Physicalism Falsified

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Physicalism is the philosophy that says that nothing exists except the physical.  It says that everything in physical nature can be explained by, and only by, other things in physical nature.  This philosophy dominates physical science.  Physicalists aver that they are open to new evidence, but breaking through to a new paradigm is extraordinarily unlikely, given the firm resistance to it.

Physicalism is a dangerous philosophy, because it denies any empirical basis for regarding humans as anything more than material phenomena of an uncaring universe.  If we are nothing more than complex arrangements of atoms, then on what basis should we declare that humans have inalienable rights to life and liberty?

Fortunately, the physicalist paradigm can be shown to be false.  A better paradigm is available.  Here are five reasons to reject physicalism.

 

1.       The “Something from Nothing” fallacy.

 

Physicalism has no explanation for why there is something instead of nothing.  This may at first seem to be a pointless issue, but in fact, it is the proverbial elephant in the room.

 

Physics asserts forthrightly that “no thing” can arise from nothing.  Matter cannot, energy cannot, space and time cannot.  Yet, we observe all of these.  They exist.  How did that come about?

 

Physics asserts that we can convert matter to energy, and energy to matter, but nothing new is created in the process.  Whatever exists, had to come from something else that already existed beforehand.  This principle in physics is known as the conservation of mass-energy.

 

Physicalists have proposed some answers, but none of these are scientific hypotheses.  Some of them are outright contrivances, such as the mathematical assertion that the quantity zero can be expressed as minus one plus one.  This assertion has been used as an explanation for how something can arise from nothing.  If you begin with zero (nothing), you can get minus one (something) and plus one (something).  Voila, there is something (two of them!) from nothing.

 

The mathematics is accurate, but not the assertion.  First, zero is not “nothing.”  Zero is a specific mathematical quantity, and it has several specific mathematical properties.  Also, negative values are useful in subtraction, but one cannot have a rope that is negative five feet long. 

 

The alternate physicalist explanation is that there was never nothing; there was always something.  Therefore, creation never occurred; it never needed to. 

 

But that explanation opens the door to even more fallacies.  Here are some of them.

 

2.       Why are things as they are, instead of some other way?

 

This is another “elephant in the room,” that so often gets ignored.  In nature, according to the physicalist paradigm, everything is the result of something that preceded it.  Every event was caused to happen by a previous event.  Everything is, as it is, because something shaped it, produced it, or caused it.  Bread does not suddenly appear in the oven fully baked.  Ingredients were mixed, and heat applied.

 

The universe has lots of features.  It has stars and galaxies, atoms and molecules, forces and principles, that make it appear as it does, and act as it does.  But why does the universe have those?  Why, for example, does it have gravity?  Couldn’t there be a universe without gravity?  Without light?  Without matter?

 

Why, indeed, is there any such thing as a universe at all?

 

One proposed answer is that, if things were some other way, then we could ask, why that way?  Indeed, the question would still be valid, because physics would still be confronted with the same question—what is it that causes reality to be in one form, but not others?

 

It seems that physicalism has no answer.

 

3.       Why is the Universe, against all odds, Precisely Suited for Life?

 

 

The universe not only is, as it is, but the way it is, is incomprehensibly unlikely.  It supports life, but not only life; it supports intelligent life, civilization and technology.  It supports scientists, physicists who can trace back the history of the universe to a tiny fraction of a second after its beginning.  It supports our planetary culture, complete with language, art, literature, philosophy and complex legal systems. 

 

The universe is, as it is, because it is shaped by something called physical constants.  These constants define how strong gravity is, how stable atoms are, and all total, about twenty-seven properties of the physical universe that keep it from either exploding into a frigid mist, or collapsing into a fireball.

 

Each and every one of these 27 constants must be precisely “tuned,” in some cases to within a tolerance so tiny as to defy the imagination, a grain of sand compared to all the beaches of the world.

 

Not even the physicalists can explain this as coincidence, but they will not concede that such a universe must have been deliberately designed and purposely created.

 

Instead, they propose that there are infinite numbers of universes, each of them with randomly determined properties.  In such a case, it would be highly likely, even inevitable, that at least one universe like ours could arise.  They say that our universe is only a bubble universe in a much larger multi-verse.

 

The multi-verse hypothesis has several fatal flaws.  There is no scientific evidence for it.  But here is the ultimate flaw:  even if there is a multi-verse, it too must be finely tuned to support bubble universes.  If one universe’s fine tuning cannot be explained by chance, then how much less likely is it that a multi-verse could arise by chance, unless it, too, was purposely designed and created?

 

 

4.       What is Consciousness?

 

You are conscious.  Ironically, you cannot prove that to anyone but yourself.  True, there are outward appearances of consciousness that others can detect, but the essence of consciousness is your inward experience of it.  No one but you can observe your inward experience of consciousness.

 

Scientists claim that consciousness arises from matter, from complex arrangements of atoms, forming into a brain.  But that is preposterous.  There is no chain of progression that begins with atoms, and ends with what you personally experience as your inward consciousness.  There is a vast canyon between non-conscious matter, and what you experience as consciousness.  No scientist has ever made the case for any such progression.  No scientist has ever formulated a theory of consciousness that meets the standard for a scientific theory.

 

The inward experience of consciousness is in a category by itself, utterly unlike anything else you consciously observe in nature.

 

Regarding consciousness, there are two other scientific mysteries associated with it.  They are, life and free will.

 

Life is the subject of the physicalist science called biology, which purports to explain life as its chemical reactions.  Life is based in chemistry, but like consciousness, life is very different from natural phenomena.  Life is a fundamental reality which shapes atoms and molecules into forms that can carry on its activities.  Biology attempts to explain this by a principle known as evolution, but as with the universe itself, evolution is defined as the occurrence of chance mutations giving rise to ever-better-adapted organisms.  Evolution asks way too much of chance, beginning with the properties of the universe itself.

 

Free will, along with consciousness, is the third life-associated phenomenon.  In this case, physicalism not only cannot explain free will, it utterly denies that free will can ever exist, not even for a fraction of a second in all the universe.

 

Without fee will, we are helpless observers of our own lives, but not participants.  Without free will, everything we think, say and do, is beyond our control.  Without free will, we become puppets on a cosmic string, robots.  The absurdity is that, without free will, we are unable to decide whether or not to believe that free will exists.

 

Without fee will, there is no accountability for our deeds or misdeeds.  The criminal could claim that he had no choice but to commit the crime; the judge could say that he had no choice but to impose the punishment.  The concept of justice would become farce.

 

 

5.        Unexplained Mysteries

 

The origin of the universe in a primordial inflation, dark matter, dark energy, and many other observed or inferred phenomena continue to puzzle scientists.  These by no means are discrediting physicalism, but they do imply that we are running into its inherent limits.   

 

The greatest indicator of this is the science of quantum physics.  It is phenomenally successful at revealing natural principles, which in turn have generated amazing new technologies, but it is incompatible with that other phenomenally successful branch of physics, general relativity.

 

Both sciences are counter-intuitive, meaning that they require us to abandon some ways of looking at reality that we call “common sense,” and adopt new ways of thinking that seem to defy common sense.

Another break with tradition is artificial intelligence.  There is the distinct possibility that, before long, we will become so dependent on artificially intelligent computers, that we will not be able to understand them, nor will we be able to safely disregard their instructions to us, because they will have been correct in all their actions.  This, so-called technological singularity, could occur very abruptly.

 

In the end, we must decide what it is to be human, and whether the values of humanity are worth securing, even at the cost of eschewing physicalism.

 

We might speculate that other sentient creatures on other planets have already met this challenge, and that those who did not, became extinct.
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