Examining The Basis Of Scientific Materialism

Scientific Materialism  - the  philosophical basis of all our modern physics, chemistry and biology- is generally treated as if it's one monolithic entity rather than a diverse set of approaches and views. In this respect, and because of oversimplification, it becomes a more  convenient strawman for religionists of all persuasions to attack.

One reason Materialism gives so much grief to intellectual poseurs is that it is categorizable in so many different ways. Because of the complexity, most simple-minded mentalities just ditch any nuance and opt to portray the cartoon version. The problem is that this choice renders most of what they write irrelevant and insipid, especially when they claim generalities, for example asserting "Materialism commits the identity fallacy by equating mind and brain". Indeed, such general statements make them look like blinking idiots.

In this blog  post I want to clear up some of those misconceptions and also show why one form (Modern or Scientific Materialism) remains the best to economically explain such things as consciousness, and the operation of the brain.

Differentiating Types of Materialism:

Perhaps the earliest form of Materialism was Mechanical Materialism or the theory that the world (and universe) consisted entirely of hard, massy material objects, which, when imperceptibly small, were described as "atoms". This set the stage for the "atomistic materialism" promoted by the Greeks, Leucippus and Demokritos, who used it as a basis for the philosophy of Epicureanism. It may rightly be said, therefore, that this was the precursor of the reductionist/materialist/realist school of thought. This version denies that immaterial or apparently immaterial things (such as minds) exist or explains them away as being material things or motions of material things.

It is very ironic (but true) that a Greek Materialist like Demokritos would have serious problems with modern scientific Materialism and its claims for immaterial (but physical!) fields, atoms and waves! Indeed, more than one observer has indicated these early Materialists would resoundingly deny Modern Materialism!

Wherefore this "Modern Materialism" so unlike its predecessor? The need for it became manifest by the time Ernest Rutherford began his simple atomic experiments, and then Max Planck discovered the quantum (E= hf) ...leading to Erwin Schrodinger's and Werner Heisenberg's depiction of atoms as vibrating wave states of different energy. See, e.g.

• An Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (1)

This  wave emphasis meant that not only did immaterial entities exist, but they could also be quantified and have physical existence.

Thereby, modern physics conceived matter as made up of such things as electrons, protons, and mesons, which are very unlike the hard, massy, stonelike particles conjectured in primitive mechanical Materialism. Further distinction between matter and energy was also broken down via Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity which showed that energy has inertia. His most famous equation: E = mc 2, became the basis of atomic energy via nuclear reactions - both via fission and fusion.

The explosion of the first atomic bomb at Alamagordo, NM, showed in no uncertain terms this new physics wasn't some airy fairy hogwash but as real as a ten million degree fireball that could roast a human body in two nanoseconds, reducing it to a few drops of goo and fried bones. Thus, the connection from the modern physics to a new, more powerful form of modern Materialism, became inevitable.

Later, when further work on the synaptic clefts of the brain showed it to be the scale (~ 300 nm) that Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle could apply, it became feasible to apply modern Materialism to the brain itself. But I am getting a bit ahead of myself!

The point made here is that this newfound Materialism marked the first wholly PHYSICALIST version. This sort of Materialism allowed the concept of a "material thing" to be extended to include all of the elementary particles and other things that are postulated in fundamental physical theory, even continuous fields and points of space-time (see e.g. Richard Penrose's Twistor theory).

Up until the quantum theory, few thinkers had been able to discriminate the physical from the material. Most naturally assumed in simple-minded fashion that if a thing was physical it had to be material. Probably the first hints of this being false occurred in the 1850s with the electricity and magnetism experiments of Michael Faraday, who showed iron filings could be disturbed from a distance by an invisible force. That became known as "magnetism". Later - he placed filings on a card and let an electrical wire go through the card and still found the filings disturbed but now arranging themselves into circular patterns. Thus, he made the connection that a moving electric charge can create a magnetic field which has a similar effect to a magnet!   See e.g.

• Introducing Basic Physics (Electromagnetic Inducti...

Moving on, one beholds a more refined form of modern Materialism which is usually referred to as Hylozoistic Materialism. In this paradigm, everything is composed of physical entities (generally) but it introduces special laws applying to complexes of physical entities, such as living cells or brains, that are not reducible to the laws that apply to the fundamental physical entities. (To avoid inconsistency, such a theory may have to allow that the ordinary laws of physics do not wholly apply within such complex entities.) Such a theory, could also be called "emergent Materialism," and these can shade off, however, into theories that one would not wish to call Materialist. These ascribe vital characteristics to all matter, while its counterpart, panpsychism, attributes a mindlike character to all constituents of material things.

A couple of examples include Rupert Sheldrake's "morphogenetic field" biology, which basically maintains that cells divide and organize based on a supra-physical field that carries some intentionality with it. British researcher Lyall Watson carried this even further in his controversial book, Supernature.

In general, however, modern Materialism disavows such "intentionality" as being unnecessary and moreover, harboring an unproven teleology. (All physicalist Materialisms reject teleology - or the imputation of hidden purpose - in any form) Up to now Sheldrake, for all his words, hasn't been able to isolate his "morphogenetic field" and neither has Lyall Watson shown that some "super mind' exists in nature and directs it.

Rather less drastic is epiphenomenal Materialism, according to which sensations and thoughts do exist in addition to material-physical processes but are nonetheless wholly dependent on material processes and without causal efficacy of their own. They are related to material things somewhat in the way that a man's shadow is related to the man. In this form, the mind is defined as a kind of immaterial "shadow" of the brain. As we know, if a man is eliminated so also is his shadow, and in like manner, when a brain dies (brain death, no EEG signals) there is no more operative mind. Thus, mind does exist but is contingent for its existence on the brain. Up to now no one has been able to prove that a human mind yet functions once the brain is deceased.

Less well known, physicalist Materialism groups into deterministic and indeterministic categories. In the former, we find people like Albert Einstein, who refused to accept the brain's thoughts were able to arise other than by predictable, deterministic interactions. However, with the advance of modern quantum theory this simplified view gave way to an indeterministic paradigm. Much of this was championed, for example, by quantum physicists such as Henry Stapp.

Stapp pointedly noted that uncertainty principle limitations applied to calcium ion capture near synapses shows they (calcium, Ca++ ions) must be represented by a probability function.[1] More specifically, the dimension of the associated calcium ion wavepacket scales many times larger than the calcium ion itself. This nullifies the use of classical trajectories or classical mechanics to trace the path of the ions.

However, no sooner had he explicated this, than a new form of quantum determinism arose from the Stochastic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics used by David Bohm. This then provided a more refined vehicle for determinism to operate, but this time in a quantum acausal form. Much of this was described in an earlier blog post:

• A Look At Quantum Acausal Determinism - Its Roots...

Inteestingly, both indeterministic and deterministic forms were found to be amenable to brain neural net manipulation, posing the possibility of remaking the human brain-mind. See:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-brain-new-mind.html

Interestingly, in a number of ways acausal determinist quantum theory has fed directly into another offshoot of Materialism known as Central state Materialism. On account of recent developments in biochemistry and in physiological psychology, the plausibility of Materialism overall has greatly increased. At the same time, there has been a resurgence of interest in the philosophical defense of central-state Materialism. Central-state Materialists have proposed their theories partly because of dissatisfaction with the analytical behaviorism of the Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle. Ryle himself is reluctant to call himself a Materialist, partly because of a dislike of all "isms" and partly because he thinks that the notion of matter has meaning only by contrast with that of mind, which he thinks to be an illegitimate sort of contrast. (In other words, a kind of false choice).

It is now generally accepted that Scientific Materialism as applied to the domain of natural science is in the physicalist form.  Hence Materialism as it is understood today embraces all physical fields and interactions, of both matter and energy. The laws that govern these interactions  (e.g,. the 2nd law of thermodynamics) apply without exception to humans as well as inanimate particles/objects. The prediction of the future behavior of all physical interactions is not dependent on the existence of any supernatural agency. Thus, physical laws are complete in the sense of being able to account for all physical phenomena.

Physical scientists then have at hand a modus operandi for understanding the universe which does not entail inclusion of supernatural agents, now regarded as redundant. Not surprisingly, the Materialist is much more likely than the supernaturalist to place a premium on revering the Earth and demanding the rational disposition of its resources. As a Materialist, after all, I can examine the evidence and determine that our planet is possibly the only inhabited one, at least in our galaxy - if not the cosmos. I can also ascertain that this life is most likely the only one and that I must strive to enhance it in any way possible. I should emphatically not squander what I have now, while awaiting a mythical afterlife.

I refrain from looking to any hypothesized deity for deliverance, or lay blame for human ills on some mythical demonic entity. On the contrary, Man alone is responsible for his actions and is the ultimate master of his fate. As a Materialist I maintain that Man need not suffer extinction as a species if he has the courage and vision to assume control of his destiny through the use of reason.
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[1] Stapp, Henry, P.: 1993, Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics, Springer-Verlag, p. 42.

Materialism is NOT "self-refuting"!

One of the annoying canards atheists have had to deal with over the past several decades is the claim that our base philosophy - physicalist materialism- is "self-refuting". When religionists assert the idea of materialism is self-refuting they mean that the reductionist basis of materialism is inadequate to account for a non-material or non-physical phenomenon such as thought. Effectively, the apparent non-material existence of thought is enough to convince religionists, especially supernaturalists, that materialism is trumped. They forget, or never processed in the first place, we are invoking PHYSICALIST materialism by which invisible fields, forces etc. are fully represented!

They forget, or care to ignore, that we know life itself can be accounted for by things not necessarily alive, such as DNA, proteins etc. Of course, a better way to put this is that these inanimate elements or factors are necessary conditions for life as we know it. There may be other “sufficient conditions”. Today, when one pragmatically addresses causality, it is preferable to use necessary and sufficient conditions rather than allude to some vague, undifferentiated causality.

Thus, for a car accident to occur, being in a car and on the road is a necessary condition. Sufficient conditions may be that the driver’s blood alcohol was over 0.15 and that his brakes gave out at the critical instant at an intersection.

The argument that materialism is “self refuting” was originally put forward in the popular context by C.S. Lewis (originally an atheist who “saw the light” then became a Roman Catholic). More recently, philosopher Mary Midgley has argued that materialism is a “self-refuting idea”.

Catholic philosopher Ed. L. Miller probably circulated the idea most widely via university philosophy courses) with his textbook: ‘Questions that Matter’. In his chapter on Materialism, Miller’s efforts fall flat when he takes on the sophisticated arguments of philosopher J.J. Smart, who uses quantum physics and its indeterminism to extend the basis of that philosophy away from its ancient (and overly simplistic) Greek origins.

As we know, modern materialism is now more accurately physicalism – since it embodies not merely the atoms of Demokritos, but also the indeterminate physical aspects of matter addressed by quantum mechanics. This includes existence of de Broglie (matter) waves, multiple fields, as well as quantum nonlocality (verified in Alain Aspect’s 1982 experiments at the University of Paris) and the principle of superposition of states as well as Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. What this means, is that the hackneyed arguments people originally gave – based on attacking ancient Greek materialism- no longer hold water.

In the aspect referred to above, Miller attempts to discredit Smart by asking:

“If all thought is purely the result of physical brain activity then why should the content of this thought be anything special... why pay any attention to it if it is thus self-refuting?”

This, however, is based on several egregious assumptions, not the least of which is the unproven belief that self-refuting thought can be unimpeachably identified within the physical matrix that engenders consciousness. As I note in my (2000) book, 'The Atheist's Handbook to Modern Materialism' (p. 164) - since there's no practical method to identify the site of a specific thought (where the associated quantum wavepacket collapses at specific synapses.) nothing can be said about the quality or content of the thought. In other words, the supernaturalist can't make any claims about thought in a purely Materialist context. Including whether it is "self-refuting".

Second, it assumes that a physical-based thought is less enriched, human or nuanced than one emanating from ....I don't know....a "soul-driven" brain? But since none of these geniuses has put forth an objective test to discern the two types of thought, it's somewhat like arguing how many angels are on the end of a pin!

The physical theory of quantum mechanics enters brain behavior since, as physicist Henry Stapp has pointed out (‘Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics’, p. 42), uncertainty principle limitations applied to calcium ion capture near synapses shows the Ca++ ions must be represented by a probability function. Specifically, the dimension of the associated calcium ion wavepacket scales many times larger than the ion itself- nullifying the use of classical trajectories etc.

Since the Ca++ wavepacket information is ultimately describable in terms of quantum mechanical wavefunctions, e.g.

U (x,y,z) = u1(x, y,z) + u2(x,y,z) + u3(x, y, z) + …..uN(x,y,z)

Then there is necessarily a “superposition of states” applicable until wavepacket collapse. This means any nascent thought within the wavepacket is literally in a “black box”. That box isn’t “opened” until the thought itself emerges whether in speech or writing.

“Opening” the box (selecting the single thought to be expressed out of all competing ones) would be analogous to disturbing a system with a measuring apparatus. In this case, as David Bohm notes (Quantum Physics, Dover, 1951, p.128) each of the terms above in u1, u2 etc. must include an exponential function with “an unpredictable and uncontrollable phase factor”, call it ‘φ'.

Thus for each term above, include the factor: exp (iφ) with the phase factor φ changing with the order of the term. For example, the first term would be written:

U1(x,y,z) exp(i φ1)

In his 1991 book, ‘Consciousness Explained’, Daniel Dennett invokes a somewhat superposition –based analogy (albeit not at the quantum scale) in his “multiple drafts” description of consciousness. In this, the brain fashions multiple drafts for thought, for example, before a final single draft emerges. Dennett, by the way, does an excellent job in dispelling once and for all the need for a “commander pilot” or “soul” that has to be “seated” in the brain to direct it or enable it to perform.

None is needed, because in truth and fact, the way the brain works in generating “multiple drafts” and producing a final outcome (as a thought) renders any “pilot” redundant. In these type of theories, Dennett’s and mine (at the quantum level) we see that the “soul-pilot” emerges as an illusion. Our own brain has been complicit in this in creating the illusion there is someone or something behind the eyes, and pulling the strings. There isn’t.

The belief there is something “behind the eyes” is a carryover from ancient, Aristotelian modes of thought. The same modes evident in Aristotelian physics which maintained that heavier objects traveled faster when dropped from a height because they “desired to reach the Earth more quickly”. Hardly!

It is unfortunate that humans for the most part remain in the throes of antiquated modes of thought more peculiar to the ancients. Julian Jaynes (‘The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind’, 1976) perhaps best described these as “lacking the sense of metaphor … that characterizes a more advanced mind”.

However, as science makes greater inroads these antiquated relics will surely fall away as people realize that invisible “entities” that were invented hundreds of years ago have no basis in reality. And once science can provide an answer, even an improbable one, the use of any competing non-natural hypothesis must fall by the way side – unless the proponent wishes to be guilty of the fallacy of ignotum per ignotius .(Seeking to explain the not well understood by the less well understood). At the end of the day, natural explanations therefore will always trump non-natural ones – because the latter are always “less well understood” by definition. And up to now, no non-natural realm has been demonstrated even remotely, only speculated on)

In a way, it is ironic that the theologian’s “soul” is the real self-refuting basis for thought. This is because absolutely no evidence exists for a “soul”. It is pure theological conjecture. Meanwhile, we know the brain exists – it can be measured, weighed and thoughts – as altering levels of brain activity- actually recorded using positron emission tomography.

We know the possession of a brain is at least a necessary condition for the most rudimentary thought. To this point no one has demonstrated that thought originates without a brain. When they do, one might be able to seriously consider the possibility. As for sufficient conditions for thought, it’s plausible that at least one is that when an action potential has been propagated by an axon, the neuron on the opposite side of a synapse fires.

Again, the necessary condition is already in place, and the sufficient condition uses that and goes beyond it.

Until the religionists disprove this is the case, or can show their own necessary and sufficient conditions for thought (in particular that it can occur without benefit of material medium) they are wasting their time in semantic exercises of unknown utility.

In some ways this argument bears similarity to the “ether’ once postulated in physics. It was believed for many years that light needed a medium (“ether”) to propagate and couldn’t do so in a vacuum. This is somewhat analogous to the feeling of many vitalists that a “soul” is required for thought.

In physics, the Michelson-Morley experiment finally rendered the ether a redundant anachronism, or an unnecessary ‘macguffin’, inserted because people believed it was “needed”. But now we know light can indeed propagate in vacuo. I am confident that one day the “soul” will be rendered just as redundant in terms of thought and consciousness.