Free Will Is Real and Materialism Is Wrong
Michael Egnor
Particulars are specific things in nature that are presented to the mind by our senses — an apple sitting on my desk, or a wedding ring on a finger, or a friend walking into an office. Universals, on the other hand, are concepts that do not have physical instantiation in nature. The beauty of the red color of an apple, love for a spouse symbolized by a wedding ring, musings about the nature of humanity occasioned by a friend in an office are all examples of universals. Goodness, truth, and justice are universals.
First of all, last light on a PBS Nova documentary, the extraordinary relationship between the human brain, the human mind and human senses aired:
https://youtu.be/HU6LfXNeQM4
Above all else, in my view, it explored just how large [or small] the gap might be between what we think and feel and sense about the reality of the world around us and the role the brain does play in making all of this in part an illusion.
And while the apple and the ring and musings of a friend might be particular instances of reality, to speak of color and love and the nature of humanity in terms of "goodness, truth, and justice"? The documentary above made it clear that the color of the apple itself is something that is created in the brain. As for love and the nature of humanity, scientists don't even know yet if we possess the free will necessary to opt for our personal assessments, let alone whether given particular contexts an understanding of love and humanity can be pinned down.
Our senses present us with particulars. We see and smell the apple, we feel a ring on a finger, we hear a friend. Particulars grasped through sensation and perception, as well as imagination and memory, have an obvious composition with matter.
Okay, but does this "composition with matter" pertaining to the apple, the ring and humanity entail autonomy? Given the gap between what we think matter encompasses here and now and all that would need to be known about matter going back to what or who created it in the first place? And what we take in with our senses is in part particular to each of us alone. Even in regard to the either/or world the documentary above made note of how with respect to what we see and hear, different people literally see and hear different things.
The Dress for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress
And then the part where some argue that men should be free to wear dresses just as women are free to wear pants. Even in a free will world where is the universal goodness, truth, and justice here?
We use our eyes to see, our skin to feel, our ears to hear. There are well-defined regions in the brain whose activity seems to be necessary for the exercise of these sense-perception powers by which we grasp particulars. In that sense, the grasp of particulars is material, or at least depends on matter in a necessary way.
Exactly.
But: How far back to take this?
All the way? All the way to the point that everything we think, feel, say and do is entirely embedded in a brain that is
wholly in sync with the laws of matter? What if the wide-awake world
is just another manifestation of the dream world? Just in a way that the mere mortals we call scientists and philosophers have not been compelled by nature to grasp going back to grasping why and how existence itself came to be.