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Has there ever been a viable alternative to the phsycialist model of the universe? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 10 months ago* by to c/askscience@lemmy.world
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Physicalism or materialism. The idea that everything there is arises from physical matter. If true would mean there is no God or Free Will, no immortal soul either.

Seems to be what most of academia bases their world view on and the frame work in which most Science is done.

Often challenged by Dualism and Idealism but only by a loud fringe minority.

I've heard pan-psychicism is proving quite the challenge, but I hear that from people who believe crystals can cure autism

I hear that "Oh actually the science is moving away from materialism" as well, but that seems to be more crystal talk as well.

So lemme ask science instead of google.

Any reason to doubt physicalism? Is there anything in science that says "Huh well that seems to not have any basis in the physical at all and yet it exists"

Edit: I have heard of the Essentia Foundation and Bernado Kastrup but since it's endorsed by Deepak Chopra I'm not sure I can trust it

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[–] 1 point 10 months ago (5 children)

Consider this: I seem to be just a collection of cells interacting in a complicated way. I know that I have subjective experience. We've observed that ant colonies, companies, countries, etc. have complex behavior beyond what any individual alone can do; do they also have subjective experience independent of their constituent individuals the way that I seem to have subjective experience independent of any individual cell in my body?

I think there probably is an answer to that question, but I don't know if it's possible to answer from the limited perspective of a human in the universe.

I would love it if there does turn out to be a good explanation I'm just not clever enough to come up with, by the way -- it would be fascinating! -- but I don't think biology alone is going to answer how subjective experience is derived from physical materials interacting. A complete theory of qualia should be able to answer whether an ant colony, a country, or a computer program (which could be simulated by other computer programs arbitrarily deeply) have their own subjective experiences in addition to why I perceive red the way that I do, and why it's not the way I perceive blue.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

    I know that I have subjective experience.

    Yeah, but that's the thing. How do we know that? There's no evidence, nobody can tell you how there's more to red or blue than the words, even if everyone agrees on it. Aside from occurring in "normal" people, it doesn't seem any different from the next psychological fixed belief. Even if you're a Platonist or similar and don't need evidence, a concept defined by what it's not is challenging to justify.

    You mention emergence here as well, but I'm not sure that's either required or implied by qualia. In many cases it can actually be modeled mathematically, as well, while qualia hasn't been touched.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (3 children)

    I meant that as essentially a variant of the cogito; I can determine for myself (only) that I have subjective experience because I experience it. (Presumably you can do the same for yourself -- provided that you're not a bot, p-zombie, or such; I'm not a solipsist.) I think we agree that it's not currently possible to convince others of the existence of our own subjective experiences since we cannot directly share subjective experience, and no one has come up with a convincing workaround -- and we might not ever come up with such a thing.

    You mention emergence here as well, but I'm not sure that's either required or implied by qualia.

    What I mean is that accepting what seems to be correct, more or less, from current understanding of science, we seem to be composed of interacting cells and yet have subjective experience. If someone does, somehow, come up with a good explanation for why we have subjective experience, that explanation ought to be able to allow you to determine, at least in principle, whether any kind of matter interacting does or doesn't have subjective experience -- whether that's another person, or a piece of software running on a computer, or something even weirder like an entire country operating collectively through the behavior of its constituent citizens.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

    Sorry, maybe I was unclear at the start there.

    The point was that it seems unlikely qualia will appear in physics, but an explanation in terms of neurology isn't as far-fetched.

    What I mean is that accepting what seems to be correct, more or less, from current understanding of science, we seem to be composed of interacting cells and yet have subjective experience. If someone does, somehow, come up with a good explanation for why we have subjective experience, that explanation ought to be able to allow you to determine, at least in principle, whether any kind of matter interacting does or doesn’t have subjective experience – whether that’s another person, or a piece of software running on a computer, or something even weirder like an entire country operating collectively through the behavior of its constituent citizens.

    Hmm. Have you heard of consciousness studies? It's becoming more and more of a serious field, and it's basically what you're describing.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    I'm not familiar with it, but I do recognize a number of the names (like Chalmers and Dennett) from your link. The Hard Problem of Consciousness came up during one of my classes in undergrad, among other topics, and I also spent probably too much time thinking about thinking back in my school days.

    I don't know what branch of science a theory of qualia would ultimately belong to -- if one can ever be created -- but what I mean by "physics" should be taken in the XKCD 435 sense of "biology is just applied chemistry / which is just applied physics" rather than the sense of "physics as taught in the classroom".

    Qualia is a chink in the armor of physicalist theories; I don't know that that means you necessarily need something non-physical, per se -- and I strongly doubt any of the currently practiced religions would be helpful in getting an answer to why red is red -- but it does suggest that there may be something big we're missing; maybe information processing is really fundamental to the universe in a way we're not expecting, or something. I have no idea how you'd come up with a coherent theory of information processing that explains qualia though. Perhaps phenomenon like non-spectral colors and synesthesia may give us some hints, if it is possible...?

    The lack of ability to directly engage with another's subjective experience ultimately may be like an event horizon limiting our ability to understand the universe. There may well be a good answer to what's going on in other minds or beyond the event horizon, but it may simply be permanently unknowable to us. (I'm not saying we should give up yet though!)

    By the way, I've just realized that what I'm trying to say may make more sense if you know that I accept the "Systems Reply" to Searle's Chinese Room, and see the brain itself as a sort of Chinese Room (replacing the man and his books with the cells of a brain -- which individually do not know Chinese even though a properly functioning brain can know Chinese). Some of the implications of accepting that view are, admittedly, a bit strange -- like accepting the idea of swarm intelligences composed of independent agents (like an ant colony, a corporation, etc.); if people can have subjective experience (and experience qualia) then it may be possible for those other kinds of systems to have subjective experience and have some alien form of qualia too -- as weird as that may be.

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