Materialism and the Mind

Here is an article that discusses six features of the human mind that are not addressed by materialism. They are: Intentionality, Qualia, Persistance of Self-Identity, Restricted Access, Incorrigibility, and Free Will. The author, neuroscientist Michael Egnor, goes on to say:


"So is the materialist inference that the mind is caused entirely by the brain plausible? Please note that materialism has failed to offer any explanation for any of the six salient characteristics of the mind. Not a single salient characteristic of the mind is a property of matter. The strict materialistic explanation for the mind — the attribution of immaterial mental acts and properties to brain matter — is, by definition, a materialist superstition, a 'false irrational conception of causation in nature maintained despite evidence to the contrary.'"



He also states:



"In Wolfgang Pauli’s deathless phrase, the materialist explanation of the mind ”isn’t even wrong.” It’s superstitious nonsense. Materialism can’t explain the mind, because the salient characteristics of mental states ... do not admit material explanations."



Since materialist science deals with matter alone, which is to say only third person objective features, it can say nothing about anything that occupies a first person subjective position, namely mind. Unfortunately, materialists insist that the mind is entirely explained by the brain or by what the brain does, despite the inability of materialist science to approach anything subjective in nature! Materialism can never say anything about the mind and yet that is exactly what leading materialists do when they assert that the mind is the brain! Go figure.



-Dee