Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Don't mind me...

The world is a wholly physical matrix of fully determined material causation, devoid of all intentionality and purpose. Material beings are inherently irrational. The human person is a wholly physical entity wholly subject to determined material causation. All semblances of purpose and value and consciousness are simply emergent illusions of a mindless physical substrate.

Even so, for those animated by the illusion of rational consciousness, the wise man does not "fall for" the illusions of teleology and hierarchical value in the world, for he knows that purpose and "soul" are illusions brought about randomly but deterministically by natural selection. Not falling for illusory intentionality means not taking wholly natural phenomena for "pointers" to some higher purpose or meaning.

Insofar, however, as other people are wholly material entities, as devoid of immaterial "mind" as falling rocks and rising flames, the wise man should also pay no heed to their illusory signals of reasoning and value. As wholly material entities, persons are as irrational as falling rocks and rising flames. Ignoring the illusory "chatter of determinism" as it flows through allegedly "rational beings" like himself includes ignoring signals taken as "arguments for determinism." Asserting the value of truth as opposed to falsehood is as much a random, mindless illusion as asserting the value of the human species over others, or the value of chastity over fornication. The world being inherently devoid of "inherent values" and sipraphysical "meaning," the "inherent value of truth for truth's sake" is simply an illusion. This of course means that believing determinism simply because "it is true," is as much an illusory valuation as all others. Moreover, heeding and affirming the meaning of wholly random and physical sounds like "Determinism is true" is just a regression to the illusory anthropomorphism against which determinism militates.

No comments: