An injustice, no doubt, to Geber – the 16th century alchemist, distinguished for his cryptic style – is the characterisation of anything as gibberish. But such is the English usage, and it remains to consider some modern gems of the genre, as uttered by self-confessed rationalists in support of naturalism or materialism.
As statements, these examples are analogous in form and content, and thus characterised by the same self-refuting logic – or illogic – typical of such arguments, showing not only that they cannot possibly be true, but that they indeed are void of meaningful assertion. They are, in a word, gibberish.
1. States philosopher John Shook: Naturalism is the view that the only reality is the physical universe of energy and matter as gradually discovered by experience, reason and science. (In debate with Christian apologist William Lane Craig, and on his website, naturalisms.org – although the statement now appears to have been removed, Shook perhaps realising its absurdity.)
Physical nature here is defined as the putative object – as the one thing real – whereas experience, reason, and science, these things are gratuitous. The whole subjective apparatus, as ultimately grounded in consciousness, is simply taken for granted. It surely exists – insofar as it does the discovering – but in a curiously abstract, primary, and unacknowledged sense, which is not itself subject to scrutiny. The thing to be explained in Shook’s universe are energy and matter – the only thing real – whereas mind or consciousness, although surely an equal mystery, are evidently not within the field of vision. An analogy, for better or worse, is that of a man at the cinema. He is focused entirely on the big screen, not considering that the enthralling images he beholds are dependent on a projection apparatus – an apparatus pertaining to an ontological order entirely other than the objects of his attention. On a certain level he knows it’s there, but his focus is the movie. In a curious sense he, himself, has become a character in a secondary reality – abstracted and idealised – of exclusively physical entities. He regards the movie as a dynamically closed and independently existing system – entirely unaware of its secondary and contingent nature.
2. States eminent physicist Victor Stenger in an article entitled Quantum Quackery (Skeptical Enquirer, February 1997): Quantum physics is claimed to support the mystical notion that the mind creates reality. However, an objective reality, with no special role for consciousness, human or cosmic, is consistent with all observations.
The jewel here is obviously the retort – an objective reality, with no special role for consciousness, human or cosmic, is consistent with all observations – no doubt uttered with a straight face, and oblivious to the massive self-contradiction it contains. Let us consider the elements in this formulation. Again we encounter objective reality – we encounter no special role for consciousness – the whole of which is said to be consistent with all observations. The decisive benchmark in this formulation is, clearly, observation – all observations. It is observation which reveals an objective reality, without any special role for consciousness, either human or cosmic. But what is observation, if not an event in consciousness? Any observation presupposes the ground of mind or consciousness as an intrinsic primary given. So we may paraphrase: An objective reality with no special role for consciousness, human or cosmic, is consistent with the intrinsic primacy of consciousness. Self-evident nonsense!
The assumed emphasis in both examples is upon the empirical object – the physical or material universe. The fact of apprehension of such an object, by which alone it is manifest as an observed phenomenon, is entirely taken for granted. The observing consciousness – the fact that there exists a conscious expanse, a luminous window upon reality – these are considered a side issue, of no special significance or interest. Although ontologically fundamental to all human experience, they are placed outside the observational frame of reference, namely in deference to the sacred object – the idol of materialism which they disclose. Whereas in human experience the ostensible subjective and objective form an inseparable whole, this integral whole is denied in the context of these formulations. As thus exemplified, the materialist worldview is maintained by dividing the universe into two, discarding one half (arguably the interesting and significant half), and constructing its epistemological edifice of the half remaining. The materialist conclusion is thus a necessarily consequence which follows trivially from the myopic focus employed.
Significant and revealing in these formulations, however, is the implicit primacy of consciousness as a gratuitous primordial given. As outside the observational natural / material frame of reference, it is implicitly accorded transcendent status, however inadvertent the attribution may be. Similarly transcendent in this regard is the observer, a being which hovers, ghostly and godlike, in the pure ether of Platonic abstraction. Indeed, like water to a fish, it would seem that mind or consciousness is too basic a phenomenon, at least for some observers, to seriously weigh in the empirical balance. As to the objective universe, it subsists, suspended within the hermetically sealed hypersphere of epistemological isolation, a bubble within the transcendent void which is the ground of observation and rational thought.
What can we make of such skewed perceptions? One might think that the phenomenon constitutes a rare psychological disorder – and perhaps indeed it does, so that its seeming prevalence in the academic sphere is merely a matter of the disproportionate amount of noise it tends to generate. The simplest explanation I can adduce is that of cultural conditioning. In short, the materialist creed is hammered with slogans, with unexamined rationalisations, which conceal a metaphysical axe to grind concerning any notion of transcendence. The result is ideology – the inability to see what is plainly before one’s eyes.