainable "brute fact" is unpalatable, especially in light of the
plausible claim that God, given his postulated character, is likely to bring about e.
I take it that this claim is plausible mainly because e is a very great good, and partly
because a supremely loving person of great power wanting to create would presumably be inclined to bring into existence beings capable of receiving his love and
freely loving him in return. I don't pretend that this paragraph specifies a sound
instance of AI' But it should be agreed that at least one formally valid instance of
this schema is promising, and thus that there is an intersection between philosophy
of mind and philosophy of religion which provides an area for future exploration. 28
NOTES
1. The Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979). The first book in the trilogy is
The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Oarendon Press, 1977), and the third is Faith and
Reason (Oxford: Oarendon Press, 1981).
2. It has been my experience that this sort of argument, with the possible exception of arguments from design, captures, more than any other type of argument for God's existence,
many of the intuitions apologetically-inclined "man-on-the-street" believers have. I thus
find it surprising not only that Swinburne's version of the argument has received little
attention, but that other versions (whether deductive or inductive) haven't surfaced.
I hope that what 1 say herein helps in some small way give rise to subsequent, more
formidable, versions of what might generally be called The Mental Argument. 1 do think
that the abstract structure of my construal of Swinburne's argument (= Al treated as an
argument schema) is quite promising. (I try to intimate a justification for this attitude in
the last section of the paper.) But 1 need all the space provided me to dispose of Swinburne's fleshing out of this abstract structure, and so the articulation a more powerful
instance of this structure must wait for a later paper.
3. Where 'There is a God', in Swinburne's scheme, is logically equivalent to 'There exists a
person without a body who is eternal, perfectly free, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly
good, and the creator of all contingent things,'
4. The Existence of God, p. 7.
5. Because of the logical structure of his P-inductive argument, overthrowing it, unless of
course one can produce a proof for God's non-existence, is a monumental task.
6. These are Swinburne's assignments to the variables. The terms 'orderly' and 'beautiful'
appear in this phrase because in previous chapters Swinburne believes he has established
that the world is both orderly and beautiful. If we grant that these earlier arguments are
successful, we simplify matters considerably, and if what 1 have to say below is cogent,
he gains no appreciable advantage with respect to the argument from consciousness from
our concession.
7. Having said this, I should point that I think Swinburne's argument from consciousness
can be repaired, so perhaps Swinburne's broader argument can also be repaired. (See the
final paragraph of this paper for an intuitive specification of the repair I have in mind for
the smaller argument. The reconstruction I envisage takes us well beyond anything Swinburne defends in his trilogy.)
8. I place these seemingly unimportant inferences in the main text rather than in a note
because (T2) is a premise in the argument soon to be attacked, and I want things to be
out in the open. Swinburne's discussion of Baye's Theorem and (Tl) and (T2) can be
found in the section entitled "Baye's Theorem" in Chapter 3 of The Existence of God.
9. When possible I tag inferences made In important arguments with acronyms meant to
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10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
designate the justifying rule of inference from first-order lOgic. (MP for modus ponens which is not to be confused with my abbreviation for what Swinburne calls 'The Materialist Program' -; MT for modus tollens; VI for universal quantifier instantiation; HS for
hypothetical syllogism, etc.; the symbol ,~, means 'not' or 'it is not the case that.') I
will also set out some arguments explicitly. Such a policy on my part is not meant to
feign a formal elegance we lack in such matters, but only to enhance clarity and readability.
Of course, AI' strictly speaking is deductive. But (a) as an argument for the isolated h it
is inductive; and (b) since clause (il) in (01)-(D3) is the same, and since this is the clause
upon which I continuously impale Swinburne's arguments, exactly how we classify these
arguments is nearly immaterial. Incidentally, it is actually a rather difficult matter to
separate Swinburne's deductive and inductive reasoning. I believe I have been faithful to
his book, however.
It will soon be apparent that the exact content of the 'something close' need not detain
us.
But see both the fmal note and final paragraph of this paper, where (13), and arguments
that employ it, are discussed briefly.
Though it is a rather startling fact, Swinburne, as far as I can tell, never argues for this
conjunct in the chapter we're examining. If we want to let Al get off the ground, we
need to suppose this conjunct established.
See, e.g., his "Events as Property Exemplifications," in M. Brand and D. Walton (eds.)
Action Theory (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1976), pp. 159-177.
In English: x's instantiating F at t is identical with y's instantiating G at t' iff (I) x is
identical with y; (ii) F is identical with G; and (iii) t is identical with t'. So-called "absolute" identity is being presupposed - by Kim, Swinburne, and myself.
The attentive reader knows that Swinburne (in Chapter 3 of The Existence of God) admits only two kinds of explanation: scientific and personal. And such a reader may thus
demand to know which type of explanation I'm talking about here. In response: It is
possible to be a little more precise about why the truth of (IH) falsifies (2). My claim
(which, if false, doesn't affect my overall case against Swinburne) is that if (IH) is true,
then there is a good scientific explanation of e independent of h, where 'scientific explanation' Is to be read as the Hempelian deductive-nomological (D-N) explanation
Swinburne characterizes (and slightly alters) in The Existence of God - see p. 30. e is
the vaguely specified state of affairs 'conscious men having brains of the kind they have.'
Swinburne must be speaking here about 'men having the psychological properties they
have, along with the neurological properties they have.' (This is still vague, of course, but
I hope it's apparent that a search for a more precise rendition would not bear enough
fruit to warrant the effort.) It is easy enough to see howe can be explained scientifically
by invoking the D-N model. The law L in question will be something like: If a man M
instantiates psychological property Pi at t, then M instantiates neurological property Ni
at t which is such that Pi =N i , where the presence of the index indicates that L is a schema
representing a large set of laws relating specific properties. (Note that particular instances
of L need not be part of current neuroscience. The claim is that the D-N model can (and
may in the future) work in principle.) The sort of state (tagged 'C' by Swinburne) which,
when conjoined with an instance of L, yields e, can be something like a list of such states
as Jones' being afraid at t. (Repeating the deduction for individual cases is what will,
strictly speaking, yield e.) C and L imply that Jones instantiates a certain neurological
property, and thus the D-N model has been employed.
Daniel Dennett's so-called eliminative materialism is, I suppose, a case in point.
Subscripts are used because 'P' and 'N' were used earlier to denote the sets of psychological and neurological properties, respectively.
Though I didn't mention it at the time, since if two things are (absolutely) identical they
are necessarily identical (as can be proved using nothing more than MP, CP (conditional
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20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
prooO, UI, the reflexivity of identity, and the rule of necessitation from (many) modal
logics), the same thing holds with respect to the relation between mental events and brain
events specified in (lH).
Here, once again, I'm thinking ofa scientific explanation conforming to D-N. See note 16
for the general recipe for generating a D-N explanation in such a case.
For example, doing (1) - i.e. establishing the correlations - is problematic because the
materialist will always, in the end, need to take the subject's word for which mental states
he (the subject) is currently in. The subject is always going to be a better judge about this
than an outside observer. According to Swinburne, additional problems in the way of MP
are "free will" and Quantum Theory.
The Existence of God, pp.171-172.
I take it that cancer researchers face situations like this all too often.
Swinburne might concede that the situation I describe would make the correlations seem
a bit more natural because they are more familiar. But he might challenge my assertion
that the qualitative differences are substantiallY reduced. But (I) if we hired a talented
fiction writer to spell out my story in great detail I submit that (27") will seem less and
less plausible. Such a strategy is exactly the sort Swinburne employed in The Coherence
of Theism to show that certain divine attributes are coherent. And (ii) given this response
of Swinburne's, I think I'm entitled to demand clarification of the slippery 'qualitative
difference.' In the absence of such clarification, my point, I should think, goes through.
(As a matter of fact, I don't know how to provide clarification on Swinburne's behalf.)
The Existence of God, p.173.
Swinburne might reply that since e is intrinsically good (a possibility I mention above),
God, given his postulated character, is likely to bring about <Bel' Mel> even though it
is unnatural. But this reply is fairly weak. Surely God is not likely to bring about every
state of affairs which is intrinsically good; yet such a general principle is clearly at work
in this reply. It may be that if a state of affairs p is intrinsically good, then there is a nonzero probability that God bring it about, but this is perfectly consistent with what I say,
and does not revive the argument. If e is very, very good, then perhaps we have a way of
reviving the argument: see the final paragraph of this paper.
See R.M. Chisholm's "Human Freedom and The Self', Free Will, ed. Gary Watson, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 24-35; and Michael Zimmerman's An Essay on
Human Action (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1984); and Peter Van Inwagen's An
Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983). Van Inwagen doesn't in the end
affirm agent causation, but he comes very close to doing so.
I am grateful to Philip Quinn for a number of trenchant points made on Swinburne's
behalf (see notes 16, 24,26), each of which gave rise to much thought on my part.