90 - Terminal Lucidity: A Failed Anti-Materialist Argument

Does terminal lucidity refute physicalism?  Linktree

I was graciously invited on the Young Apologists Podcast to discuss my backstory, apologetics, atheism, aliens, the simulation hypothesis, the LDS religion, panpsychism, religious experiences, what would convert me to Christianity, and what I would ask God if I had the chance.  Young Apologists - Substack Worldviews - YouTube Music by Joseph Nied Linktree

Crashing out over a tweet about the moral argument.  Moral Argument Debunked (Playlist) https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg... Linktree https://linktr.ee/emersongreen

Micah Edvenson and I have a reasonable discussion about Bigfoot, the no body argument, the difficulty of finding remains in the woods, footprint casts, the Patterson-Gimlin film, the comparison with gorillas and chimpanzees, the compatibility of the volume of eyewitness sightings and the supposed elusiveness of Bigfoot, and many other topics. We also touch on eyewitness reports of ghosts, different types of apparitions, and whether a materialist can credit certain ghost sightings as veridical.  Linktree

My appearance on Otherworld about my experience with a cryptid.  YouTube https://youtu.be/bBU8vXNmyFw?si=VD98PzHdcD26nK-a Substack post going into more detail: https://emersongreen.substack.com/p/t... Linktree https://linktr.ee/emersongreen Episode 113: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 1 https://www.otherworldpod.com/blogs/e... Episode 114: The Michigan Dogman Pt. 2 https://www.otherworldpod.com/blogs/e...

Does philosophy of language give us reason to think that God, if he exists, is more like us than classical theists expect? I’m joined by philosopher of language Joseph Lawal to discuss an argument from his paper, 'God An Alien or An Alien God?' His argument aims to push us away from the strongest versions of divine simplicity and aseity, but is also potentially a problem for theistic personalists who affirm God's timelessness. The argument, which focuses on the otherness of God (on non-finitist views), leads us to the conclusion that ordinary theological language is either false or meaningless on classical theism. (E.g., “God loves you” would either be false or meaningless.) This poses a major problem for the religious theist and destroys their ability to make predictions and inferences about God based on his attributes. This would not only undermine natural theology, but also harm the sorts of inferences we make about God in ordinary life.  *In the conversation, I use the word “prediction” at a few points where it probably would have been clearer to use the word “inference” instead. *There is a lot of information packed into this episode; it may be beneficial to listen more than once.  Joseph's channel  SPECIAL THANKS TO JOSEPH NIED FOR THE MUSIC FOR THIS EPISODE  Support the show

Ralph Stefan Weir and Ben Watkins debate whether there is a sound argument from mental causation to materialism. Is the interaction problem for substance dualism fake or fatal?  My interview with Dr. Weir on substance dualism:   • You Are A Soul — w/ Ralph Stefan Weir   Dr. Ralph Stefan Weir is the author of The Mind-Body Problem and Metaphysics: An Argument from Consciousness to Mental Substance. He teaches philosophy at the University of Lincoln and is an Associate Member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford.  Ben Watkins is the co-host of the excellent philosophy of religion podcast, Real Atheology   / @realatheology   Linktree

I respond briefly to Alex O'Conner's free will skepticism, specifically to an objection attributed to Schopenhauer: You can do what you will, but you can't will what you will. While I agree that we can't have ultimate responsibility for our actions, I think we can be responsible for our actions. Being the author of one's actions doesn't require anything magical, just that we are (in some sense) the source of what we do and that we (in some sense) could have done otherwise. As long as we have sourcehood and the ability to do otherwise, I think we have free will; and I think determinism is fatal to neither of these criteria. In defense of alternative possibilities, I appeal to Kadri Vihvelin's dispositional compatibilism, the thesis that "the most fundamental free will facts are facts about our causal powers (for instance, our power to decide on the basis of deliberation) and that our causal powers differ in complexity but not in kind from dispositions like fragility, elasticity, and flammability." Kadri Vihvelin on Dispositional Compatibilism Interview with Kadri Vihvelin  Linktree 

Durham University hosted a conference about panpsychism, pantheism, and panentheism last November, and I was graciously given the opportunity to respond to Joanna Leidenhag and Tim Mulgan. Professor Leidenhag and Professor Mulgan both spoke about alternative models of theism, and I offered a few thoughts and objections to their respective models of God.  On Durham's website, you can listen to all the full lectures from the event: https://sites.google.com/view/panpsychismandpanentheism/project-events/durham-workshop?authuser=0 Linktree 00:00 Emerson Green  15:40 Joanna Leidenhag  23:37 Tim Mulgan  31:00 Q&A

We explore the nature of dreams. We discuss Daniel Dennett's cassette theory, which questions whether dreams are genuine experiences that occur during sleep, instead suggesting that dreams are spontaneous memory insertions at awakening. This theory contrasts with the common view that dreams involve phenomenal states in real time. However, lucid dreaming challenges the cassette theory. We also question the reality of "dreamless sleep" and examine prophetic, precognitive, and shared dreams.  Linktree