Can sand think? A case against materialism.

Imagine a child, around 7 years old, going on his first vacation with his parents to another country. This child is taken to the airport, gets on a plane, and sleeps most of the way through the trip. Upon arriving to the different country for his first vacation, the child wakes up. Do you expect the child to ‘feel’ something? Do you expect the child to feel happy? Sad? Scared? Excited? Well whatever you might think he feels, you do know that he will most definitely ‘feel’ something. He will have some sort of emotional reaction. 

Now imagine someone taking a fistful of sand with him as he sets off on his first vacation. This man puts this fistful of sand in a black bag, closes it, and upon arriving to the new location opens up the bag full of sand. What do you expect the sand to feel? Do you expect the sand to feel happy for traveling or nervous about going to a new land that the sand has neve been in?

Okay obviously no one is expecting the sand to feel anything. The sand is, well, sand. We all know what sand is. Sand does not have the ability to feel or have emotions the same way a child might have. If we were to write out the reasoning for why this fistful of sand cannot feel in a logical argument format, it would look something like this: 

1. Anything made up of material parts cannot have emotions
2. Sand is made up of material parts
3. Therefore sand cannot have emotions.

This argument many would agree with. Sand, even if molded up together to look like a human, a sand man, cannot think or have emotions because this sand man is made up of material parts and material parts do not have emotions.

However, materialism, a view that many atheists (not all) uphold, states that everything that exists is material. If that is the case, then why is it that a child for instance can have emotions and feelings if the child is made up of material parts, but a sand man does not? How can a materialist explain this distinction between a human, who (based on a materialist) is only made up of material parts but can feel, while a sandman who is made up of material parts cannot feel?

In this article we will be looking at the problem of materialism and why materialism, a theory that many atheists believe in, is faulty. In short, materialism cannot account for why we humans, who are made up of only material parts, can feel and think and have emotions, while other things made up of material parts cannot sense or feel anything. 

The problem of materialism.

 In Dr Joshua Rasmussen's book “How reason can lead to God” Rasmussen discusses how the foundation of reality needs to have a mind (i.e., it needs to have consciousness, the ability to think and experience things) We have minds. You reading this article for instance shows that you have a mind. Rasmussen argues that if we were to take the materialist hypothesis, then it would lead us into having a construction error. A construction error results from building something with the wrong material. For instance, it would be a construction error to try and make a black iPhone from only white iPhone parts. If someone were to try and build a black iPhone with white iPhone parts, they would fail; similarly, if someone were to claim that a black iPhone was made up of only white parts, they would probably be laughed at. 

The construction error that is relevant for this discussion is as follows: material physical things are made up of non-sense (things that cannot sense) materials; however, we as humans have senses (we have the ability to sense emotions). How is it possible, if we take the materialist hypothesis, that we are made up of non-sense materials yet we ourselves have the ability to have sense? (Rasmussen, 1338- 1375, Kindle Edition).

1. Humans are made up of material matters
2. All material matter's have no-sense
3. Therefore, human's have no sense

As you can see, this logical argument simply makes no sense. We humans DO have sense; however, let us put in place of humans something else. For instance:

1. A sand man (a figure of a man made entirely out of sand) is made up of material matters
2. all material matters have no-sense
3. Therefore, a sand man has no-sense.

This argument does make sense. Of course something made up of sand does not have the ability to have sense because the parts that make up this sand man is non-sense materials.

However, what separates the first argument from having a wrong conclusion with the second argument having the right conclusion? For the materialists, both premise 1 and premise 2 are correct in both arguments; material matters have no-sense. But humans CAN sense and have the ability to sense. So how can we explain this distinction through materialism?

The truth of the matter is, is that materialism fails to describe how this is possible. Through materialiams, is should be the case that there is no difference between the sand man and a human; however, there is a difference. A human has the ability to sense while a sand man does not. If one is a materialist, there is a clear construction error involved. And thus, materialism, an idea that many atheists uphold, seems to simply be counter to reality and thus wrong.

Objection:

Before declaring victory, we have to look at one of the main objections that a materialist can have to this argument. An objection that a materialist may have is that the reason we humans have the ability to think and feel, while something like a sand man cannot, is because of the brain. The brain is not like any other material thing. Scientists have seen that the brain will react in different ways based on outside stimuli. For instance, if we were to see a sad movie, a different part of our brain would activate and light up than if we were to see a comedy. Or if we were to re-visit our high-school our brain would react differently than if we were to simply go visit a random high-school. This is all to say that we are able to feel things and have sense even though our brain is material.

However, this objection fails to address the argument at hand. Rasmussen addresses this objection by telling us to imagine someone flipping a switch and a lamp starts to glow. Rasmussen states that this flipping of the switch and the lamp being lit does not reveal how the light switch makes the lamp glow. He writes:

“in the same way, you might glow with happiness after some chemicals interact. But the question remains: how do chemicals make the happy sensation? How does a change in motion cause a change in emotion? Seeing the connection doesn’t explain the connection” (Rasmussen, 1442, Kindle Edition)

The point being made here is that simply pointing to the different parts of the brain lighting up when different things occur does not in it of itself explain how one feels these inner emotions. The same way that pointing to the flipping of a switch does not entirely explain the howness of the lamp being lit.

Adding on to this, imagine two people watching the same exact movie right next to each other. Both are seeing the same things occurring, hearing the same sounds, and experiencing the same film. However, throughout the film these two people might have been experiencing different emotions throughout the entire film. Person A might have felt that this film personally connected to them, thus it might have made them tear up a couple of times throughout the film. Person B might have simply felt bored and dreaded every second they were watching the film.

Now one could simply point to a scan of both person A's brain and person B's brain and see different parts being activated withing both of their brains as a response to the film. Person A's brain would different than person B's in terms of what is activated. However, this still wont explain HOW and WHY these two people's brains differ. Why is it that person A's brain light up based on an emotional scene while person B's brain might not light up in the same way based on the same scene? Simply looking at the scans of these people's brain does not in it of itself explain why there is a difference.

The point that I am getting at is that merely pointing at the brain, something that is physical and made up of non-sense parts, does not give the reason as to how people have the ability to sense. If I were to create a human out of sand, we immediately understand why it cannot sense anything. It it made up of non-sense parts. However, if humans are also made up of non-sense parts, and if one is a materialist, then how can we explain that we humans have the ability to sense?

Conclusion.

Can sand think? Well clearly the answer is no. However, for the materialist, they have no way to answer how humans can think while sand cannot. As stated by Rasmussen in his book, there is a construction error occurring here. The same way we cannot construct a black iPhone with only white parts, we also cannot construct something to have sense with only non-sense physical material. This is the main problem with materialism. It is a theory that is contradictory to the real world.

Where does this leave us? By showing that materialism has clear problems in relation to the real world, then a theory that many (but of course not all) atheists uphold to is diminished. While this argument in it of itself does not prove God's existence for instance, it does provide a strong argument that there is more to this world than material. This, along with many other arguments that will be highlighting on my youtube channel and on this website, when put all together can make a strong case for the existence of God.