Dustin Segers’ Failed Attempt to Refute the Primacy of Existence
This article is broken up in the following four sections:
Fundamentally Flawed Follow-Up
Below is Dustin “Dusman” Segers’ original blog posting, including comments, which was posted to the Grace in the Triad blog on Monday October 24, 2011 at 02:27:00 PM. After I had posted two comments to the blog notifying Segers that he had made a major mistake, he decided to remove the blog entirely from the internet. I discovered this when Segers posted a comment that showed up in my email inbox stating that he had decided to remove the blog. Luckily I still had the blog open in one of my browsers, so I copied the entirety to MS Word (something I often do anyway) since it was such a keeper! The original URL for the blog was: http://graceinthetriad.blogspot.com/2011/10/brief-refutation-of-objectivisms.html.
In his blog, Segers posted what was for the most part the four criticisms of what he mistakenly took to the primacy of existence in a recent podcast on Fundamentally Flawed. I have already posted my own interaction with the refutation Segers presented in that podcast on my own blog. It can be found here: Has the Primacy of Existence Been Refuted?
Since, however, Segers’ blog entry contained some additional statements intended to bolster his criticisms of Objectivism, I have posted an additional blog to address these. This blog can be found here: A Reply to Dustin Segers' Dismantled Blog Entry on Objectivism.
Also, since Segers took down the blog with which the second of my two blog entries referenced here interacts, and since I kept a copy of Segers blog and am interacting with portions of it, I am reposting it on my website as a reference.
In his final comment to the blog (see below), Segers gave his initial explanation for his decision to take down his blog post, stating that he was doing so “for now since it apparently isn't accurate.” In a subsequent blog posting of his, Segers was challenged on this in the comments section of that blog and defended his decision to remove the offending blog post as follows:
As already noted, I took the post down out of intellectual honesty because I learned that the information probably wasn't true. If you want to rag a guy for being truthful, then that says a lot about your character; i.e., that you are into the "gotcha!" games and that you relish in others' mistakes, especially those that you think are frauds. At least I have the integrity of character to admit when I'm wrong in a public forum.
If intellectual honesty were a consistent motivating factor in Segers’ online blogging activity, it seems that he should not stop with dismantling just one post from his blog, but in fact carry this action to its logical conclusion and shut the whole thing down altogether. But I predict this won’t happen.
I tend to agree with another commenter who stated: “the intellectually honest thing to do is leave the post up, and add a header pointing out that you've since learned that the information in it is wrong. It is NOT intellectually honest to delete your mistakes as if they'd never existed.” By removing his post from his blog entirely as he has done, Segers gives those who know about the affair the impression that he’s trying to hide something. Frankly, I can’t say I blame Segers for wanting to cover up his mistake, given its enormity: he not only failed to accomplish what he set out to do, but also showed himself to have confused two different fundamental principles at the same time.
As for Segers’ reference to “’gotcha!’ games,” it seems that this is really what presuppositionalism is after. Listen to any section of the podcast where either Segers or Sye Ten Bruggencate seek to overwhelm the crew at Fundamentally Flawed with a barrage of questions which require fairly complex explanations to answer. It seems that their debating tactics are geared precisely for the “gotcha!” effect to which Segers alludes to here as though it were a vicious practice. In fact, it almost seems as if the presuppositionalists’ interrogatory tactics were specifically designed to compel non-Christians to throw up their hands in ignorance and exclaim, “Duh, I donno, must be God did it!” Why else are the kinds of questions which presuppositionalists routinely pose to non-Christians such a vital part of their apologetic? Blank out.
MONDAY,
OCTOBER 24, 2011
INTRODUCTION: The Primacy of
Existence is the fundamental axiom of a brand of atheism called
Objectivism. It
is the primary and strongest Objectivist argument against religion, especially
against the Bible’s claims of a creator God. According to the atheistic
Objectivist, the notion that the only thing in existence before the universe
was a conscious entity is contradicted and easily disproved by the axiom, since
a consciousness could not be aware without an existence to be aware of. Ayn Rand,
the founder of Objectivist philosophy put it like this,
If
nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with
nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms. A
consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before
it (the “I”) could identify itself as a consciousness, it (the “I”) had to be
conscious of something. If that which you
claim to perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness. Ayn Rand [Galt’s
Speech, For
the New Intellectual, 124. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/existence.html]
Philosophical Refutation: Rand said,
“A
consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before
it (the “I”) could identify itself as a consciousness, it (the “I”) had to be
conscious of something.”
- False, one of the
first things a conscious mind is conscious of isitself. Thus, this argument fails to
show a contradiction.
- Self-Refuting: Rand refutes her own “primacy
of existence” argument by presupposing the primacy of her own
consciousness in order to argue against the primacy of consciousness! In
other words, if you claim you need something to be conscious of to be
conscious, then you have to firstpresuppose that the
conscious “I” or “self” is the one doing the conscious observing in order to
claim that existence is primary over consciousness.
- Begging the
Question: (1) She
assumes her own conclusion implicitly as her own premise. It would be akin to saying “A
consciousness that isn’t conscious of anything but itself is a
contradiction in terms because it isn’t conscious of anything.”
- A
posteriori epistemology: I.e., they believe only those
things that are empirically verifiable exist and this is the fundamental
assumption behind their definition of “existence”. They are defining all that
exists as all space, time, energy, and matter that we can observe. God isn’t made of space,
time, energy, and matter that we can observe. Therefore God doesn’t exist
(John 4:24; 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16). However,
like logical positivism, this is self-refuting since it claims a priori
that the only way we can know things are through the five senses when that
proposition itself isn’t known through the five
senses.
- For Rand,
the primacy of existence equals the material world and not
consciousness. But why
must the only the material world count as
what actually exists instead of a non-material entity like an all-knowing,
personal, and self-sufficient conscious Mind?
Biblical Refutation: God existed logically
and temporally prior to the existence of the material world as a non-material,
personal entity (cf. John 17:5). This is possible because God’s own nature
possesses the attribute of aseity; i.e., God is
sufficient in His own being and so needs nothing external to Himself. God is eternally
triune and eternally interpersonal (cf. John 17:5), thus, the three persons of
God enjoyed eternal consciousness of each other within the community of the
Trinity.
IN
CONCLUSION, the assumption that there must be a dichotomy
between the primacy of existence and the primacy of consciousness and that
because of this dichotomy God must necessarily not exist is a
self-refuting argument that is easily answered by Scripture and reason.
Posted by Dusman at 10/24/2011 02:27:00 PM 
Labels: Atheism, Dusman,
, Objectivism
COMMENTS TO
SEGERS’ POST:
Alex B said...
Hilarious! You
actually believe all this, don't you!?
Dusman said...
Alex,
Look at the comment rules to the right. Please interact by either refuting my material
or asking serious questions. Otherwise, you'll get deleted per the rules since
you're trolling.
Paul Baird said...
In order to be
aware of oneself one would also have to be aware that there can be something that
is not of oneself, otherwise how can one define oneself ?
A is defined not simply as A but also as not 'not A'. There has to be a 'not
A'. This is the Law of Identity that you guys seem to like quoting, alot.
I think that is the point that Rand is making and that you are (a)
misunderstanding and therefore (b) failing to refute.
Hope that helps.
Dusman said...
Paul,
False, one of the first things a conscious mind is conscious of is itself.
Thus, this argument fails to show a contradiction.
Self-Refuting: Rand refutes her own “primacy of existence” argument by
presupposing the primacy of her own consciousness in order to argue against the
primacy of consciousness! In other words, if you claim you need something to be
conscious of to be conscious, then you have to first presuppose that the
conscious “I” or “self” is the one doing the conscious observing in order to
claim that existence is primary over consciousness.
Peter said...
Paul,
Can you explain why the existence of non-A is an absolute necessity in order to
be able to define A? Give me an example relative to how an
non-material God couldn't possibly exist if there isn't any material existence?
JC said...
Dusman,
I must say, I'm not a big fan of Objectivism but I do have some questions for
you.
First, are you suggesting that consciousness comes before existence?
Second, you said "one of the first things a conscious mind is conscious of
is itself". How do you know this? Does all consciousness need to be self
aware to be conscious? If so please explain.
Thanks
Paul Baird said...
Dusman, how can the self
define itself if not with reference to something else ?
This is me requires a this is not me.
To simply assert that a god can just become conscious of itself begs the
question - why ? What is the requirement to become
self aware if all that there is, is the self ?
Alex B said...
"Self-Refuting:
Rand refutes her own “primacy of existence” argument by presupposing the
primacy of her own consciousness in order to argue against the primacy of
consciousness! In other words, if you claim you need something to be
conscious of to be conscious, then you have to first presuppose that the
conscious “I” or “self” is the one doing the conscious observing in order to
claim that existence is primary over consciousness."
Nonsense. Juat because it is
a consciousness recognising that existence came first
that does not alter the fact that existence DID come first!
Tell me, with what is a conscious mind to recognise
that existence came before it but itself? For a conscious mind to exist the
physical form has to exist FIRST - the consciousness of an individual isn't
flying around waiting to fill a brain, rather it is the product of that
physical brain!
The Primacy of Existence holds, because it is the way things are. Now I fully
expect you to argue the contrary, and I am willing to bet that you will employ
circular reasoning and special pleading to do so, but it won't change the facts
of the matter.
Bahnsen Burner said...
Hello Dustin,
Remember me? If you don't, check out the following page on my website:
Contra Dusman
I listened to the broadcast hosted by Fundamentally Flawed and was immediately
"smitten" (if I can use this expression) by your four points against
the primacy of existence. Unfortunately, you've confused Rand's principle of
the secondary objectivity of consciousness with her principle of the primacy of
existence, and have offered criticisms against the former while mistakenly
labeling it as the latter (and unwittingly leaving the latter, the primacy of
existence, completely untouched). Quite an error, I must say, one giving away
the fact that you've not really done your homework here.
I've been working on a blog entry which interacts with and, most importantly,
*corrects* many of the errors you make in your attempt to rebut Rand. Once I
have posted it to my blog, would
you mind if I posted a link to it here?
Yes, I'll leave no question that you don't know what you're talking about here.
Regards,
Dawson
JP said...
Before time
existed, there was the Father, the Spirit and the Son;
uniquely as three, yet complete in/as one - fully conscious of one another:
"Then God said, "Let US make man in OUR image, according to OUR
likeness." Genesis 1:26.
To Alex B:
"the consciousness of an individual isn't flying around waiting to fill a brain, rather it is the product of that physical
brain!"
Did this thread suddenly switch subjects from God to MAN consciousness? Sorry,
I'm just not as edumacated as you, so I must have
missed that...
"God is not a MAN who lies, or a son of man who changes His mind. Does He
speak and not act,
or promise and not fulfill?" Numbers 23:19
John 4:24 states "God is Spirit..."
Boiling it down:
"We speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those
taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people.
But the natural man does not welcome what comes from God's Spirit, because it
is foolishness to him; he is not able to know it since it is evaluated
spiritually. The spiritual person, however, can evaluate everything, yet he
himself cannot be evaluated by anyone. For: who has known the Lord's mind, that
he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ." 1 Corint. 2:13-16
Thanks for the post Dusman.
Dusman said...
Dawson,
"Unfortunately, you've confused Rand's principle of the secondary objectivity
of consciousness with her principle of the primacy of existence, and have
offered criticisms against the former while mistakenly labeling it as the
latter . . ."
As noted in my blog article, I got the quote from an Objectivist website under
an explanation of existence. I was directed to this quote by some Objectivists
as the basis for their supposed strong argument against God, so any error on my
part is the result of responding to their own mistaken knowledge of their own
"faith".
You go on to note,
". . . you've confused Rand's principle of the secondary objectivity of
consciousness with her principle of the primacy of existence . . ."
(1) I was responding to the arguments put forth by the Objectivists who didn't
know their own "faith", and (2) I guess there's not much left then to
Rand's "principle of the secondary objectivity".
Bahnsen Burner said...
Hello Dustin,
I wrote:
“Unfortunately, you've confused Rand's principle of the secondary objectivity
of consciousness with her principle of the primacy of existence, and have
offered criticisms against the former while mistakenly labeling it as the
latter . . ."
Dustin responded:
“As noted in my blog article, I got the quote from an Objectivist website under
an explanation of existence.”
I’m not
questioning the quote or the website you got it from. What I’m pointing out is
that you’ve mistaken one principle for another. In fact, the statement which
you quoted from the online Ayn Rand Lexicon nowhere
identifies the principle it’s discussing as the primacy of existence. You say
you’re interacting with the primacy of existence when in fact you’re trying to
refute the principle of the secondary objectivity of consciousness. Whether you
are the originator of this error or simply carrying forward someone’s previous
error, really doesn’t matter. Either way it’s still an error. I will correct
this in an upcoming entry on my blog.
Dustin: “I was
directed to this quote by some Objectivists as the basis for their supposed
strong argument against God, so any error on my part is the result of
responding to their own mistaken knowledge of their own ‘faith’.”
Without knowing
what was said in your dialogue, I can’t know where the mistake originated. But
had you done some additional background research before launching into your
critique, I’m confident that you could have spotted the error before acting on
it.
I wrote: ". .
. you've confused Rand's principle of the secondary objectivity of
consciousness with her principle of the primacy of existence . . ."
Dustin responded:
“(1) I was responding to the arguments put forth by the Objectivists who didn't
know their own ‘faith’,”
Really, if you’re
going to try to critique a position, it’s *your* responsibility to know what
you’re critiquing. There are many people who think they know what they’re
talking about, but don’t. I’d think you’d take care not to be one of them.
Dustin also wrote:
“(2) I guess there's not much left then to Rand's ‘principle of the secondary
objectivity’.”
In the blog entry
I’m preparing now, I will leave no question that your four objections against
the secondary objectivity of consciousness fail. In fact, I’d think even you
should see through them, and frankly I’m a bit surprised that you don’t.
Anyway, I would
like to post a link to my treatment of your remarks on your blog once it’s up.
Is that okay with you?
Regards,
Dawson
(Timestamp
unavailable: Comment was withheld by blog moderator and never published.)
Dusman said...
I'm taking this
blog article down for now since it apparently isn't accurate.
Thu Oct 27, 09:40:00 PM EST
(Timestamp per date and time of email sent automatically by the blog.)
FUNDAMENTALLY
FLAWED FOLLOW-UP
Now since
this happened, Segers appeared on another podcast
hosted by the folks at Fundamentally Flawed. The podcast can be accessed here: Fundamentally Flawed Podcast #18 – Eric Hovind
and Dustin Segers Special
In that
podcast, Segers’ decision to withdraw his post
critiquing what he mistakenly thought was the primacy of existence came up in
discussion. The back-and-forth is rather interesting to listen to. Below I post
my own transcription of the dialogue between Segers
and the FF crew (I apologize – I do not know whose voice is whose of the two
gentlemen at Fundamentally Flawed, so I cannot with any accuracy report who is
speaking on their side).
FF: You’re
incapable of breaking out of your own circular reasoning. Therefore you impose
it upon us as well.
Segers: But you’re borrowing from our circular reasoning to
substantiate your own.
FF (Alex or
Jim): But you’re borrowing from our primacy of existence to even stop doubting
your circular reasoning.
Segers: I’d like to hear this argument. I wanna
hear you lay this argument out, especially since I refuted it last time.
FF: Is that
the refution [sic] that you put on your blog and
actually had to delete today because a chap called I think Dawson came along
and thoroughly debunked you.
Segers: Well, first of all, I got some information from some Randroids who said that the primacy of existence was the
fundamental axiom of brand called Objectivism, and then they pointed me to the Ayn Rand Lexicon and said this is the definition of the
primacy of existence, and I refuted it, and Dawson came in and basically said
no you responded to another supposition of Ayn
Rand’s. Yes he did, he did. So out of intellectual honesty I took the article
down so that I could do further research.
FF: Out of
intellectual honesty you self-censored yourself ‘cuz
you realized you’d been proven wrong.
Segers: Well, n.. well, what I did is…
FF: Now be
intellectually honest here, Dustin.
FF: Be
intellectually honest, Dustin, because the…
Segers: Are you going to let me answer…?
FF: …the blog
entry and all the comments went out in the RSS feed and people who had
subscribed to it read exactly what umm.. Dawson said
and then read exactly what your rebut… read your
article and then read what Dawson’s reply to it was.
Segers: Are you going to let me…
FF: …and then
you chose to take it down because it had shown that you were wrong.
Segers: Are you going to let me answer your question?
Segers: Am I going to be able to answer uninterrupted please?
Segers: The reason that I took it down was because I got that
information from followers of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist
philosophy. Bethrick comes in and says the material
is wrong. You actually argued against another principle that Rand taught. I
said hey thanks, I’m going to take the article down and do further research out
of intellectual honesty, and that’s why the article’s not there. Because if
it’s not true…
Segers: Hold on, let me finish…
FF: I’m gonna come to your defense, I’m gonna
I…I…
Segers: …if it’s not true, I don’t want it on my blog.
FF: Right.
But I’ve had situations in the past before where I put things in the blog where
I’ve realized later on that I didn’t have the full picture. And the only thing
you should do there out of intellectual honesty is insert a tag at the top of
the thing saying ‘Edit. I’ve now realized that blah blah
blah…,’ and make an apology…
FF: You
should leave it live because it makes it look like you’re trying to hide
something.
Segers: No, I’m not, I’m not trying to
hide anything. I don’t want to mislead anybody that’s gonna
read it. The purpose is not hiding. I’ve told you exactly what I…
FF: See, you
just, you just put a disclaimer at the top, and everybody knows that you’ve
changed your mind about it.
Segers: Right, but I’ve done that here… I’ve done that here now
in this podcast and everybody who’s interested in this can hear what I’ve just
said about it. I’m not hiding anything. I just…
Hovind: Yeah, I think you’re….I think we’re straining at a gnat
there.
Segers: Yeah, just straining at a gnat.
Hovind: Oh, hey, you’re really trying to hide something!
In response
to this, I had many thoughts, but I will present only these:
1) If you
examine the record in the comments, particularly Segers’
last posted comment where he announces his decision to take his blog entry
down, he (a) nowhere expresses any gratitude for correcting him, and (2) he
nowhere announces that he’s going to do “further research” on the matter. He
simply states: “I'm taking this blog article down for now since it apparently
isn't accurate.” This is contrary to what he says he did in the podcast
conversation above.
2) Suppose
what would happen if the roles were reversed here. Suppose an atheist took down
an entry from his own blog after a Christian apologist came along in the
comments to that blog entry and pointed out that the author of the blog had
made some fundamental blunders. Do you think it would go over well in a
follow-up podcast discussion for his partner to say something to the effect,
“We’re straining at gnats here!” Rather, I suspect the
news of such an event would reverberate throughout all Christian blogdom, with Christian bloggers proudly proclaiming
something like “Atheist blogger takes down blog post after being summarily
defeated!”
3) Segers’ explanation for taking his blog entry down instead
of leaving it up with a disclaimer acknowledging that he’s been corrected on
the topic he sought to address in that blog, sounds like an attempt to spin
something vicious into something noble. He says he doesn’t want to “mislead
anybody,”
4) One would
not need to take down a blog entry in order to do “further research” on a
topic. So when Segers states that he “took the
article down so that [he] could do further research,” it sounds like he’s
suggesting that the presence of his entry on his blog was somehow preventing him
from doing further research, which would be, to say the least, quite a stretch.
Indeed, it seems that the time he needed to take the blog entry down could have
been devoted to that “further research.” At any rate, I hope that “further
research” is going well.
5) Segers says, in regard to the primacy of existence and its
fatal implications against god-belief: “I’d like to hear this argument. I wanna hear you lay this argument out, especially since I
refuted it last time.” A couple things here: (a) When he stated this, I had
already pointed out to him on his blog that his refutations failed to hit their
mark. And yet he carries on here as though his refutations stood. This simply
opened him up to being challenged on the matter, which is what happened. (b) If
Segers is truly interested in learning more about the
Objectivist critique of theism by means of the primacy of existence, here are
links to some articles that he should check out:
6) In
response to the FF crew’s suggestion to leave the blog entry posted on Grace in
the Triad with “disclaimer
at the top” which informs readers that he’s changed his mind on the content
contained in that post, Segers expresses agreement
(“Right”) and then says he’s “done that here now in this podcast and everybody
who’s interested in this can hear what I’ve just said about it. I’m not hiding
anything.” But stating his reasons why he’s taken down his blog post on the FF
podcast is not the same as leaving the post on his blog with a disclaimer for
anyone who comes along in the future to read. Contrary to his protests, Segers again comes across as though he were trying to hide
something by taking measures which ensure that knowledge of the matter is
confined only to those who already know about it, and that future readers will
never catch wind of it, unless of course they happen to listen though a
two-plus hour podcast that Segers links to in one of
the blog entries which happens to still be posted on the web.
7) At the
first mention of the primacy of existence, Segers tells
the audience that he’s refuted it, when in fact it had already been shown to
him that this is not the case, so much so that he decided to remove from his
blog an entry which showcased his four objections against what he mistakenly
thought was the primacy of existence. If Segers were
in fact truly concerned about intellectual honesty, which he cites as the
motivating factor for dismantling an entry from his blog which was postured as
a refutation of the primacy of existence, the appropriate reaction at the first
mention of the primacy of existence would have been something along the
following:
You know, in
our last discussion I recited four objections against the primacy of existence.
Since then it’s come to my knowledge that I was mistaken on the matter, and in
fact my objections did not even pertain to the primacy of existence. So I have
to concede that the primacy of existence in fact stands until a challenge to it
can be successfully defended.
But Segers’ reaction to the mere mention of the primacy of
existence is nothing like this, and in fact he reaffirms that he’s refuted it.
His actions do not indicate a devotion to intellectual honesty.