The Enigma of Consciousness

Dr. Peter E. Payne’s Apologetic Notes Apologetics Note #1 The dominant worldview in the university today is what is called physicalism,1 scientific naturalism, or simply naturalism. It is the view that the physical world is all that exists and that everything can be explained in terms of mindless physical processes. This worldview is assumed by most to be not merely a speculative interpretation, but rather the worldview of science. Hence to believe otherwise is thought to be either uninformed or to fly in the face of the evidence. As philosopher John Searle puts this conviction: Given what we know about the details of the world, … this world view … is not simply up for grabs along with a lot of competing world views. Our problem is not that somehow we have failed to come up with a convincing proof of the existence of God or that the hypothesis of an afterlife remains in serious doubt, it is rather that in our deepest reflections we cannot take such opinions seriously. Read the entire article (pdf)