Why Tara Reade's Biden Allegations Don't Meet Basic Moral Standards Of Justice Or Proportion

Aristotle: Articulated the Principle of the Mean and Nicomachean Ethics, thereby establishing the most fundamental moral framework - and before Christianity

"The national media has looked into these allegations and has been unable to corroborate any of them."  - Lis Smith (NY Times), this morning on 'Morning Joe'

"You waited 27 years. You think it couldn't wait a few more months? That's what I'd like to ask Ms. Reade. Why now? I'm not saying why not 27 years ago. I understand it can take victims years to come forward. I'm saying, why not before Super Tuesday? Why not last fall when we still had a dozen other candidates to choose from? Why wait until Biden is our only hope against Trump and then take him down?"  - Bill Maher, on his 'New Rules' REAL TIME segment Friday.


The  tragedy of Tara Reade and her sexual allegations against Joe Biden is that she chose the middle of the most existentially critical presidential campaign in U.S. history to  voice them.  Indeed, she also - in a recent interview with Megyn Kelly- called on Biden  (our putative only hope to take down Trump)-  to "drop out"  of the race.  And who, may I ask, would then step in with Joe Biden now the only human element standing between us all and a potential Trump re-election, and the shattering of every last vestige of morality, civility and rule of law?   

 In the wake of the Barr DOJ torpedoing the prosecution of Michael Flynn, inviting total corrupt rot of our justice system, and almost 80,000 dead Americans because of Trump's incompetent response to the pandemic, we see only the tip of the carnage to come if he is re-elected. Indeed the Sunday Denver Post ('Trump Rolls Back 60 Environmental Regulations'' p. 1A) shows the extent of harm this maggot has already perpetrated on the environment which include (ibid.):

-- Lifting all bans on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve

-  Relaxing air pollution regs for plants that burn waste coal - increasing asthma and respiratory problems for millions

-  Cancelling requirements for oil and gas companies to report methane emissions (Methane is an even more potent greenhouse gas than CO2)

-  Lifting a ban on chorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to developmental disabilities in children

- Revoked rule preventing coal companies from dumping debris, waste into nearby  streams

- Scaled back water pollution protections for tributaries, wetlands

- Rolled back a 40-year rule to protect migratory birds

-Currently conducting a sweeping overhaul of National Environmental Policy Act which will limit the environmental concerns  federal agencies will be permitted to address, take into account.

It doesn't take a Mensa level IQ to see that all the above,  not to mention the Trump cabal's war on women in removing reproductive rights, outlawing abortion and possibly even birth control (especially if yet another Right winger is appointed to the Supreme Court) bode ill for us all. Indeed, another Trump term has the potential to finish this nation off as a functioning democracy.  

Here,  Marlies, (a German friend of Janice's)  comments come to mind, when Janice skyped with her last Friday: "My God! What is happening now in your country reminds me of what happened after Hitler came to power in 1933!"

Overwrought? Exaggerated? Nope. That's how a lot of our German friends (many relatives or friends of my late sister-in-law Krimhilde, see it.  We may not see it so, because: 1) we have become too  inured to the constant exposure to Trump's countless transgressions and their magnitude, and 2) we are deterred from proper perspective by a misreading of "Godwin's law". (I.e. the first person who mentions any comparisons with Hitler and Nazis loses an argument, see e.g.

• Godwin's Law And Obama's Warning About Hitler And ...

So there is no doubt that this election is perhaps the most pivotal in our 230-odd year history.  It may well mean the difference between preserving the constitutional foundations we have (and shoring up what's left), or losing them all in a Trump reincarnation - thanks to Reade's accusations against the only viable candidate left to take him on.

Here, it is instructive to return to the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, perhaps the most fundamental moral principles ever conceived,  e.g.

• Nichomachean Ethics & the basis for Provisional Mo...

They are fundamental because they precede the excesses and exaggerations of subsequent Christian moral absolutism, which toxic mental stains persist to this day as embodied in the beliefs of the Trumpie Evangelicals.  Aristotle, by contrast, adopted a measured articulation of moral choices based on his Principle of the Mean.  It is useful then to consider the "Just" in the context of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, which can be regarded as the most basic of moral standards.In particular whether Ms. Reade's accusations - true or false- are justly advanced at this time.  As Aristotle puts it:

"The Just then, is a certain proportionable thing. For proportion does not merely apply to number in the abstract, but to number generally, since it is equality of ratios and implies four terms at least (that this is the case in what is called discrete proportion is plain and obvious, but it is true also in continual proportion, for this uses the one term as two and mentions it twice, thus A:B:C may be expressed A:B::B:C. ....It will stand then thus: A:B::C:D, and then permutando, A:C::B:D and then (supposing C and D to represent the things) A+C:B+D::A:B. The distribution in fact consisting in putting together these terms thus: and if they are put together so as preserve this same ratio, the distribution puts them together justly. So then the joining of the first and third and second and fourth proportionals is the Just in the distribution, and this Just is the mean relatively to that which violates the proportionate, for the proportionate is a mean and the Just is proportionate. "

That leads to the conclusion:

"The Unjust is that which violates the proportionate"

This warrants further elaboration by way of his "Principle of the mean".   To briefly put it into perspective:   Every considered action - for whatever reason - has a "mean" or middle choice, as well as two extremes, one deficient, the other in excess.   The "just" or "mean state" of action then - based on the above articulation - means one avoiding either extreme.  For example, "moral virtue" exercised in moral action can lie between the excess of extreme moral indignation leading to persecution, and laxity or dismissing said transgression.   And this cognitive assessment of the mean is not easy! As Aristotle reminds us (p.32, The Nicomachean Ethics):

"And so it is hard to be good, for surely hard it is in each instance to find the mean point...and so to act in due proportion, at the right time, with the right object, and in the right manner."

Based on the above, what is evident to me is that Tara Reade violated Aristotle's  ethical proportion (and principle of the mean)  by  first not attending to the "right time".   She chose, wittingly or otherwise, the absolute wrong time to raise her complaints (which have also contradicted each other at different times),  in the middle of the most critical election campaign ever. And for which the wrong decision by the electorate could usher in a holocaust of moral dissolution if the morally bankrupt Trump is re-elected.

Reade's  accusations also flout two other aspects of the Mean by demanding a standard of "compensation" (Biden departing the campaign) totally disproportionate to what personal satisfaction merits.   Hence, Aristotle would argue her demand for Biden's departure violates the "right manner" and "the right object" by punishing not only Joe Biden but the likely 190 million citizens (and immigrants) who will be injured if that is accepted, i.e. if Biden is the optimal hope to end Trump's increasingly malignant reign of terror.   

 Thus, by seeking a perceived personal justice and harming Biden in the process (as a candidate to oppose the vastly more morally compromised Trump) she risks vitiating any effort to remove the threat of Trump.  Also, in this context,  arguably harming millions of women whose lives will now be upended by his re-election, i.e. when they will be denied access to birth control, abortion or even basic health care (say if the ACA is overturned)  Not to mention the millions of immigrants who stand to also become the targets of Trump and his Gestapo aide Stephen Miller.

In other words, Reade demands a standard of satisfaction that promises to compound the existing evil by many orders of magnitude- while trying to expunge and obtain satisfaction for the  vastly lesser evil she attributes to Biden.  But by violating the Principle of the Mean in this "Trifecta" (time, manner, object)  Reade, in effect, has failed to meet the most basic of moral standards for justice, as embodied in the most fundamental Aristotelian ethics.

What should Reade have done if convinced she merited "justice" for what she believes Biden did to her?  Applying the Principle of the Mean, in respect to the elements of time, manner and object, she ought to have brought forth her complaints when the Democratic field still had  10-11 contenders.  Then, by calling for Biden to drop out, there'd have at least been other choices of candidate which could practically be made at that time.  There would also have been sufficient time for an investigation - say by the DNC - as opposed to barely three months before the Milwaukee convention.    Failing that window of opportunity, she ought to have waited until after the election to bring out these charges, as opposed to this critical period in the campaign (and in the middle of a pandemic)  which questions the role of her own ego  - and desire for attention.  

Reade's choices and actions transpired in the most parlous time in our history,    with no room for any margin of error, or adverse distractions.  Especially with Trump dangerously consolidating power using lackeys like William Barr  - destroying the DOJ and the rule of law - while bragging that the "winners will write the history".  Well, we cannot afford to have these vermin become repeat winners in November. Hence,  there is no other option now than to ignore Tara Reade, especially as no 'there' has been found there (unlike with Trump.).  Too much is on the line, and in respect of too many millions of lives being derailed or lost  - to allow one' woman's disproportionate quest for "justice"  to upset the whole damned  national "applecart".  (With which, btw, Janice totally concurs.)

Or to put it another way: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.

See Also

Michael Winship

2020 Elections | Donald Trump

Mission Imperative: Come November, Trump Must Go

by Michael Winship | May 13, 2020 - 5:50am | permalink

Excerpt:

"There must be one mission above all, one goal supreme: Vote this monster out of the White House. And along with him, tow to the nearest dump the clown car of malefactors who gave him license to cripple our republic.

Donald Trump’s defeat and the defeat of those in Congress who have enabled him with nary a word of protest are Priorities Number 1 through 100. Focus. Don’t be diverted by ideological hairsplitting and intraparty squabbling. Drive this creature and his army of creeps, leeches and miscreants back to the wet market from which they came."

And:

Lucian K. Truscott IV

Donald Trump

"Obamagate" And "Lock Her Up": Pointing the Way Toward "Heil Trump"

And:

2020 Elections | Donald Trump | Joe Biden

Election Doomsday 2020: Here’s How Scholars Fear the Trump-biden Race Could Go Terribly Wrong

Author Joseph Epstein Fails To Grasp That Trump Must Be "Nullified"- There Is NO Option "B"

"Yeah, I look forward to the wonders of my next term as president!"


 Joseph Epstein is an author, one of many, whose mental faculties appear to have been deranged and eviscerated by Trump.  Perhaps, like his fellow brain- eviscerated compadre (Lance Morrow) he lost his reason and logical capacity by being inundated  by Trump's tweets and verbal garbage. Or perhaps he became infected by the same false equivalence virus that has felled so many in or around the 4th estate.

We know this much, on reading his latest WSJ op-ed ('The American People Have Been Spoken To',  June 10, p. A15) it appears he's not only compromised by the false equivalence bug but fails to grasp how essential it is to see the back of Trump by January, 2021.   In regard to the former, Epstein continues to make the specious case that "the American people" (voters namely) are being led around by the nose by both parties. Essentially being lectured to, i.e. "Politicians (no distinction) lecture us on what we want, need, deserve and are really interested in."

Not stopping there but further amplifying this egregious claim, by writing:

"What each of our two parties is chiefly concerned about, and has been over the past two years, is putting down, degrading and humiliating the other party."

Hmmm....funny, but the ONLY party I've detected doing that, as well as degrading and humiliating the whole nation, is the GOP - as they bend over backward to kiss the ass of the criminal narcissist in the White House.  Jeezus peace, you'd think they were defending the Prince of Peace himself, and not a 2-bit grifter, con man, traitor and felon who ought to have been hung long ago.  The Democrats, by contrast, have bent over backwards to try to bring a semblance of sanity and rectitude back to this country, daily being pounded into a cesspool by Trump and his cabal.

As the WaPo's Eugene Robinson argued Monday a.m. on 'Morning Joe', and kudos to him for having no blinkers on like Epstein, and the other members of the 'Trump can do no wrong' stable:

"I think you have to go back to the Harding administration at least to find this level of corruption. I mean let's call it what it is. Just work your way through that swamp creature cabinet of Donald Trump's and then down in the agencies and you just see the most amazing sort of self-dealing, and self-enrichment.  That's what he's brought to Washington. That's what he's after. He follows perhaps the cleanest administration we've seen in a long time. In the Obama years nobody got indicted, nobody got arrested and nobody got convicted.

And here we are in what is really a cesspool. It is breathtaking. But again that's what Donald Trump is."

None of what Robinson noted was false or "fake news" especially about the Obama administration being among the cleanest in American history. So why isn't Epstein able to see that, or admit it, instead tossing out the tired old worn out trope that "all politicians are liars and slime balls". Or better, "both parties treat Americans like they just fell off a turnip truck." Well, because it serves his cynical purpose, i.e. that he isn't really about damning the politicos of both parties at all, but finding a clever, indirect way to provide more cover for Trump by seeming to damn both parties..  As he goes on, fully exposing his motivation:

"Since Hillary Clinton's loss in the 2016 presidential  election, the Democrats have been seeking a way to nullify Mr. Trump's victory.  Republicans, meanwhile, have done all they can to ensure Democrats are never viewed as anything other than obstructionist, malignant creeps."

But the two charges are nowhere near equal in gravitas. The first, for anyone perceptive enough to see it, is far more insidious because it tries to call into question the Dems as they've rightfully questioned Trump's legitimacy.  As time has gone on that withholding of legitimacy has been more than substantiated.  Indeed, it's clearly evident Trump is not qualified to lead this nation, and moreover - had the electoral college done its due diligence - never would have been elected on the basis of Electoral college votes.

Epstein's one -sided hammering of the Dems, in a piece one would have thought should be balance, then goes on:

"The forthcoming election figures to be not in the least about what is 'best' for the American people. But whether power can be wrested from Donald Trump....To be sure many would say that defeating Mr. Trump is in itself what is best for the "American people"."

Well, I am in that camp and make no apologies for it. Especially as we've learned (NY Times yesterday) Trump is only interested in peripheral aspects of his campaign and has no firm plans for a 2nd term, other than doubling down on his daily tweets from the toilet, attacking all perceived political enemies, telling 100,000 more lies and sowing more chaos and division. In meetings with aides he wants to focus on campaign songs, selection of campaign merchandise and other twaddle.  It's also been reported he has never even asked to see a budget for 2019.  Most alarming, Trump has no clue what he'd even attempt to accomplish in a second term - assuming voters were dumb enough to grant him one.  According to the Times' piece:

"Mr Trump rarely if ever speaks to aides about what he hopes to accomplish in a hard won second term....He's shown no interest in formulating a new message for his campaign, instead continuing with the slogan 'make America great again' and adding that he 'also wants to keep America great.""

But it can't be so long as Trump is fouling the nation with his lies, despicable behavior and crimes against the Constitution. It can only go further into Trump's cesspool and will be totally unrecognizable if he's given a 2nd term.

After co-host Willie Geist presented the gist of the NY Times account on the same 'Morning Joe' episode, Mike Barnacle - also on the panel - responded  while saying there is way too much overthnking:

"This is a man who only cares about himself. Every day is just an extension of his show with set up villains - it's either Joe Biden, the Mexican government, whatever .  This guy is just obsessed with himself, not the country, not any formulation of plans to improve the country, Not any goals for his administration's first term and certainly not for what would be a second term set of goals. It's only himself."

This is a guy, in other words,  who's played out, who has no new ideas if he even had any in the first place. He needs to resign,  to get the hell out of office, willingly, even if not officially sent packing by the voters (who may be too enamored of their 401k balances to protect the nation's welfare.).  He simply isn't qualified to manage this country.  As Eugene Robinson  added, appropriately:

"This is what Donald Trump has been from day one.. He runs the country the way he ran the Trump organization. He sort of ad libs his way through an episode of the Trump show. That's what he's doing with the country. That's  why nobody in his administration has any idea what's coming out in the next tweet, or what the next policy change will be. It's always been all about Donald Trump.  My question is whether people in the country begin to understand  he's really about himself, and not about them."

All of which skewers Epstein's brain dead claim at the end of his piece, in regard to the next election:

"Whoever wins, the loser figures to be - the American people."

Nope, sonny. The winner will be the American people, if we can evict Trump the toad from office!  This is a no -brainer!

 In line with this, former Sen. Claire McKaskill put in her important 0.02 on that  same 'Morning Joe':

"Over forty percent of the country thinks this guy is okay.  I mean if you're us and you're watching this president, and watching his lying and undermining the country on the world stage you're saying 'How in the world can forty percent of America think this guy is okay. So as long as his number stays above thirty percent I think the Democrats are going to continue to panic but I think that panic is perfect and appropriate."

Well, rather than panic, I would say the Dems (especially Pelosi)  need to be seen acting and bringing impeachment proceedings to break the Dotard stonewall. Look, despite the Mueller Report describing how this nation was attacked by a hostile foreign adversary in that 2016 election,  Epstein accuses the Dems of wanting to "nullify" (with damned good reason) Trump's election. Failing to process it should be nullified!  Trump, his campaign team and family KNEW about the Russian skullduggery and welcomed it using a form of "coded" conspiracy exchanges with GRU assets. Then to top it all off, Trump tried to obstruct the ensuing investigation into it.

Worse, the Russians are still at it as I write, seeking to undermine the 2020 election and Trump hasn't said a damned word about it, Hell, as Janice puts it, he "bloody wants their help again".   So long as he keeps getting it no wonder he yaps about being "a president for life".

McKaskill and the rest of us with more than air between the ears have to nonetheless recognize that there are millions of blinkered, brainwashed zombies among our fellow citizens. People who likely don't read (i.e. the full Mueller report) and are incapable of thought outside FOX news.  Those like letter writer Elaine Little (in Monday's Denver Post) who scribbled, in reference to the House Democrats:

"No legislation passed, nothing! It appears the only thing they're bent on doing is rehashing the Mueller report and trying  to discredit the president and prepare for the next election.  Their self-importance is disgraceful and their service to the country is minimal."

Well, I could likewise say this woman's brainpower is minimal especially if she sincerely believes the Mueller report is being "rehashed".   Her moral compass is also affected, either by the sort of propaganda meted out by the likes of Epstein, or FOX News, as when she claims the Dems are "trying to discredit the president".  Nope, that reprobate has discredited himself, now by over 10, 700 lies at last count, and committing obstruction right in front of our very eyes by his stonewalling on lawful subpoenas.

That this ninny doesn't even grasp the  Article I powers granted congress under the Constitution tells me she ought to have her citizenship revoked.  And the fact she isn't aware of how Bitch McConnell is burying every bill that makes it to the Senate  - over 140 so far - suggests to me she needs to ease up on the Xanax.  If the majority of citizens are more like this zombie than wide awake and alert to Trump's perfidy, then yeah, it is time to push the panic button!

On an end note, the other thing Epstein gets wrong is how Aristotle perceived politics. Epstein claims he defined it "as the practical science for making citizens happy".    But in his great work, 'Politics' Aristotle is clear (cf. Book I, cc.I, a:)

"The ultimate object of the state is the good life.. The naturalness of the state is proved by the faculty of speech in man....It is founded on a natural impulse that tends toward political association."

The emphasis by Aristotle on the 'good life' transcends "happiness" which is predicated on mercurial emotions. One can "feel" happy after his team wins the Superbowl, but crushed and depressed if it doesn't,  after all. It is the stuff of mainly trivial concerns and fleeting subjective emotions. By the "good life",  Aristotle instead meant one based on the judicious exercise of  will which consistently chooses the maximization of  faculties, such as reason, to attain maximal good in society.   Thus, a moral compass is also essential  . In his Book V of The Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle writes:

"We see then that all men mean by the term Justice a moral state such that in consequence of it men have the capacity what is just and actually do it, and wish it. Similarly also with rspect to Injustice, a moral state such that in consequence of it men do unjustly and wish what is unjust.."

Aristotle didn't rest there, but actually demanded a proportionality to Justice in its particular expressions.  If he was faced with the political world of Trumpism today, Aristotle would be appalled at the lack of justice and the reign of injustice. As Epstein ought to as well, if he were not so blinded by Trumpism.

Materialism is NOT "self-refuting"!

One of the annoying canards atheists have had to deal with over the past several decades is the claim that our base philosophy - physicalist materialism- is "self-refuting". When religionists assert the idea of materialism is self-refuting they mean that the reductionist basis of materialism is inadequate to account for a non-material or non-physical phenomenon such as thought. Effectively, the apparent non-material existence of thought is enough to convince religionists, especially supernaturalists, that materialism is trumped. They forget, or never processed in the first place, we are invoking PHYSICALIST materialism by which invisible fields, forces etc. are fully represented!

They forget, or care to ignore, that we know life itself can be accounted for by things not necessarily alive, such as DNA, proteins etc. Of course, a better way to put this is that these inanimate elements or factors are necessary conditions for life as we know it. There may be other “sufficient conditions”. Today, when one pragmatically addresses causality, it is preferable to use necessary and sufficient conditions rather than allude to some vague, undifferentiated causality.

Thus, for a car accident to occur, being in a car and on the road is a necessary condition. Sufficient conditions may be that the driver’s blood alcohol was over 0.15 and that his brakes gave out at the critical instant at an intersection.

The argument that materialism is “self refuting” was originally put forward in the popular context by C.S. Lewis (originally an atheist who “saw the light” then became a Roman Catholic). More recently, philosopher Mary Midgley has argued that materialism is a “self-refuting idea”.

Catholic philosopher Ed. L. Miller probably circulated the idea most widely via university philosophy courses) with his textbook: ‘Questions that Matter’. In his chapter on Materialism, Miller’s efforts fall flat when he takes on the sophisticated arguments of philosopher J.J. Smart, who uses quantum physics and its indeterminism to extend the basis of that philosophy away from its ancient (and overly simplistic) Greek origins.

As we know, modern materialism is now more accurately physicalism – since it embodies not merely the atoms of Demokritos, but also the indeterminate physical aspects of matter addressed by quantum mechanics. This includes existence of de Broglie (matter) waves, multiple fields, as well as quantum nonlocality (verified in Alain Aspect’s 1982 experiments at the University of Paris) and the principle of superposition of states as well as Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. What this means, is that the hackneyed arguments people originally gave – based on attacking ancient Greek materialism- no longer hold water.

In the aspect referred to above, Miller attempts to discredit Smart by asking:

“If all thought is purely the result of physical brain activity then why should the content of this thought be anything special... why pay any attention to it if it is thus self-refuting?”

This, however, is based on several egregious assumptions, not the least of which is the unproven belief that self-refuting thought can be unimpeachably identified within the physical matrix that engenders consciousness. As I note in my (2000) book, 'The Atheist's Handbook to Modern Materialism' (p. 164) - since there's no practical method to identify the site of a specific thought (where the associated quantum wavepacket collapses at specific synapses.) nothing can be said about the quality or content of the thought. In other words, the supernaturalist can't make any claims about thought in a purely Materialist context. Including whether it is "self-refuting".

Second, it assumes that a physical-based thought is less enriched, human or nuanced than one emanating from ....I don't know....a "soul-driven" brain? But since none of these geniuses has put forth an objective test to discern the two types of thought, it's somewhat like arguing how many angels are on the end of a pin!

The physical theory of quantum mechanics enters brain behavior since, as physicist Henry Stapp has pointed out (‘Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics’, p. 42), uncertainty principle limitations applied to calcium ion capture near synapses shows the Ca++ ions must be represented by a probability function. Specifically, the dimension of the associated calcium ion wavepacket scales many times larger than the ion itself- nullifying the use of classical trajectories etc.

Since the Ca++ wavepacket information is ultimately describable in terms of quantum mechanical wavefunctions, e.g.

U (x,y,z) = u1(x, y,z) + u2(x,y,z) + u3(x, y, z) + …..uN(x,y,z)

Then there is necessarily a “superposition of states” applicable until wavepacket collapse. This means any nascent thought within the wavepacket is literally in a “black box”. That box isn’t “opened” until the thought itself emerges whether in speech or writing.

“Opening” the box (selecting the single thought to be expressed out of all competing ones) would be analogous to disturbing a system with a measuring apparatus. In this case, as David Bohm notes (Quantum Physics, Dover, 1951, p.128) each of the terms above in u1, u2 etc. must include an exponential function with “an unpredictable and uncontrollable phase factor”, call it ‘φ'.

Thus for each term above, include the factor: exp (iφ) with the phase factor φ changing with the order of the term. For example, the first term would be written:

U1(x,y,z) exp(i φ1)

In his 1991 book, ‘Consciousness Explained’, Daniel Dennett invokes a somewhat superposition –based analogy (albeit not at the quantum scale) in his “multiple drafts” description of consciousness. In this, the brain fashions multiple drafts for thought, for example, before a final single draft emerges. Dennett, by the way, does an excellent job in dispelling once and for all the need for a “commander pilot” or “soul” that has to be “seated” in the brain to direct it or enable it to perform.

None is needed, because in truth and fact, the way the brain works in generating “multiple drafts” and producing a final outcome (as a thought) renders any “pilot” redundant. In these type of theories, Dennett’s and mine (at the quantum level) we see that the “soul-pilot” emerges as an illusion. Our own brain has been complicit in this in creating the illusion there is someone or something behind the eyes, and pulling the strings. There isn’t.

The belief there is something “behind the eyes” is a carryover from ancient, Aristotelian modes of thought. The same modes evident in Aristotelian physics which maintained that heavier objects traveled faster when dropped from a height because they “desired to reach the Earth more quickly”. Hardly!

It is unfortunate that humans for the most part remain in the throes of antiquated modes of thought more peculiar to the ancients. Julian Jaynes (‘The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind’, 1976) perhaps best described these as “lacking the sense of metaphor … that characterizes a more advanced mind”.

However, as science makes greater inroads these antiquated relics will surely fall away as people realize that invisible “entities” that were invented hundreds of years ago have no basis in reality. And once science can provide an answer, even an improbable one, the use of any competing non-natural hypothesis must fall by the way side – unless the proponent wishes to be guilty of the fallacy of ignotum per ignotius .(Seeking to explain the not well understood by the less well understood). At the end of the day, natural explanations therefore will always trump non-natural ones – because the latter are always “less well understood” by definition. And up to now, no non-natural realm has been demonstrated even remotely, only speculated on)

In a way, it is ironic that the theologian’s “soul” is the real self-refuting basis for thought. This is because absolutely no evidence exists for a “soul”. It is pure theological conjecture. Meanwhile, we know the brain exists – it can be measured, weighed and thoughts – as altering levels of brain activity- actually recorded using positron emission tomography.

We know the possession of a brain is at least a necessary condition for the most rudimentary thought. To this point no one has demonstrated that thought originates without a brain. When they do, one might be able to seriously consider the possibility. As for sufficient conditions for thought, it’s plausible that at least one is that when an action potential has been propagated by an axon, the neuron on the opposite side of a synapse fires.

Again, the necessary condition is already in place, and the sufficient condition uses that and goes beyond it.

Until the religionists disprove this is the case, or can show their own necessary and sufficient conditions for thought (in particular that it can occur without benefit of material medium) they are wasting their time in semantic exercises of unknown utility.

In some ways this argument bears similarity to the “ether’ once postulated in physics. It was believed for many years that light needed a medium (“ether”) to propagate and couldn’t do so in a vacuum. This is somewhat analogous to the feeling of many vitalists that a “soul” is required for thought.

In physics, the Michelson-Morley experiment finally rendered the ether a redundant anachronism, or an unnecessary ‘macguffin’, inserted because people believed it was “needed”. But now we know light can indeed propagate in vacuo. I am confident that one day the “soul” will be rendered just as redundant in terms of thought and consciousness.