Eliminative Materialism

When one embraces naturalism and the materialism which follows from it one is confronted with the problem posed by human consciousness. The existence of consciousness seems to support the view that our mental experiences are in part the product of an immaterial mind, but materialism has no room in its ontology for anything immaterial.

One materialist strategy for dealing with the problem is to deny the existence of consciousness altogether. This is called "eliminative materialism" and is the view promoted by the late Daniel Dennett who argued that what we call conscious experience is just an illusion generated by our material brains.

According to Dennett, what we think of as our consciousness is actually our brains pulling a number of tricks to conjure up the world as we experience it. But in reality, it’s all smoke, mirrors, and rapidly firing neurons…Our brains, pulling such tricks, are robots.

An article at Mind Matters elaborates. Here are few highlights: But it goes even further than that: if our brains are robots, then our neurons are smaller robots, which are in turn made up of even smaller robots. So even if we lose the concept of consciousness along the way, we’re still pretty incredible “machines.” In Dennett’s scheme, the robots that form our minds have evolved via Darwinian evolution:

Dennett’s integration of popular evolution theory into his work appeals to many science writers, as this snippet from a BBC news item shows: From an evolutionary perspective, our ability to think is no different from our ability to digest, says Dennett. Both these biological activities can be explained by Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection, often described as the survival of the fittest. We evolved from uncomprehending bacteria. Our minds, with all their remarkable talents, are the result of endless biological experiments. Our genius is not God-given. It’s the result of millions of years of trial and error.

Yet each of these claims is false as is explained at the link, and you'll find much more there critical of the materialist point of view.

Now, you might wonder how it matters whether we have an immaterial mind or not. What difference does it make? Well, ideas have consequences. Here are five or so consequences that follow if materialism is true:

1. It makes it harder to believe that there is a God or immaterial spiritual beings in general.
2. It makes it harder to believe that there's anything about us that survives the death of our material bodies.
3. It makes it harder to believe that we have free will since matter is completely subject to the laws of physics which are deterministic.
4. It makes it harder to believe that there's anything like human dignity (since on materialism there's probably no God in whose image we are) or human rights (since on materialism there's probably no God to grant them) or objective moral rights and wrongs (since on materialism there's probably no God whose mature serves as the standard for objective morality and who has the power to hold us ultimately accountable).
5. It makes it harder to believe that we are the same self that we were ten years ago since nothing material stays the same over time.

If a materialist's worldview encompasses any of these beliefs then there's a serious intellectual tension at play that insists upon some kind of resolution. The materialist must, if he or she is rational, give up the belief or give up materialism.

Many people, however, do neither, preferring instead to live with the unresolved tension and simply choosing not to think about it, pretending it doesn't exist.