In my last post, I explored how their views of humans as just physical beings undermines any hope of eternal life, including the resurrection from the dead. Nevertheless, there are more implications of their view, which will threaten our ability to have relationships with God or any other person.
What is needed to have interpersonal relationships? At the least, it seems we need to have things like experiences, thoughts, and beliefs of one another. For instance, when Debbie (my wife) and I were dating, we worked at communicating our wants and thoughts with one another. We tried to learn and respect each other’s wishes and desires. Over time, we could develop beliefs about what we each liked and what we didn’t.
These sorts of qualities (experiences used to observe, thoughts, interpretations, desires, intentions, and beliefs) traditionally have been called mental states, being qualities of minds, not brains, which instead are biological, chemical, and physical kinds of things. Notice something special about these states. They all seem to be of or about things. Typically, people have called this quality intentionality. Some even have suggested intentionality is the hallmark of the mental (versus physical).
However, if we were just physical beings, intentionality would have to be reducible to something physical. Can that work? There have been some suggestions. First is one by philosopher Michael Tye, who claims intentionality is just a matter of “causal covariation” under optimal conditions. For him, mental states are reducible to particular brain states, which we are describing in a certain way (e.g., using mentalistic terms). Such terms don’t change the underlying, physical reality, but they might help us to conceive of a brain state as being of or about something. So, for Tye, my thought of a ball is for that state to stand in a causal relation to that ball – the ball causes that state by light waves bouncing off the ball, impinging on my retina, traveling to my brain, and causing that state.
However, there are problems with this account. We can have thoughts about things that do not obtain; e.g., I can think of what would be the case if Hillary Clinton were president in 2019. However, there’s nothing in reality to cause that (brain) state. Moreover, between the ball and my thought is a potentially infinite series of causal states. It seems I cannot traverse this series and arrive at the originating source.
Second, Daniel Dennett suggests that mental states and intentionality aren’t real. There are just brains that process sensory inputs. Yet, he adopts a useful strategy, the intentional stance, to predict behavior of things that apparently have intentionality, including frogs, chess-playing computers, and humans. Suppose Star Trek’s Mr. Spock is playing 3-D chess with the computer. For Dennett, there are no real thoughts, beliefs, or desires about what moves each could make in order to checkmate the opponent, because natural selection is a completely blind process. Yet, we can attribute to the computer such “mental” states to predict its moves in light of Spock’s moves, and vice versa. We make interpretations based on behaviors.
These are the best options I know of for physicalists for intentionality. Yet, Tye’s won’t suffice, and Dennett presupposes we can make observations and interpretations to predict behavior. However, these very qualities seem to require the very intentionality he denies is real.
Therefore, it seems that on physicalism, there is no way to preserve intentionality. Yet, that has ripple effects – without it, there are no thoughts, beliefs, or experiences used to make observations, for these states must have intentionality (e.g., try having a thought that isn’t about anything). Yet, those states seem necessary for interpersonal communication. Without them, how can an interpersonal relationship occur?
In conclusion, I am very sympathetic with Doug Pagitt’s desire for a God who will be “down and in” with us, versus distant. Ironically, however, the physicalism he and other emergents have embraced will distance God and others from us, for we cannot be in interpersonal relationships.
Going further, if there’s no intentionality, there are no beliefs. However, having beliefs seem necessary for knowledge. Therefore, without beliefs, there will not be any knowledge …