Fisking the Cheez

A while back son_of_disaster posted a blog referencing this supposed C.S. Lewis quote:

"Suppose there was no intelligence behind the universe. In that case nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. Thought is merely the by-product of some atoms within my skull. But if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to atheism, and, therefore, I have no reason to be an athiest [sic], or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I can't believe in thought, so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God."
--C.S. Lewis

I say "supposed" because I have not been able to verify it as an actual C.S. Lewis quote. While it certainly sounds like something C.S. Lewis would say, the fact that it contains a misspelling of the word "atheist" casts some doubt on its authenticity to me.

I and others have posted reasons why the quote does not withstand scrutiny. However a poster (Cheezmaestro) has hijacked the thread claiming in the name of science and logic the quote is correct and we are wrong. I do not wish to further contribute to the hijacking of the thread so instead I will respond with a blog of my own.

Logic is a formal method of drawing inferences from premises. Since Cheez has tried to claim the mantle of logic one would think he would formalize the argument for us. He doesn't ... although at one point it looks like he has tried. Here is what he says:

Ok. I will make try to make the logic I used clear. Sorry if I was confusing. Ok...
Let's make a chart...
If: We can't rely on the logic that our brains use
Then: We cannot use it to prove/disprove anything that we don't know about.(in this case, God)
If: Our minds are capable of perfect logic
Then: We can use our brains to prove/disprove things using the understanding we have now, in the knowledge that it is perfect. (Ie. if we can trust our logic as correct, then we can use it...)
If: Our minds are capable of perfect logic
Then: Someone/thing/entity/intelligence with perfect logic gave it to us
If: We were given perfect logic
Then: Evolution cannot be true because it states that we weren't created

Ok, let's take God out of this.
If: We are capable of perfect logic
Then: Since evolution is not capable of creating something perfect(just highly adapted to it's enviroment), it cannot be true.
If: Evolution is true
Then: Our logic is inherently flawed, subject to how we evolved, and thus, we cannot trust it fully.

This is, of course, gobbledygook. Let's formalize the actual argument correctly, shall we:

Premise A: Only an intelligence can design a brain for the purpose of thinking.

Premise B: For a brain that came into being solely by naturalistic means thought is merely a by-product of the atoms within it.

Premise C: Thought that is merely a by-product of the atoms within the brain cannot be trusted.

Premise D: Atheism says that brains came into being solely by naturalistic means

Premise E: Inherent in atheism is an argument against the existence of an intelligence capable of designing brains for the purpose of thought.

Conclusion 1: Therefore atheistic arguments cannot be trusted within their own framework. (A formalization of the logic used might be -- If D & B & C then ~E)

Premise F: Brains designed by an intelligence can produce thought that trusted.

Premise G: Inherent in theism is an argument for an intelligence capable of designing brains for the purpose of thought.

Conclusion 2: Therefore theistic arguments can be trusted within their owm framework. (A formalization of the logic used here might be -- If A & F then G)

Strictly speaking the conclusions are logical. Logic is a method of drawing conclusions from premises, and I believe the conclusions do follow from those premises. But the mere fact that the argument follows the rules of logic DOES NOT mean that the argument is valid. For the argument to be valid ALL the premises must be true. That is where I and the others disagree with the argument.

Before I launch into an analysis of where these premises are flawed I need to define exactly what I mean by a term that to many people has an implication that I do not accept. That term is DESIGN. Many people are more than fond of claiming that design implies a designer. To avoid this problem scientists have begun using awkward phrases such as "the appearance of design". I will use the term "design" but with the stipulation that I do NOT hold the canard that "design implies a designer", or at least an "intelligent designer".

To me a snowflake is designed, but if one is going to attribute a designer to it, that designer would be the laws of nature.

More abstractly, in mathematics the Mandelbrot set is a design, but its design comes from the orderly rules of mathematics.

Furthermore, computer programs using genetic algorithms can "design" clever solutions to problems in a way that is analogous to the way natural selection comes up with solutions to problems of survival. While the computer program itself may have been designed by an intelligence, the solutions the programs generate are not. I have no problems thinking of these types of things as having been designed without invoking an intelligence in their design.

Therefore, since things can be designed without an intelligence there is no reason to think that Premise 1 ... Only an intelligence can design a brain for the purpose of thinking. Natural selection can design a brain to do that. Furthermore, an organism with a brain that is good at thinking can more readily spot dangers and legitimate opportunities. Having that capability means that organism is more likely to leave behind offspring with his genes for that type of good brain than is organism with a poorer brain. In fact the selection pressure for mutations that might improve the function of the brain are likely to undergo strong positive selection for organisms like humans. Thus, natural selection both maintains and improves reliable brain function.

Furthermore as I said in my response to the original blog, we have very good reasons for trusting our brains. EVERY SINGLE ONE of our ancestors possessed brains of sufficient power to allow them to reproduce. Not a single one failed to do so. That is a long history of successful brain function on our part.

However from looking at his responses above, our great logician, Cheezy, seems to think that perfection is needed or else all is lost. But there is plenty of evidence that our brains are NOT perfect.

For instance, the picture above looks like a spiral. It isn't. It is a series of circles. The outward rays of lines and the way the circles are shaded makes your brain think that it is a spiral. But trace the outermost element of the "spiral". Start at the 12:00 o'clock position. What you will find is that you come back to the same 12:00 position without having advanced toward the center the way you would if it were a spiral. That, my friend is a circle. However, even knowing that it still looks like a spiral. So our brains aren't perfect.

Try this on your friends. Tell a friend to look up. Next tell him to look down. Now tell him to look to the left. Finally tell him to look to the right. If you try it on enough friends you will find that absolutely none of them made a mistake and looked down when you told them to look up, but several made a mistake and looked right when you told them to look left. Our brains are naturally better at distinguishing up and down from left and right. So ... no, our brains aren't perfect. In fact, they act like they were designed by something that is capable of making mistakes ... natural selection.

I believe that Premise B -- For a brain that came into being solely by naturalistic means thought is merely a by-product of the atoms within it -- is true. But what would be different for intelligently designed brains? Whether our brains are designed by an intelligence or whether they are a product of natural selection, they still work by having ions flow across the membranes of individual nerve cells leading to the production of action potentials that are transmitted down axons to synapses with other neurons or target organs, in which neurotransmitters are released causing an effect on these target cells. It is the cumulative effect of millions of synapses from which or thoughts arise.

... Unless, of course, some type of dualism is true. If that is the case then the argument has some unstated premises that need to be included:

Unstated Premise A': Thought arises out of an immaterial structure and is processed by the material brain.

Unstated Premise B': In designing thought processes the designing intelligence not only has access to that immaterial structure, it specifies that structure's capabilities.

Is there any evidence for this? No. Is there evidence against it. YES!! Plenty! If we mess with the physical function of the brain we alter thought. If you drink too much alcohol, you don't think clearly. How would drinking too much alcohol affect an immaterial structure? If one goes for prolonged lengths of time without sleep, their brain chemistry is measurably altered and they may experience vivid hallucinations. Schizophrenics will have their delusional symptoms decreased by drugs that block the neurotransmitter dopamine. How does that affect an immaterial substance? Parkinson's patients who suffer from a decreased activity of dopamine in one area of the brain will get schizophrenia-like symptoms if the dosage of L-dopa isn't properly titrated. This presumably occurs due to the side-effect of overstimulation of dopaminergic sites in other areas of the brain. Depression can be successfully treated by serotonin (another neurotransmitter) reuptake inhibitors. Temporal lobe seizures, in which areas of the temporal lobe spontaneously begin to fire off in synchronous bursts, can cause a person to experience vivid memories of past events. All of these things are consistent with a strictly materialistic view of thought.

There is no reason to suppose Premise C -- Thought that is merely a by-product of the atoms within the brain cannot be trusted -- is true. Nor for that matter is there any reason to believe that dualistic thought -- thought originating from an immaterial substance -- should be any more reliable than thought that is a product of the brain.

For the sake of argument, let us accept for a moment that "brain thought" is synonymous with thought that arises from a purely naturalistic means and that "immaterial thought" is that which is designed by an intelligence. If we use the only analogues we actually have to intelligently designed universes -- Video Games -- we see that the characters generated in those universes often have their "thinking" limited to certain specific functions. Why would not assume that the designing intelligence would not do something similar to us? Thus premise F -- Brains designed by an intelligence can produce thought that trusted -- is also called into question.

With most of the premises called into question, the argument becomes no more convincing than the following argument.

Premise 1: All men are beautiful
Premise 2: Socrates is a man
Conclusion: Socrates is beautiful

It too is a logical argument in that the conclusion comes directly from the premises, however, the premises are flawed. and THAT causes the argument to be flawed. But ... to be overly fair to Cheezy, this analysis is only of the argument that the original paragraph makes. Cheezy makes a ton of arguments that do not directly fall out of the paragraph (although he apparently thinks they do). Are his arguments similarly flawed? I hope no one is surprised by the answer ... YES, they are. Let's just limit the analysis to the ones he presents above:

First Cheezy argument:

If: We can't rely on the logic that our brains use
Then: We cannot use it to prove/disprove anything that we don't know about.(in this case, God)

Flaw -- there is no reason to think we cannot rely on the logic of our brains.

Second Cheezy argument:

If: Our minds are capable of perfect logic
Then: We can use our brains to prove/disprove things using the understanding we have now, in the knowledge that it is perfect. (Ie. if we can trust our logic as correct, then we can use it...)

Flaws -- (1) It doesn't pertain to the question at hand; (2) Our brains aren't capable of perfect anything ... just pretty damned good anything.

Third Cheezy Argument

If: We were given perfect logic
Then: Evolution cannot be true because it states that we weren't created

Flaws -- (1) We don't have perfect logic. (2) There is no a priori reason to believe that it is necessarily beyond the powers of natural selection to instill into us perfect logic.

Fourth Cheezy Argument

If: We are capable of perfect logic
Then: Since evolution is not capable of creating something perfect(just highly adapted to it's enviroment), it cannot be true.

Flaws -- (1) We aren't capable of perfect logic. (2) Natural selection can create things that are as perfect as one can imagine. In fact, in chapter 6 of On the Origin of Species Darwin addresses criticisms of his theory. One prominent section of that chapter is entitled Organs of extreme PERFECTION and complication [emphasis mine]. (3) The evidence for modern evolutionary theory is overwhelming ... even with respect to the evolution of the brain (LINK 1; LINK 2; pictures below)

Fifth Cheezy Argument

If: Evolution is true
Then: Our logic is inherently flawed, subject to how we evolved, and thus, we cannot trust it fully.

Flaw -- Even if evolution isn't true then our logic is inherently flawed, but not to the point that we cannot trust it for something like this.

To sum it up, neither the C.S. Lewis quote (if it is an actual C.S. Lewis quote) nor Cheezy make an effective argument that atheism is self-defeating. There is no reason to think that naturalistically-derived brains are not trustworthy enough to handle the question of God's existence. Nor is there necessarily any reason to believe that an intelligently-designed brain would necessarily be any better than a naturalistically-derived one.

A PERFECT brain is not required to handle the question of God's existence. Indeed regardless of the truth of atheism, our brains are demonstrably less than perfect. If Cheezy follows his own logic, then he cannot be sure of anything. One might expect him to be sitting in a chair afraid to move. Otherwise how could he be sure that the next step might not take him over an unseen cliff?