Though I find some of Dodge’s historical insights interesting and enjoyable, this sounds like another version of the “god of the gaps” argument. I think science – ie observation, testing, creating the most plausible theories from data – characterizes reality well in a complex version of “the total is greater than the sum of its parts.” Mystics are said to be those curious about the universe but who are too lazy to learn physics. Every religious person I’ve ever met has a deep irrational desire simply to believe, and that ultimately is the source of their belief.
I think it is quite the opposite that mystics are too lazy to learn physics. It's physics that fails to answer questions it claims to be able to answer. The presupposition of the materialist worldview is that all is matter/energy and all of reality can be described with math and physics. In this hard materialist worldview there is no god, no soul, and no freewill, because the source of these experiences cannot be identified materially so they are presumed to be illusions.
The problem is that physics does not provide a superior philosophical alternative since it fails to explain everything it claims. The world is deterministic they say, except the physicists cannot account for randomness, nor can they account for dark matter, or quantum mechanics, but most importantly they cannot account for consciousness. 400 years since Descartes taught us, "I think therefore I am" materialist enlightenment thinkers are no closer to resolving the hard problem of consciousness. They presume that if they just keep digging around in the brain they will find the magic combination of synapses, neurons, and biochemistry that will bring forth consciousness as an emergent property of matter. I do not expect these folks to be successful in their quest.
But if you flip the consciousness question on its head, as Bertrand Russell brilliantly did a century ago, and ask, "since we seem unable to derive consciousness from matter, is it possible instead to derive matter from consciousness?" Well, since physics is math and mathematics is self-evidently a product of some form of consciousness it implies that matter is derived from consciousness and not the other way around.
Of course the scientist rejects this view out of hand, but Russell is on to something in my opinion. This view is called panpsychism and it views consciousness as being the underlying substrate of material reality, and this view harmonizes perfectly with both indigenous animism and also Eastern Mysticism. Its also worth pointing out that Hindu traditions have been discussing multiverses, quantum mechanics, and universal consciousness for literally thousands of years. Personally, I put more stock in traditions thousands of years old than in ones only two hundred years old such as hard scientific materialism.
Thanks for your reply. This sounds like a topic of the scope I’d like to discuss with you over a beer rather than in this format. However, I’ll do my best: I have read physicists who are very well aware of where their ability to characterize reality ends and where the unknown begins, e.g., dark matter, the universe before the Big Bang, etc. and they embrace this mystery as the latest frontier in science. They, like Socrates, very humbly understand that "the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." I wouldn’t say that because science cannot yet describe something like consciousness that it is an illusion. It merely hasn’t been described yet, like the wind during the Bronze Age.
There are no dogmatic views in science as there are in religion, and as Bertrand Russel pointed out, scientific opinions are tentative and are held “with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.” However, as Carl Sagan wrote in his book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Christopher Hitchens expanded on this by adding: “Claims presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”
This approach, i.e., making observations and pragmatically describing reality, is many thousands of years old and has been our best and most reliable means for interacting with the world. It is simply what we call the scientific method. Should the Presocratic philosophers be correct about panpsychism, i.e., that a consciousness suffuses the universe and that everything has a mind, then more evidence would be required to generally accept it. Feeling that this is correct or even naming the gene-like “monads” as a unit of consciousness nevertheless still requires something more than a feeling. This doesn’t mean that the concept is wrong, though. I think Russel would agree. He stated: “I do wish I believed in the life eternal, for it makes me quite miserable to think man is merely a kind of machine endowed, unhappily for himself, with consciousness.” Panpsychism is like the string theory of philosophy to me. A lot more work needs to be done before it can stand as a theory. Panprotopsychism seems more plausible, but again, would require more evidence and, in fact, is closer to what Russel described in the early 20th century. But Russel understood, as religious people do not, that it doesn’t matter how much a person wants something to be true, one has to present evidence that it is true. As Russel correctly surmised, religion’s ultimate foundation is fear. So, like Russel, I prefer the worldview of ancient traditions of Lucretius and Epicurus to Abraham and Yahweh.
Good conversation here, I am not making any claims without evidence. I am simply pointing out that the fact that the very subject matters where physics breaks down, i.e. consciousness, quantum mechanics, string theory, multiverses, etc, are precisely the subjects that Eastern Mystics have been diving into for millennia. In India, there is no contradiction between mysticism and science and they do plenty of good science over there.
Scientific Materialism is its own worldview, its own ideology, no different than Christianity and Islam offering up their own worldviews and ideologies. The materialist claims, as a presupposition and assumption, that the entire universe can be reduced to mechanistic explanations that can be described in terms of math and physics. But is this claim true? Any more true than the Bible being the authoritative word of God?
Atheist arguments only make sense and win the debate when they are arguing with traditional orthodox religion, which makes all sorts of authoritative claims about the Bible and doctrine that don't stand up to scrutiny. But orthodox Biblical religion is not mystical, they have generally been quite hostile to mystics who think for themselves.
I firmly believe that all the old Iron Age religions are breaking down right before our eyes in the face of modernity, and are becoming increasingly unstable and violent as they face their day of reckoning. The problem is that we don't have a coherent ideology to replace them. Scientific Materialism and its political exponents, Marxism and Maoism, have not produced stable social political results, in fact they have been quite disastrous despite all the good intentions of their proponents.
I believe the next step forward for humanity is when physics and mysticism come together. This will unleash the next great breakthroughs in both science and spirituality, and ultimately new religions will emerge. This means that in the West we need to drop the arrogant pretension that mysticism and spirituality is all bullshit and the only truth is scientific truth. Science only explains material processes, and does not explore the non-material. But it is an illusion and mistake to believe that there is no non-material component of reality. I am comfortable leaving it to deeper thinkers to work out all the details, but I find it perfectly rational and scientifically defensible to argue that consciousness begets matter and not the other way around.
PS.
I am a big fan of Carl Sagan and as a fellow Cornellian I walked in his literal footsteps for years. Christopher Hitchens on the other is highly entertaining when he decisively skewers the history and hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, but when pushed back on anything regarding morality or metaphysics he completely falls apart.
I do agree that Carl Sagan is indeed someone we can all look up to. He’s one of my heroes. I think Christopher Hitchens would disagree with your characterization of him, however. With regard to linking Scientific Materialism to Marx and Mao: Marx and Engels would not have approved of Mao or Stalin. They were (rightfully so) concerned with the abhorrent plight of workers in the 19th century. Marx wrote, “In my opinion, the biggest things that are happening in the world today are on the one hand the movement of the slaves in America started by the death of John Brown, and on the other the movement of the serfs in Russia.” He ultimately wanted the opposite of what Stalin and Mao ended up doing, which was to establish oppressive dictatorships. They purposefully kept their people ignorant and poor, much like the Church did for centuries. I think it’s therefore obvious that Stalin and Mao were anti-science, anti-learning and created their own religions, i.e., they replaced the idea of gods in heaven with that of the state. In fact, I’ll quote Christopher Hitchens himself on this: “For hundreds of years, millions of Russians had been told the head of state should be a man close to God, the czar, who was head of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as absolute despot. If you’re Stalin, you shouldn’t be in the dictatorship business if you can’t exploit the pool of servility and docility that’s ready-made for you. The task of atheists is to raise people above that level of servility and credulity. No society has gone the way of gulags or concentration camps by following the path of Spinoza and Einstein and Jefferson and Thomas Paine.”
I would add Charles Darwin to that list. Like many writers of his period, Marx made some good points and others which have proven not be relevant in our modern world. No government on this planet has – though the US Constitution might if it’d ever be properly applied, especially in the way Paine imagined it – come close to governing according to what I prefer to call Metaphysical Naturalism or Anti-supernaturalism. Scientific Materialism is a term used by the likes of the laughable and disingenuous Discovery Institute, whose name, a sort of contronym, belies their true purpose, like the German Democratic Republic, National Socialism and Fox News saying it’s “fair and balanced”. Therefore, I prefer the former terms for applying science and reason to understanding and governing the world.
Concerning the ideas behind metaphysical naturalism and applying its concepts, I think Sam Harris’ books Making Sense and The Moral Landscape, Lawrence Krauss’ book A Universe from Nothing and Steven Pinker’s book Enlightenment Now are worthy of anyone’s attention on this subject. One might add several of Sagan’s books to an expanded list, especially The Demon-Haunted World, which I mentioned, and Pale Blue Dot.
You write: “…but I find it perfectly rational and scientifically defensible to argue that consciousness begets matter and not the other way around.”
I certainly cannot say whether this is true or not. I can only quote Carl Sagan again: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
I can say, however, thanks for the enriching dialogue.
Scientific materialism is its own worldview and one that Marx and Mao shared quite explicitly, and I think it is at the heart of the reason why their political movements failed. There is no soul or spirituality in them.
Speaking of Marx and Engels, they were inspired by the 19th century revelation of prehistoric egalitarian societies but they completely missed the heart of those societies, which was matriarchal family structures and Goddess spirituality. Their flawed materialist analysis has caused us problems ever since.
As for Steven Pinker, Lawrence Krauss, and Sam Harris, I find all three of these guys completely unconvincing and the fact that they stand at the height of intellectual stature in Western society speaks to a broader set of problems. I think all of Western intelligenstia is crashing rapidly towards a massive crisis of credibility over a series of bad takes and disastrous policies.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so when the scientists come with proof that they can derive consciousness from matter then I will believe. Until then, it stands as an assertion that they claim but can not prove.
Though I find some of Dodge’s historical insights interesting and enjoyable, this sounds like another version of the “god of the gaps” argument. I think science – ie observation, testing, creating the most plausible theories from data – characterizes reality well in a complex version of “the total is greater than the sum of its parts.” Mystics are said to be those curious about the universe but who are too lazy to learn physics. Every religious person I’ve ever met has a deep irrational desire simply to believe, and that ultimately is the source of their belief.
I think it is quite the opposite that mystics are too lazy to learn physics. It's physics that fails to answer questions it claims to be able to answer. The presupposition of the materialist worldview is that all is matter/energy and all of reality can be described with math and physics. In this hard materialist worldview there is no god, no soul, and no freewill, because the source of these experiences cannot be identified materially so they are presumed to be illusions.
The problem is that physics does not provide a superior philosophical alternative since it fails to explain everything it claims. The world is deterministic they say, except the physicists cannot account for randomness, nor can they account for dark matter, or quantum mechanics, but most importantly they cannot account for consciousness. 400 years since Descartes taught us, "I think therefore I am" materialist enlightenment thinkers are no closer to resolving the hard problem of consciousness. They presume that if they just keep digging around in the brain they will find the magic combination of synapses, neurons, and biochemistry that will bring forth consciousness as an emergent property of matter. I do not expect these folks to be successful in their quest.
But if you flip the consciousness question on its head, as Bertrand Russell brilliantly did a century ago, and ask, "since we seem unable to derive consciousness from matter, is it possible instead to derive matter from consciousness?" Well, since physics is math and mathematics is self-evidently a product of some form of consciousness it implies that matter is derived from consciousness and not the other way around.
Of course the scientist rejects this view out of hand, but Russell is on to something in my opinion. This view is called panpsychism and it views consciousness as being the underlying substrate of material reality, and this view harmonizes perfectly with both indigenous animism and also Eastern Mysticism. Its also worth pointing out that Hindu traditions have been discussing multiverses, quantum mechanics, and universal consciousness for literally thousands of years. Personally, I put more stock in traditions thousands of years old than in ones only two hundred years old such as hard scientific materialism.
Thanks for your reply. This sounds like a topic of the scope I’d like to discuss with you over a beer rather than in this format. However, I’ll do my best: I have read physicists who are very well aware of where their ability to characterize reality ends and where the unknown begins, e.g., dark matter, the universe before the Big Bang, etc. and they embrace this mystery as the latest frontier in science. They, like Socrates, very humbly understand that "the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." I wouldn’t say that because science cannot yet describe something like consciousness that it is an illusion. It merely hasn’t been described yet, like the wind during the Bronze Age.
There are no dogmatic views in science as there are in religion, and as Bertrand Russel pointed out, scientific opinions are tentative and are held “with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.” However, as Carl Sagan wrote in his book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Christopher Hitchens expanded on this by adding: “Claims presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”
This approach, i.e., making observations and pragmatically describing reality, is many thousands of years old and has been our best and most reliable means for interacting with the world. It is simply what we call the scientific method. Should the Presocratic philosophers be correct about panpsychism, i.e., that a consciousness suffuses the universe and that everything has a mind, then more evidence would be required to generally accept it. Feeling that this is correct or even naming the gene-like “monads” as a unit of consciousness nevertheless still requires something more than a feeling. This doesn’t mean that the concept is wrong, though. I think Russel would agree. He stated: “I do wish I believed in the life eternal, for it makes me quite miserable to think man is merely a kind of machine endowed, unhappily for himself, with consciousness.” Panpsychism is like the string theory of philosophy to me. A lot more work needs to be done before it can stand as a theory. Panprotopsychism seems more plausible, but again, would require more evidence and, in fact, is closer to what Russel described in the early 20th century. But Russel understood, as religious people do not, that it doesn’t matter how much a person wants something to be true, one has to present evidence that it is true. As Russel correctly surmised, religion’s ultimate foundation is fear. So, like Russel, I prefer the worldview of ancient traditions of Lucretius and Epicurus to Abraham and Yahweh.
Good conversation here, I am not making any claims without evidence. I am simply pointing out that the fact that the very subject matters where physics breaks down, i.e. consciousness, quantum mechanics, string theory, multiverses, etc, are precisely the subjects that Eastern Mystics have been diving into for millennia. In India, there is no contradiction between mysticism and science and they do plenty of good science over there.
Scientific Materialism is its own worldview, its own ideology, no different than Christianity and Islam offering up their own worldviews and ideologies. The materialist claims, as a presupposition and assumption, that the entire universe can be reduced to mechanistic explanations that can be described in terms of math and physics. But is this claim true? Any more true than the Bible being the authoritative word of God?
Atheist arguments only make sense and win the debate when they are arguing with traditional orthodox religion, which makes all sorts of authoritative claims about the Bible and doctrine that don't stand up to scrutiny. But orthodox Biblical religion is not mystical, they have generally been quite hostile to mystics who think for themselves.
I firmly believe that all the old Iron Age religions are breaking down right before our eyes in the face of modernity, and are becoming increasingly unstable and violent as they face their day of reckoning. The problem is that we don't have a coherent ideology to replace them. Scientific Materialism and its political exponents, Marxism and Maoism, have not produced stable social political results, in fact they have been quite disastrous despite all the good intentions of their proponents.
I believe the next step forward for humanity is when physics and mysticism come together. This will unleash the next great breakthroughs in both science and spirituality, and ultimately new religions will emerge. This means that in the West we need to drop the arrogant pretension that mysticism and spirituality is all bullshit and the only truth is scientific truth. Science only explains material processes, and does not explore the non-material. But it is an illusion and mistake to believe that there is no non-material component of reality. I am comfortable leaving it to deeper thinkers to work out all the details, but I find it perfectly rational and scientifically defensible to argue that consciousness begets matter and not the other way around.
PS.
I am a big fan of Carl Sagan and as a fellow Cornellian I walked in his literal footsteps for years. Christopher Hitchens on the other is highly entertaining when he decisively skewers the history and hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, but when pushed back on anything regarding morality or metaphysics he completely falls apart.
I agree this would be a good topic over a beer.
I do agree that Carl Sagan is indeed someone we can all look up to. He’s one of my heroes. I think Christopher Hitchens would disagree with your characterization of him, however. With regard to linking Scientific Materialism to Marx and Mao: Marx and Engels would not have approved of Mao or Stalin. They were (rightfully so) concerned with the abhorrent plight of workers in the 19th century. Marx wrote, “In my opinion, the biggest things that are happening in the world today are on the one hand the movement of the slaves in America started by the death of John Brown, and on the other the movement of the serfs in Russia.” He ultimately wanted the opposite of what Stalin and Mao ended up doing, which was to establish oppressive dictatorships. They purposefully kept their people ignorant and poor, much like the Church did for centuries. I think it’s therefore obvious that Stalin and Mao were anti-science, anti-learning and created their own religions, i.e., they replaced the idea of gods in heaven with that of the state. In fact, I’ll quote Christopher Hitchens himself on this: “For hundreds of years, millions of Russians had been told the head of state should be a man close to God, the czar, who was head of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as absolute despot. If you’re Stalin, you shouldn’t be in the dictatorship business if you can’t exploit the pool of servility and docility that’s ready-made for you. The task of atheists is to raise people above that level of servility and credulity. No society has gone the way of gulags or concentration camps by following the path of Spinoza and Einstein and Jefferson and Thomas Paine.”
I would add Charles Darwin to that list. Like many writers of his period, Marx made some good points and others which have proven not be relevant in our modern world. No government on this planet has – though the US Constitution might if it’d ever be properly applied, especially in the way Paine imagined it – come close to governing according to what I prefer to call Metaphysical Naturalism or Anti-supernaturalism. Scientific Materialism is a term used by the likes of the laughable and disingenuous Discovery Institute, whose name, a sort of contronym, belies their true purpose, like the German Democratic Republic, National Socialism and Fox News saying it’s “fair and balanced”. Therefore, I prefer the former terms for applying science and reason to understanding and governing the world.
Concerning the ideas behind metaphysical naturalism and applying its concepts, I think Sam Harris’ books Making Sense and The Moral Landscape, Lawrence Krauss’ book A Universe from Nothing and Steven Pinker’s book Enlightenment Now are worthy of anyone’s attention on this subject. One might add several of Sagan’s books to an expanded list, especially The Demon-Haunted World, which I mentioned, and Pale Blue Dot.
You write: “…but I find it perfectly rational and scientifically defensible to argue that consciousness begets matter and not the other way around.”
I certainly cannot say whether this is true or not. I can only quote Carl Sagan again: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
I can say, however, thanks for the enriching dialogue.
Scientific materialism is its own worldview and one that Marx and Mao shared quite explicitly, and I think it is at the heart of the reason why their political movements failed. There is no soul or spirituality in them.
Speaking of Marx and Engels, they were inspired by the 19th century revelation of prehistoric egalitarian societies but they completely missed the heart of those societies, which was matriarchal family structures and Goddess spirituality. Their flawed materialist analysis has caused us problems ever since.
As for Steven Pinker, Lawrence Krauss, and Sam Harris, I find all three of these guys completely unconvincing and the fact that they stand at the height of intellectual stature in Western society speaks to a broader set of problems. I think all of Western intelligenstia is crashing rapidly towards a massive crisis of credibility over a series of bad takes and disastrous policies.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so when the scientists come with proof that they can derive consciousness from matter then I will believe. Until then, it stands as an assertion that they claim but can not prove.