thanks Gerald.Did you read any of the responses to my comments on your essay? Did you notice that either they didn’t respond at all, or they so obviously misread my comment that one suspects they were doing so on purpose — though it’s hard to imagine why.
Regarding your two points — does science reject or support physicalism, or ANY philosophic view — and what is the definition of matter, force, or “physical” — I’ll take the 2nd one as it’s much easier (though I do see online a tremendous amount of misunderstanding of this, despite its simplicity)
“Matter” in the 19th century sense of colliding billiard balls is clearly not the ultimate foundation of the universe.
But “forces” cannot be the foundation either — at least as defined by physics.
I don’t know why people have such a hard time with this, but let me cite a friend who has written several well regarded physics textbooks. ALL of the concepts AS COINED AND DEFINED BY PHYSICISTS (important caveat) are MODELS, nothing more. They are purely abstract concepts designed to help the physicists think about the BEHAVIOR of whatever they observe (very important; all you have in physical science is observed behavior of sense data — whether that data is perceived by the human senses or instruments enhancing the human senses).
So let me sum up: AS DEFINED BY PHYSICS: None of the following have any reality in themselves, they are purely abstract concepts useful as models: “Matter, energy, field, forces, magnetism, gravity, space, physical.”
Where people get confused is when they say things like “You think matter is abstract? Let me see you stand in front of a moving train.” Now you see why I capitalized those phrases. The word “matter” referring to an oncoming train refers to a sensory experience which appears in consciousness. The word “Matter’ as defined in physics is an abstract concept.
Now you may see why deepak chopra is half right when he says “the moon is not there when you are not looking.” He is NOT talking about the moon as referring to a physical object OUT THERE. he is referring to “moon” as a percept, as sense data. Clearly, the perceived moon is not anywhere if there is no perception of it. That’s so obvious, in fact, it’s basically tautological. There is no perception when there is no perception. That’s all. It’s unarguably correct if you understand what it means.
Now, I think we’re ready to tackle the harder question: Does scientific evidence IN ITSELF support ANY philosophic position?
The answer from the best philosophers of science and the most knowledgeable scientists over the past 100 years has been no. I know that people like Sean Carroll, Steven Hawking and Neil de Grasse Tyson think otherwise, but — and I’m sorry to dare to contest the view of such famous people — you can think this through quite easily.
It is said there is no basic “scientific method.” This is true; i learned this in my doctoral studies conducting scientific research. But there is a fundamental aspect of it that is easy to describe:
- Observe sense data.
- Extract from those observations severely limited, purely mathematical, quantitative measurements.
- Study the patterns — behavior patterns, one might say — of those measurements.
- Develop and test hypotheses and theories regarding those patterns in order to better control and predict certain very limited aspects of our sensory experience.
That’s it. For virtually every scientific finding, you can equally provide a philosophic view that is materialist, dualist, idealist, panpsychist, panentheist, nondual, qualified non duel, objectively idealist, substance dualist, eliminative materialist, and many many more.
To take an example, the materialist view is that the brain — a purely physicla object — produces consciousness. The dualist view is that the physical brain is a receiver of a universal field of Consciousness. The idealist view is that what we call “brain” is simply an object in Consciousness — and what appears as thought or feeling is another object in Consciousness, as Consciousness is all there is. And there are many other views.
And ALL of the scientific evidence can be equally accommodated by any of these views.
There IS one particular problem for physicalism. We have direct access to qualities of consciousness which are invisible to the third person, external, “measuring sense data” approach of science. So when scientists tell us that all of our feelings, ideas, sentience, sense of aliveness, consciousness, etc is an illusion — we don’t have to do any logical reasoning to know this is false.
If you understand this, then it’s perfectly self evident that materialism is not just wrong, but as Wolfgang Pauli said, “not even wrong” (because it is so irrational and so ultimately incoherent, it is not clear enough to be able to point to a specific aspect which is wrong — the whole thing is absurd, if not literally psychotic, as some psychiatrists have stated).
Bernardo Kastrup is doing a fantastic job of spelling out why, as the title of one of his books has it, “Materialism is Baloney.” Probably the greatest writer of the 21st century on this subject is Iain McGilchrist. His latest book is, I think, something like $150, but if you pay $9 a month to Scribd.com, you can read the book for free. I highly recommend it.
Keep up the good work, Gerald, your writing is excellent and exceedingly important. I wish your critics at least knew a little bit about what you’re writing. It’s fun to dialog with physicalists who understand what they’re talking about, but it’s quite rare to find one.