"Another materialist finds he cannot live with his own philosophy: Marvin Minsky of MIT is best known for his punchy phrase that the human brain is nothing but “a three-pound computer made of meat.” Computers have no free will, so the implication is, neither do we. Yet, he says, we cannot live with such a reductionist view: “No matter that the physical world provides no room for freedom of will; that concept is essential to our models of the mental realm." We cannot "ever give it up." Thus "We're virtually forced to maintain that belief, even though we know it's false"--false, that is, according to his materialist worldview. This is a serious case of cognitive dissonance. When a concept (like free will) keeps bubbling up inescapably, irresistibly, unavoidably—even in the mind of someone whose worldview tells them “it’s false”—that means they are bumping against the truths of reality, of the created order. When your philosophical beliefs do not match the real world, it is time to go back to the drawing board and rethink those beliefs."
Nancy Pearcey
The notion that people like this can't be wrong, is one of the things about the academic/intellectual/scientism class that is the most concerning. That some one would knowingly and willingly believe something that they admit to be false simply to attempt to align their philosophical pre-commitment with their lived experience is concerning to say the least.
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