Physicalism Is MeaninglessIn a recent discussion over at SoulSprawl, I encountered the following remark:
…solipsism is meaningless, not false, because there is no difference that we can know of, even in principle, that would tell apart a solipsist from a non-solipsist world.
The same goes for the doctrine of physicalism. To date, all definitions of physicalism I’ve seen lead to meaningless philosophical gibberish. There is nothing, even in principle, that could reliably differentiate between a physical and non-physical cause. If you agree, please affirm. If you disagree, state a precise definition of physicalism and we’ll go from there.
My Response To, “Does Quantum Mechanics Revive Libertarian Free-Will?”So Matt DeStefano had asked me to comment on his article, Does Quantum Mechanics Revive Libertarian Free-Will?. Truth be told, and no offense to Matt, but I wasn’t very impressed. The main reason is because he pretends his treatment supports the conclusion, “free will is an illusion.” As far as particular gripes, well, first off… the classic materialist canard:
Traditional determinism has proclaimed that since there is causal closure, or there is no physical event which has a non-physical cause, events are wholly determined by their causes.
Aside from the standard allusion to cause-and-effect which we most all accept, this is meaningless tautology, made worse by the fact that no matter what physicists discover, it automatically falls under the rubric of “physical” in the minds of committed metaphysical naturalists.