Hi, thanks for the response.

Maybe you can help me. I’m going to deconstruct what you wrote and question it — now you’ve seen me write you before and you know I love your essays. But when I challenge people online about their assumptions about things like “matter” and “forces” — they think I’m being anti science, or overly aggressive, etc etc. I would say I never — or almost never — have this problem in person. In person I’m really a very soft spoken, gentle guy.

So please keep this in mind as I write!

Ok, what do you mean by “matter”?

This is tough, as when I challenge people on this, I’ve heard MANY times “Oh, if you don’t believe in matter, let’s see how it goes when you stand in front of an oncoming train!”

Ok, notice i didn’t say I don’t believe in matter (people always add so much to what you write online)

I just said, “What do you mean by matter?”

I”ll add a few clarifications

1. I’m not talking about the way we use “matter” in our everyday language. Sure, the floor I’m standing on seems to be made of “hard matter,” the apple I’m eating is made of matter, etc
2. I’m ONLY talking about the physicists’ definition of matter. Typically, it means some kind of substance that has mass and occupies space.

Next, what do you mean by “force”? Here’s a definition from the online “physics classroom:” A force is a push or pull upon an object resulting from the object’s interaction with another object. Whenever there is an interactionbetween two objects, there is a force upon each of the objects. When the interaction ceases, the two objects no longer experience the force. Forces only exist as a result of an interaction.

I think that’s as good as any other.

Now, have you conducted scientific research? Here’s what I learned as a doctoral student conducting research, which has been confirmed in literally thousands of conversations with other scientists:

1. You start with sensory data. Where do you find that data? In conscious experience. I think this is indisputable, but a LOT of people who have never thought about this find it puzzling. Sam Harris, a notorious physicalist, does — amazingly — agree with this in a YouTube video with Rupert Spira. So let’s start there.
2. You extract from that data ONLY that which can be measured. So what do you end up with when you come to the end of your physics, or biology, or psychology, or neuroscience experiment? ALL you have are quantities, numerical relationships.
3. So when you use words like “matter,” “physical,” or “force,” IN A STRICTLY SCIENTIFIC WAY — that is, as used by physicists — you’re not talking about some fundamental reality — you’re ONLY talking about quantitative, numerical relationships.
4. Now here’s where I really get in trouble, and where there is so much misunderstanding. Since I started with conscious experience, people think I’m promoting idealism. You know the difference bewteen ontology and epistemology, right? I AM NOT MAKING ANY, NONE, NEIN, NUNCA! ONTOLOGICAL CLAIMS OR STATEMENTS.
5. All I’m pointing out is some simple facts about what scientific research (as practiced and understood at the present time) does and DOES NOT tell us.
6. Virtually all of the data of science, in its final quantitative, mathematized form, tells us a fantastic amount — it’s wonderful folks, I’m pro science, I’m a scientist — but it’s still limited.
7. Essentially, science is a method of describing the behavior of things we see (and many things we don’t see) in terms of severely abstract, mathematical relationships. This permits us to extract from that and look backward in time and make accurate statements about the behavior of various things, and look forward and make accurate predictions about the possible future behavior of things.
8. All that’s wonderful, but it doesnt give us ONE IOTA of ontological insight. Not one.
9. There is not ONE EXPERIMENT EVER, EVER, EVER CONDUCTED BY A SCIENTIST that provides one iota of evidence for the fundamental beliefs of physicalism — that the universe is ULTIMATELY non living, non conscious, non sentient and non intelligent.
10. none!
11. THAT’S NOT ANTI SCIENTIFIC, FOLKS — that’s pro science. When you try to add things to science that it cannot do, you’re doing a disservice to the scientific endeavor. Science as properly practiced is thoroughly agnostic to the reality, the substratum of what it investigates. Science does not support OR reject physicalism (see, I’m acknowledging that if you ONLY have scientific research to go on, you can accept physicalism — but also that science does not provide any evidence for the existence of anything truly mind independent — it may be there but you can’t find evidence for it in scientific research). Science does not provide evidence to support or reject dualism, idealism, panpsychism, panexperientialism, theism, pantheism, panentheism, integral non dualism, nonduality, or any other ontological position. Even leading parapsychologists understand that if you’re refusing to do philosophy, and you only have science, then you could have absolute proof for any parapsychological ability AND STILL SUPPORT IT WITH PHYSICALIST BELIEFS.
12. Final point — I think this quest to debunk physicalism is the most important endeavor of human beings today. Iain McGilchrist evidently agrees, as he’s spent the last 10 years writing a book longer than 1500 pages, “The Matter With Things,” whose main aim is to debunk physicalism. But I think the essential first step is to somehow get rid of this idea that we’re going to debunk physicalism through science, rather than through simple reasoning. First show that science is absolutely agnostic with respect to physicalism, dualism, idealism, and all other isms. THEN you’re ready to ask the ultimate question:
13. If science can equally be conducted with a panentheist, physicalist, and dualist view, which one makes more sense? In 50 years, with many many people I’ve talked to who have gotten as far as understanding that scientific research is THOROUGHLY agnostic with regard to ontology, there is not ONE person who didn't get, at that point, that physicalism was utterly absurd.