"Given that these could be swapped out while keeping the physical states the same, evolution can’t explain it—for if B was replaced by D, the world would be physically the same, so there would be selection for disharmony."
I'm not sure why there should be any selection for disharmony. Our brains' function is information processing. It would be inefficient and therefore evolution would disfavor developing information processors that run superfluous processes all the time with no impact on fitness - one process managing all our inputs and outputs in the physical world (that is a zombie), and a second completely separate process unrelated to what is happening in the physical world that makes up our actual experience.
We can actually learn a lot about neuroscience from the exceptions where evolution doesn't select for psychophysical harmony. Sometimes it takes good enough shortcuts that result in our experiences of things like optical illusions where what we perceive really is different from physical reality.
>This, however, does not succeed. Pointing out that some fact is necessary is not an adequate explanation of why it is so. Imagine someone is a necessitarian—they think that everything that happens necessarily happens. If they got 100 royal flushes in a row in poker, it wouldn’t do to explain it by saying “it’s just necessary!”
This seems like an easy bullet to bite. It is, in fact, "just necessary" that I got 100 royal flushes in a row; there is no further *metaphysical* explanation on this view, there's just a purely epistemic question of how I could have deduced this result starting from the state of the universe at some prior time. But this is fairly similar to the case of mathematics. I don't think the Axiom of Choice "metaphysically explains" Zorn's lemma or vice versa - they are both equally brute, necessary facts. However, there's a colloquial sense of how, if you already accept the Axiom of Choice but are confused about why you should accept Zorn's lemma, the former provides a kind of explanation of the latter. Now, unlike the mathematics case, in the necessary physical case more needs to be said to address concerns about correlation vs. causation, time asymmetry, etc. - but IMO this stuff has already been worked out.
Moreover, it's unclear why you're not going to be vulnerable to a similar issue about "God's psychophysical harmony," or his ability to make anything happen that he wills to happen. OK, he can necessarily do that, but why? What's the explanation? You can try to argue that it's explained by being a logical consequence of his having "maximal perfection." First, it's not clear that this isn't much better than a "dormitive virtue"-type situation. "Maximal perfection" may be a tiny bit more informative than "maximal ability to effect his will" (since it also includes moral perfection), but this isn't very satisfying as far as explanations go. It's a bit like saying my 100 royal flushes is explained by the fact that I have near-perfect hands in every card game, including cribbage and spades. Second, what explains his necessary maximal perfection? It can't just be that it's an essential property, since that's basically synonymous with what's being asked about.
Finally, if you agree that God's psychophysical harmony has and needs no explanation, then we have an answer to your "Bible quotes on atoms" thought experiment. In that case, while necessitarian naturalism simpliciter doesn't explain it, the hypothesis "necessitarian naturalism + there are Bible quotes on atoms" does (trivially) explain it. The problem is that that hypothesis just has an absurdly low prior compared to design. But why should psychophysical harmony in general have an absurdly low prior compared to divine psychophysical harmony?
Is the psychophysical harmony argument somewhat like Leibniz's preestablished harmony ?
"Given that these could be swapped out while keeping the physical states the same, evolution can’t explain it—for if B was replaced by D, the world would be physically the same, so there would be selection for disharmony."
I'm not sure why there should be any selection for disharmony. Our brains' function is information processing. It would be inefficient and therefore evolution would disfavor developing information processors that run superfluous processes all the time with no impact on fitness - one process managing all our inputs and outputs in the physical world (that is a zombie), and a second completely separate process unrelated to what is happening in the physical world that makes up our actual experience.
We can actually learn a lot about neuroscience from the exceptions where evolution doesn't select for psychophysical harmony. Sometimes it takes good enough shortcuts that result in our experiences of things like optical illusions where what we perceive really is different from physical reality.
>This, however, does not succeed. Pointing out that some fact is necessary is not an adequate explanation of why it is so. Imagine someone is a necessitarian—they think that everything that happens necessarily happens. If they got 100 royal flushes in a row in poker, it wouldn’t do to explain it by saying “it’s just necessary!”
This seems like an easy bullet to bite. It is, in fact, "just necessary" that I got 100 royal flushes in a row; there is no further *metaphysical* explanation on this view, there's just a purely epistemic question of how I could have deduced this result starting from the state of the universe at some prior time. But this is fairly similar to the case of mathematics. I don't think the Axiom of Choice "metaphysically explains" Zorn's lemma or vice versa - they are both equally brute, necessary facts. However, there's a colloquial sense of how, if you already accept the Axiom of Choice but are confused about why you should accept Zorn's lemma, the former provides a kind of explanation of the latter. Now, unlike the mathematics case, in the necessary physical case more needs to be said to address concerns about correlation vs. causation, time asymmetry, etc. - but IMO this stuff has already been worked out.
Moreover, it's unclear why you're not going to be vulnerable to a similar issue about "God's psychophysical harmony," or his ability to make anything happen that he wills to happen. OK, he can necessarily do that, but why? What's the explanation? You can try to argue that it's explained by being a logical consequence of his having "maximal perfection." First, it's not clear that this isn't much better than a "dormitive virtue"-type situation. "Maximal perfection" may be a tiny bit more informative than "maximal ability to effect his will" (since it also includes moral perfection), but this isn't very satisfying as far as explanations go. It's a bit like saying my 100 royal flushes is explained by the fact that I have near-perfect hands in every card game, including cribbage and spades. Second, what explains his necessary maximal perfection? It can't just be that it's an essential property, since that's basically synonymous with what's being asked about.
Finally, if you agree that God's psychophysical harmony has and needs no explanation, then we have an answer to your "Bible quotes on atoms" thought experiment. In that case, while necessitarian naturalism simpliciter doesn't explain it, the hypothesis "necessitarian naturalism + there are Bible quotes on atoms" does (trivially) explain it. The problem is that that hypothesis just has an absurdly low prior compared to design. But why should psychophysical harmony in general have an absurdly low prior compared to divine psychophysical harmony?
Not surprising, Digital Gnosis is one of the most obnoxious people on the internet.