The A-Unicornist

I have this crazy, far-out idea: we should stop talking about "the mind" as though it is some kind of object or thing that has to be "explained."

The problem is that conceptualizing mental phenomena as "the mind" presupposes that there are properties distinct from the physical brain - i.e., mental properties - that need to be explained in some way. Here's an alternative. Instead of characterizing mental processes as "the mind," we can use the empirically-responsible term: cognition. Cognition is the process of brain activity. It includes perception, language, metaphor, memory, and decision-making.

Why is this little semantic change a big deal? Because cognition is an empirical, scientific term. It accounts for all the above phenomena - all the things we associate with conscious experience. They are all derived from neurological activity in the brain.

With this conceptual reframing, we can do away with a few superfluous assumptions that are c…

After writing my post yesterday, I was thinking about some of the things Dr. Craig said in his response to me. The more I thought about them, the more I started to think I may have been a little too kind in my response.

Craig employed a few tactics that I frankly find to be disingenuous - the kind of thing someone might do if they want to 'win' on rhetoric without substantively addressing the arguments at hand.

1. His own comments were vague, and he leveraged that ambiguity to assert that his point was "obvious."

Craig's basic argument was that in principle, no physical object can exhibit "intentionality." But that's not what he said; instead, he mentioned simple objects like chairs and rocks, and then referred to the human brain - the single most complex biological object known to exist - as a "gob of tissue." I'm not sure why he would take that course if the complexity of physical objects wasn't part of his argument. He could have…

I went through a strange phase after my divorce. Immediately after, it was a sense of relief. I wasn't coming home every day to a stressful and emotionally draining situation. I was in a great new house, I had my dogs, and I'm fortunate to have a lot of wonderful, supportive friends.

In time, around when I wrote my previous post, I was starting to feel, for lack of a better term, homesick. My new house felt kind of foreign, like I was taking an extended stay at a hotel. I began to miss all the little things my wife and I used to do - pizza or cheap Chinese food nights, fancy brunch or dinner dates (she and I are both foodies), walks with the dogs, trips to the park, traveling, hiking, etc. etc.

I resolved to just keep taking care of myself. Spending time with good friends and family, training hard, playing guitar, reading, etc. etc. And it's funny, but good things come. The pain of loss subsides. I'm still grieving, and I expect I will be for a while, but it's far …

ICYMI: Five years ago (ish) I wrote a blog post in which I argued that William Lane Craig's argument from intentionality was.... well, to put it kindly, not a very good argument. I have no idea how that particular one - given all the posts I wrote about WL Craig - ended up being a thing in his podcast. But here we are, five years later!
At first, I thought, I don't really do this stuff anymore. Generally, I don't enjoy the old sparring-with-theists thing like I used to. I still drop comments on Randal Rauser's blog from time to time, but I consciously avoid getting sucked into protracted, fruitless debates.

BUT...

Let's be honest, it's kind of cool that William Lane Craig himself took the time to comb through one of my blog posts. After all, I'm just Some Dude on the Internet, and he is a Bigtime Famous Apologist. He commands a good sized audience, and I don't think I should pass on the opportunity to reply to critiques Craig made of my own arguments.

N…

Remember when I used to blog about Christian theologian and apologist William Lane Craig on a regular basis? Yeah, that's been a while.

Well, turns out he responded to one of my posts on the latest episode of the Reasonable Faith Podcast. The post in question is from five years ago, around the time when WLC debated Alex Rosenberg.

Here's my original post:

http://www.theaunicornist.com/2013/03/william-lane-craigs-argument-from.html

There was a time when I would have gotten really excited that WLC himself was responding to one of my posts. That time was, oh I don't know, five years ago. These days it'd be difficult for me to care less about the endless mire of convoluted arguments for a god's existence, particularly from a person who believes that what he calls the "internal witness of the Holy Spirit" supersedes arguments and evidence.

Anyway, listen to the podcast. It should not surprise you that WLC thinks I am wrong. Am I? I'll let you decide, and I&#…