The Limits of Science

Why can't science tell us why the Universe exists and why physical laws take on the form they do?



Here's an analogy.



Consider the game of chess. Let's suppose one knows nothing about how to play the game. By playing against a chess computer one can gradually discover the rules of chess by trying various moves and seeing which moves the computer will permit you to make.

But, discovering the rules of chess tells us nothing about why the pieces are allowed to move the way they do, least of all of who invented the game of chess and why. Nor do we know how the computer works. Why and how does it register certain moves as illegal?



Likewise, discovering the physical laws that describe or govern our physical reality tells us nothing about why physical laws are as they are. Nor can it tell us why there is a Universe at all. Such questions simply do not reside within the scope of science.



(The above is a slightly simpler version of my What philosophical questions does science answer?)

Stephen Hawking's last book

In his last book Brief Answers to the Big Questions Stephen Hawking said:

"No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realisation: there is probably no heaven and afterlife either. I think belief in the afterlife is just wishful thinking.

It flies in the face of everything we know in science. I think that when we die we return to dust".

So his "profound realisation" wasn't some sort of mystical insight, or moment of enlightenment, but rather because science tells us there's no God or an afterlife.



It might be convenient here to repeat what I've said in other blog posts on this science rules out an afterlife and God contention (in this blog see relevant posts here, here, here, here, here esp part 7, here and in my other blog see here, here).  Science deals exclusively with the quantifiable or measurable (at least currently). Consciousness cannot be quantified or measured. Hence consciousness, at least as science is currently conceived, escapes the purview of science. This is regardless of whether consciousness is embodied or whether there is any possible disembodied consciousness. As it stands science simply has nothing to say about whether consciousness could survive the death of our bodies. To contend otherwise is rather like somebody operating a metal detector making proclamations regarding the existence or non-existence of plastic, wood and rubber.



As for a "God", clearly it depends on one's conception of God. However, the regularities ("physical laws") describing the Universe could not possibly explain the existence of the Universe. This is simply to misunderstand what science does. How so?



Think of a computer game. In order to play a 3D game proficiently, we need to know how the game environment changes when the character moves and behaves in particular ways. The character you control who presses buttons in the game environment will cause certain things to happen in that environment. Shooting at certain spots will cause other things, such as "killing" a bot. And so on and so forth.



One can become extremely proficient at a game. Yet, at the same time, one might know absolutely nothing about what makes the game possible to exist in the first place, and why the game environment changes in the characteristic way it does. In other words, one might know nothing about the computer software, CPU's, RAM, or anything else about the underlying machinery of the computer, even though one might be better at the game than anyone else.



I submit that our science, together with the technology it has spawned, is analogous to playing a computer game proficiently. I submit, that is, that science deals exclusively with the patterns discerned in reality and how the world changes with particular actions on our parts. Similar to the game, science tells us absolutely nothing about the underlying machinery of reality. Science tells us nothing about how or why the world exists at all and why it has the particular physical laws it does. That is what metaphysics deals with. In particular, science could not possibly shed any light on a suitably sophisticated God.

Why the existence of consciousness rules modern materialism out.

At the outset I need to stress that I specifically have in mind the reductive materialism that has prevailed in the West since the birth of modern science in the 17th Century, which in this post I shall refer to as simply materialism. My argument does not rule out the possibility of a more expanded sense of "materialism" which, in contradistinction to modern reductive materialism, includes the qualitative aspects of reality including consciousness. So my argument in this post in no shape or form entails that the brain does not somehow produce the mind or consciousness. Having said that, it was the birth of modern reductive materialism and, indeed, modern science that played a pivotal role in eroding belief in a soul. Hence, should modern reductive materialism be untenable, then it seems to me that we have little more reason to dismiss the existence of a soul than our forebears in the 16th Century and beforehand did.


How our mental states -- that is to say our experiences, thoughts, beliefs and so on --- are related to our bodies, is known as the mind-body problem. There are two general positions, materialism and dualism, and many varieties of each (although my own position is neither materialism nor dualism, but rather idealism).


What does materialism mean? It means broadly that the totality of all that exists is exhausted by both everything that we directly perceive through our five senses, and also what we can sense or detect through the use of scientific instruments. Such scientific instruments include microscopes and so on that simply extend the range of things we are able to sense or infer. 


Should materialism be true then this means we are purely material beings; that is, we are nothing but our material bodies. Hence, under this view, consciousness is typically considered to be a physical thing or process, or perhaps even purely illusory. This implies that ultimately we are merely sophisticated biological robots operating according to the laws of physics. If true this would seem to pretty much rule out the prospect of a soul residing in any type of afterlife realm.


The movement away from belief in a soul over the past 400 years or so can be laid squarely at the door of the ascendency of materialism. But what accounts for this ascendancy? Is it because materialism is obviously correct? I would argue most definitely not. Indeed, I and many others have made the argument that materialism cannot be correct. How so?

To understand why we have to go back to the scientific revolution in the 17th Century that heralded the birth of modern science. This revolution was precipitated by the concept of material reality that both Galileo and Descartes advanced. They proposed that the material realm is wholly quantitative. That is to say that the external world is wholly composed of things and processes that can in principle be detected by our measuring instruments and thus can be measured. The consequence of all this was that science could describe the whole of the external material world; no aspects of the external world lay beyond its scope. Once we have made all appropriate measurements of this material reality and then mathematically described the patterns found and codified them into the laws of nature, then nothing more need be investigated.


But, what of the qualitative aspects of reality such as colours, sounds, and smells? These aspects of reality are not detectable by our measuring instruments and hence are not measurable. The only option was to stipulate that they simply weren't part of the furniture of reality at all (note the word stipulated, this was in no shape or form a scientific discovery). Instead, colours, sounds, and smells were redefined to stand for those measurable aspects of reality which were deemed to cause these qualitative experiences. Thus, colours were redefined to refer to the respective specific wavelengths of light that objects reflect. Sounds were redefined to refer to rarefactions and compressions of the air. Smells redefined to refer to various molecules in motion. It was acknowledged that colours, sounds, and smells, as we experience them, still existed. But they only existed in the mind. Hence, an experience of greenness was a creation by the mind fashioned from the purely quantitative light entering the eyes. In short, from the birth of modern science onwards, the external material world, including our bodies and brains, was supposed to be wholly quantitative and devoid of anything qualitative. Thus a very much emaciated conception of the material external world was advanced. Compared to the commonsensical conception of the material world, this was a bare skeletal outline of reality denuded of the flesh of the qualitative.


I now need to stress that carving up reality in this manner seems to entail a form of dualism. The material external world was defined to be wholly quantitative and hence measurable. The qualitative aspects of reality -- colours, sounds, smells and so on -- were extracted from this external reality and were supposed to have subsistence only within the mind. But it then follows there are two different types of existent. On the one hand, there is the material world that is composed exclusively of the quantitative. On the other hand, there is the mind, which is responsible for both the qualitative aspects of reality as well as our mental states such as our experiences, thoughts, beliefs and so on. Note that even if the mind-brain correlations force the conclusion that consciousness is created by the brain, this still doesn't entail that consciousness is material -- remember, to be material means it has to be detectable, and we can only detect the neural correlates of consciousness, not consciousness itself.


Thus materialism seems to be ruled out. But, in that case, why did the birth of science lead to materialism rather than the obvious dualism it suggests? And why is it that today the vast majority of scientists and philosophers are materialists?


The answer is this. Science investigates the quantitative or measurable. Material reality had been defined as exclusively consisting of the quantitative. It then follows that science is the investigation of this material reality. Now, science has been astoundingly successful in furnishing us with knowledge of this material reality as well as being an extraordinarily fruitful one in terms of the manipulation of our environment and in the creation of our technology. So, a leap of “logic” was made. It was simply assumed that since science was so successful, it must describe the whole of reality, including the mind.


Since this is so important, let me put it another way. Material reality was stripped of all its qualitative aspects – colours, sounds, smells and so on. These qualitative aspects of reality were relegated to being creations of the mind rather than actually existing out there. This left material reality consisting exclusively of all the measurable elements that science could then successfully describe. Minds, on the other hand, could not be so described since they consist of thoughts, pains, emotions and so on, in addition to what were hitherto considered to be the qualitative aspects of reality such as colours, sounds, and smells. Hence the mind, by definition, did not come under the purview of science. However, since science has been so incredibly successful, it was supposed that it simply must describe the entirety of reality, including minds. In order to square this circle, the solutions advanced were to stipulate that consciousness is either illusory, or that it is one and the very same thing as a material process, or that it is one and the very same thing as the functions carried out by such material processes.


Here is a splendid analogy used by the philosopher Edward Feser to illustrate this type of reasoning. It’s as if someone were to declare that since metal detectors are so successful at detecting metal, they must detect everything that exists. Hence, anything that appears to be made out of plastic, rubber, or wood and so on, must somehow either be illusory, or really be metal in disguise. This is of course silly. But, in a similar way in which metal detectors are only designed to detect metal objects and have nothing whatsoever to say about the existence, or otherwise, of objects made of other substances, so too are the methods of current science limited to the quantitative aspects of reality, and cannot have anything to say about aspects of reality not amenable to this approach. And these aspects of reality not amenable to this approach are consciousness and the qualitative aspects of reality such as colours, sounds, and smells. So, appealing to the success of science is simply a complete irrelevancy.


As an aside, this tactic of declaring consciousness is one and the very same thing as a material process or thing, does not seem to me to be meaningful in any case. On the one hand, we have physical processes whose reality is wholly cashed out in terms of physical properties – mass, electric charge, velocity and so on. On the other hand, we have a conscious experience, perhaps a sensation of greenness, or of pain. There is no commonality whatsoever between such physical properties on the one hand, and qualia on the other, so it seems straightforwardly false to declare they’re one and the very same. Arguing over this though is to miss the much deeper point that we simply have no reason to suppose consciousness is a physical thing or process in the first place.


Edited to add:

I would just like to say a few words about a few counter-arguments made elsewhere regarding what I have written above. Namely:

a) Consciousness might indeed be measurable.

b) Consciousness is an illusion.

c) Modern materialism does, in fact, include the qualitative.

Regarding "a". I believe the person who made this suggestion wasn't saying consciousness is measurable due to the fact it is the very same thing as certain physical processes. Rather they acknowledge the reality of consciousness as a distinct reality, but claimed it might eventually be measurable.

Now, if consciousness can in principle be measured -- not just aspects of it, but wholly so -- this is to deny that consciousness has any qualitative elements. Instead, consciousness, like the rest of material reality, is wholly quantitative. Any experience can hence, at least in principle, be wholly conveyed by units of measurement(s).

This, though, seems transparently false. If we consider the experience of a particular shade of redness, then we can measure the wavelength of light that bounces off the observed object and enters our eyes. And we can measure the neuronal activity that the light precipitates. But at the end of this causal chain we have the raw experience itself. To suppose the raw experience itself can be measured is to suppose there is a third thing to be measured on top of the wavelength of light and all the activity in the brain. But anything measured in the brain would by definition be part of the activity of the brain. Moreover, whatever we measured, would be a particular reading on some measuring instrument. Such a reading can be ascertained from a 3rd person perspective i.e anyone can take the reading. The experience, on the other hand, is only known directly from the person having the experience. Hence to equate such an experience with a measurement simply ignores the facts.

Regarding "b" that consciousness is illusory and hence doesn't really exist. In this context there can be no distinction between real and illusory. Normally, with an illusory perception, I am not seeing what is actually out there.  But there is no such distinction within consciousness itself. For what conceivable difference would there be between such illusory experiences and real experiences? The fact is that we immediately have experiences such as redness. Claiming that it is "illusory" simply fails to convey anything.     Nothing rides on whether or not we label it as real or illusory; the point is that we are having an experience, it is qualitative, and hence escapes the definition of modern reductive materialism.

Regarding "c", namely that modern materialism includes the qualitative as well as the quantitative. Well, not as I have defined it, a definition that is held by most scientists if not philosophers.  But, of course, if materialism is defined differently then my specific arguments above do not apply.  For example, there is the various varieties of non-reductive materialism.  Also, there is the materialism endorsed by both Galen Strawson and Bertrand Russell who hold/held that material stuff is by no means exhausted by what physics tells us about it (see this essay by Strawson.  Also a response by Danial Dennett and a reply by Strawson might be of interest.  Go here). I should add, though, that this does not mean that alternative definitions of materialism are necessarily tenable.  For example, non-reductive materialism seems to entail that consciousness is causally inert, but I regard this as being untenable (see my blog post A Causal Consciousness, Free Will, and Dualism ).

But the more basic point is that if it is agreed that modern reductive materialism is untenable then the consequences of accepting this materialism also don't apply. A type of materialism might be still true, but not the type of materialism that the birth of modern science seemed to suggest.  And modern science doesn't appear to add support for these other types of materialism. Hence, it still remains the case that we have little more reason to reject the existence of souls and the like now, than we did prior to the birth of modern science in the 17th Century.

The difference between science and metaphysics

Think of a computer game. In order to play a 3D game proficiently, we need to know how the game environment changes when the character moves and behaves in particular ways. The character you control who presses buttons in the game environment will cause certain things to happen in that environment. Shooting at certain spots will cause other things, such as "killing" a bot. And so on and so forth.

One can become extremely proficient at a game. Yet, at the same time, one might know absolutely nothing about what makes the game possible to exist in the first place, and why the game environment changes in the characteristic way it does. In other words, one might know nothing about CPU's, RAM, or anything else about the underlying machinery of the computer, even though one might be better at the game than anyone else.

I submit that our science, together with the technology it has spawned, is analogical to playing a computer game proficiently.  I submit, that is, that science deals exclusively with the patterns discerned in reality and how the world changes with particular actions on our parts. Similar to the game, science tells us absolutely nothing about the underlying machinery of reality. Science tells us nothing about how or why the world exists at all and why it has the particular physical laws it does. That is what metaphysics deals with.

It might be thought that the existence of forces like gravity refutes this.  Objects fall to the ground because the force of gravity compels objects to fall down.  On this view, gravitation, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, are intrinsic to reality and make reality behave as it does. 

But how do we know this?  We can observe an object falling, but we never observe the gravitational force that allegedly causes it to fall.  Or we never observe the warping of space-time that allegedly causes it to fall (indeed, what could a warping of space-time possibly mean?)

Consider the Earth as it orbits the Sun.  It is considered that the Earth is compelled to follow a circular path around the sun due to gravitational force.  If the force were to suddenly disappear, then the Earth would travel in a straight line at uniform velocity.   Now, why is it the case that motion in a straight line is considered to be natural motion with no forces requiring an object to move in such a manner, but circular motion is considered unnatural with a force required to constrain an object to follow such a path?  I suggest because it's simpler to think of reality in that way. 

At the end of the day, all we know about the world comes from our senses; mainly from our visual qualia.  Science is in the business of describing the patterns in our visual qualia.  In physics we find that mathematical equations, such as Newton's equation (F = G(m₁m₂)/R²), describe the falling process.  But these equations are all we need from a scientific perspective.  Postulating such forces like gravity might make it easier to derive such equations, but they are not strictly necessary.

Note I am not saying that forces like gravity do not exist.  They might exist (although I don't think they do), but if they do that is part of the underlying machinery of reality, and hence comes under the purview of metaphysics.


Think
back to our computer game. One's character can jump up and down. Why
does the character fall back down to the ground? Because of gravity?
Obviously not! The game operates according to its software instructions.



Now, let's consider our physical reality and why objects fall.  It might, as mainstream opinion holds, be due to some force intrinsic to reality. Or it might be because we're living in a kind of virtual reality created by beings existing "outside" of our reality, and the falling down process is just the way our reality is programmed.  Or it might be (to give my own personal opinion) that the explanation resides in the fact that reality is infused with teleology or entelechy, and that our scientific laws simply describes such innate propensities. But the point is that this is a metaphysical issue, not an empirical or scientific one.



Science is not in the business of providing literal explanations, rather it is merely in the business of describing reality. To suppose one can use physics to explain why reality exists at all, or why reality is described by the laws we find, is to misunderstand the legitimate scope of science.  For genuine explanations we have to look to metaphysics.

Similar posts by me:



Do scientific explanations actually explain?

What philosophical questions does science answer?

Is Reality real?

A very brief introduction to subjective idealism.

If all Scientific Knowlege were destroyed

Richard Feynman once said:

If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis that all things are made of atoms — little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.

I definitely wouldn't say that! I would say:


"Subtract the qualitative from the physical world, the rest follows patterns described by mathematics".

In a thread on facebook people were suggesting things like "know yourself" and mentioning micro-organisms. 

 
"Know your self" will not precipitate any scientific discovery. Neither will saying everything is made up of atoms. The ancient Greeks said both. Neither precipitated much scientific progress. I mean "know yourself" has nothing to do with science!

What precipitated modern science in the 17th Century was the notion that physical reality -- at least the quantifiable aspects -- are governed/described by physical laws written in the language of mathematics potentially discernible by us human beings. See my essay:

Science, the Afterlife, and the Intelligentsia

Regarding atoms, micro-organisms and the like. They need to learn to walk before they can run. They need to find out how to conduct science, not tell them about scientific discoveries.

Even if they could make sense of sub-microscopic particles or micro-organisms, remember the saying:

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime".

What philosophical questions does science answer?

Just reading the following recently published article:

Mind, Matter And Materialism


Near the beginning the author says:

"Questions that once lay firmly in philosophy's domain have now fully entered the realm of science".

This is something I hear from people frequently. Unfortunately they never seem to specify what philosophical questions science has answered or shed light upon. I'm not necessarily saying that science doesn't, it depends what they have in mind.

But at first blush it seems to me the domains of science and philosophy are distinct. First of all we need to understand that science doesn't provide explanations as such, but mere descriptions. Consider playing a computer game. You need to know how the computer game environment will react when your character performs certain actions. You could be really excellent at the game and have a comprehensive knowledge of exactly how the game environment changes with specific actions. However, that furnishes you with no understanding of how the game is possible and why the game has the rules it does, or even why the game exists at all. The player might know nothing about the underling computer architecture or software in other words.

How the game environment reacts seems to me to be analogically akin to what science is attempting with its description of our physical reality. How the game is possible, why the game exists, why the game has the rules it has, seems to me to be analogically akin to asking how and why the world exists and why it has the attributes it does. Questions that belong exclusively to the domain of philosophy.

How can knowing how the game environment changes, or physical reality changes with particular actions, help with any philosophical questions?

Update 1/10/2019   I have just written a simpler version of this above argument here.

An extremely short refutation of materialism

Think
of Lego. You can stick the bricks together and make lots of interesting
things. But if sticking together a load of lego bricks -- even if the bricks could move in relation to each other -- somehow produced
pain or greenness or hope or despair or intentionality, then that would be kind of magical.



Exactly the same applies to the ultimate constituents of matter.

The true nature of reality

It's quite likely to be a mistake to suppose science is discovering the true nature of reality. Scientific theories most probably do not depict how things really are. Contrary to what scientists think eg Hawkings, Dawkins, Krauss et al, it's not truth that science is striving for, but rather improved engineering.

However it's important that scientists do not understand this and think they are revealing the true nature of reality. That gives them the psychological drive to invent new scientific theories. It is a noble lie.

If all Scientific Knowlege were destroyed

Richard Feynman once said:

If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis that all things are made of atoms — little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.

I definitely wouldn't say that! I would say:


"Subtract the qualitative from the physical world, the rest follows patterns described by mathematics".


In a thread on facebook people were suggesting things like "know yourself" and mentioning micro-organisms.


"Know your self" will not precipitate any scientific discovery. Neither will saying everything is made up of atoms. The ancient Greeks said both. Neither precipitated much scientific progress. I mean "know yourself" has nothing to do with science!

What precipitated modern science in the 17th Century was the notion that physical reality -- at least the quantifiable aspects -- are governed/described by physical laws written in the language of mathematics potentially discernible by us human beings. See my essay on my other blog:

Science, the Afterlife, and the Intelligentsia


Regarding atoms, micro-organisms and the like. They need to learn to walk before they can run. They need to find out how to conduct science, not tell them about scientific discoveries.

Even if they could make sense of sub-microscopic particles or micro-organisms, remember the saying:

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime".

Do scientific explanations actually explain?

To provide a scientific explanation of a given phenomenon is to show how it is ultimately derived from physical laws. Sometimes physical laws governing some aspect of physical reality can be shown to be derived from more fundamental physical laws.  But these more fundamental physical laws appear to be simply a brute fact.  In other words certain physical laws appear to govern the Universe and no one has any idea why such physical laws assume the form they do.  Moreover, by necessity, an answer to this question could not come under the province of science since science assumes such physical laws at the outset.

But then scientific explanations are not in fact explanations in the fullest sense of this word.  It is of little avail to say we can explain the existence of X in terms of Y, if Y itself has no explanation and is simply a brute fact. This is why, contrary to what most people believe, science doesn't strictly speaking provide explanations, but rather mere descriptions. Yes we can explain how a phenomenon is deduced or derived from physical laws, but this fails to provide any ultimate explanation if we don't know why physical laws assume the form they do. Indeed since physical laws are simply a brute fact without any explanation, then in providing a scientific explanation we are only ever engaging in discerning specific patterns (some phenomenon) deduced from more general patterns (physical laws).


28 Dec 2015 Update:

A rather excellent article on the same topic by Dr. Bernardo Kastrup which I'm in full agreement with.  He employs a splendid analogy which is worth quoting:

[O]ne needs to know nothing about computer architecture or software in
order to play a computer game well and even win; just watch a
five-year-old kid. Playing a computer game only requires an ability to
understand and predict how the elements of the game behave relative to
one another: if your character shoots that spot, it scores points; if
your character touches that wall, it dies; etc. It requires no
understanding whatsoever of the underlying machine and code upon which
the game runs. You can be a champion player without having a clue about
Central Processing Units (CPU), Random-Access Memories (RAM), Universal
Serial Buses (USB), or any of the esoteric computer engineering that
makes the game possible. All this engineering transcends the “reality”
accessible empirically from within the game. Yet, the scientific method
limits itself to what is empirically and ordinarily observed from within
the “game” of reality. Scientific modelling requires little or no understanding of the underlying nature of reality in
exactly the same way that a gamer needs little or no understanding of
the computer’s underlying architecture in order to win the game. It
only requires an understanding of how the elements of the “game,”
accessed empirically from within the “game” itself, unfold relative to
one another.

On the other hand, to infer things about what underlies the “game” – in other words, to construct a metaphysics about the fundamental nature of reality – demands more than the empirical methods of science. Indeed, it
demands a kind of disciplined introspection that critically assesses
not only the elements observed, but also the observer, the process of
observation, and the interplay between the three in a holistic manner;
an introspection that, as such, seeks to see through the “game.”

Science, the Afterlife, and the Intelligentsia

 

1. Introduction

I read this article a couple of weeks ago by a professor of philosophy called John G Messerly.

He says:

There has been a dramatic change in the last few centuries in the proportion of believers among the highly educated in the Western world. In the European Middle Ages belief in a God was ubiquitous, while today it is rare among the intelligentsia. This change occurred primarily because of the rise of modern science and a consensus among philosophers that arguments for the existence of gods, souls, afterlife and the like were unconvincing. Still, despite the view of professional philosophers and world-class scientists, religious beliefs have a universal appeal. What explains this?

He advances the view that a combination of modern science and reason very strongly suggests that there is neither a God nor an afterlife. The intelligentsia understand this, but most of us have failed to take on board this knowledge. The author speculates that we resist these conclusions due to various genetic and environment factors. He places a special emphasis on wishful thinking.

I want in this essay to concentrate on the notion of an afterlife and why so many of the “intelligentsia” consider it so unlikely in the light of modern science. What knowledge and understanding do they possess that even the most intelligent people in the middle ages lacked? Are they justified in their stance? The short answer to that question is an emphatic no. It will be my task in this essay to explain why the answer to that question is “no”.

To accomplish this task we first need to understand the origins of modern science. This will involve taking a brief look at the intellectual edifice -- namely the mechanistic philosophy -- which allowed the birth of modern science. As we shall see, it is the mechanistic philosophy rather than modern science per se that provided the groundwork for this profound shift in views.

2. The Mechanistic Philosophy

Prior to the 17th Century there was a tendency to view the world as being ultimately mysterious. Lingering on from medieval times was the belief that the world was full of meaning - a world teeming with supernatural causes where angels and demons, spirits, occult powers and mystical principles played a prominent role. In particular, God and an afterlife were a given. The scientific revolution, which was inaugurated in the 17th Century, was not only instrumental in creating our modern world together with its technological ubiquity, but was also pivotal in eroding all these beliefs, and in particular fostered the notion of man as simply being a biological machine.

So what kicked off this scientific revolution? Essentially it was to start conceiving of reality in a particular manner, namely the way encapsulated by what is referred to as the mechanistic philosophy. In the 16th and 17 centuries it was increasingly being noted that carefully conducted experiments tended to always produce the same results. This fostered the notion that reality behaved in a predictable manner. In addition, there was an idea percolating around at that time that if an omnipotent God had created the Cosmos and we were the reason for its creation, wouldn't God make the Cosmos amenable to human intellect? In particular, would he not make the cosmos operate according to well-defined laws that we potentially are able to discern?

Largely as a consequence of these factors the mechanistic philosophy was born. It can be expressed succinctly in 5 points:

1. All action is by contact: no action at a distance.
2. All objects in the Universe are composed of microscopic ultimately small parts (indivisible 'atoms').
3. All change in nature and natural phenomena results from alterations in the configurations of matter.
4. All change in the world is explicable in terms of unbroken chains of physical causes and effects.
5. No teleology - that is events and processes are not governed by any
   purpose but simply are a result of mindless interactions with matter.
   

This mechanistic philosophy implied that any phenomena whatsoever can be wholly explained by the interactions of all its parts. This encapsulates the essence of what is called reductionism. The basic idea of reductionism is very simple. It is the belief that all phenomena, no matter how complex, can be understood by considering their most elementary parts. It is the motions of these parts and how they interact together which completely explain the phenomenon concerned. For example, consider a clockwork clock. By looking at the components of that clock - namely the cogs, the springs, and the wheels - and how they all interrelate together, we can actually understand how the minute and hour clock hands move.





If, as reductionism implies, all change in nature and natural phenomena results from alterations in the ultimately smallest particles of matter, then it follows that we human beings constitute no exception. This was understood as far back as the birth of the mechanical philosophy. At that time it was widely debated whether animals could be understood as being, in essence, mere biological machines. More radical thinkers took this to its logical conclusion and advocated that human beings too might simply be elaborate machines. Thus the entirely of our behaviour could in principle be understood through all the physical processes occurring in our bodies in addition to the input from the environment through our five senses. And if we are merely elaborate biological machines, then this implies that no afterlife awaits us any more than an afterlife awaits a computer once it is irreparably damaged, or indeed awaits a clock.





The mechanistic philosophy fosters the view that although a complete explanation for what human beings are, why we are conscious and so on has yet to be determined, this merely reflects the complexity of the brain. It is possibly the most complex thing in the Universe. However, we can be in no doubt that such an explanation will be forthcoming -- or so people claim. After all, look at the phenomenal progress of science over the past 300 years. We can send men to the moon, create small devices which can virtually instantaneously connect us to anyone in the world with a similar device, create chess computers which can beat the best chess players on the planet. Why do we imagine the human brain is something special? That it won’t eventually be understood like everything else? Hence many people maintain that it will surely succumb to a full explanation eventually – it’s just a question of time.

3. The elimination of the Qualitative/Subjective

There is, though, a crucial distinction between us human beings plus other animals on the one hand, and computers, clocks and other machines on the other. It is that the former are conscious, and the latter are generally held not to be (although it is held by many that computers will become conscious in the future). Given that we are mere biological machines, then it is true that the mechanical philosophy, and hence physics might, at least in principle, wholly explain our behaviour. But to explain our behaviour is one thing, to explain our consciousness is another thing entirely. But why should consciousness be a special problem?




Thomas Nagel is an American philosopher, currently University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University. In his recent book Mind and Cosmos he says:

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. (pp. 35-36)

Here in a nutshell is why science, at least as currently conceived, cannot in principle account for the existence of consciousness. In order to make this clear let's flesh out what Nagel is saying here.




The mechanistic philosophy stipulated that physical reality is wholly quantitative. That is to say that the external world that our five senses reveal is wholly comprised of things and processes that can in principle be detected by our measuring instruments and hence can be measured. All change in this external world can be accounted for in terms of chains of physical causes and effects which are exclusively cashed out in quantitative terms. So we have each physical event or thing composing a link in the chain causing another physical event, and each link represents something that can be measured -- for example mass, velocity, shape and so on.



But we think of the external world as being filled with colours, sounds and smells. So what of these qualitative features of reality?  In short, they were held not to exist at all since they are not detectable by our measuring instruments and therefore not measurable. Instead, colours, sounds and smells were redefined to stand for those measurable aspects of reality that were deemed to cause these qualitative experiences. Hence, colours were redefined to refer to certain wavelengths of light that objects reflect. Sounds redefined to refer to rarefactions and compressions of the air. Smells redefined to refer to various molecules in motion.




So the qualitative aspects of reality were subtracted from the external world. Instead, they were deemed to be creations of the mind fashioned from the quantitative data entering our senses.  For example, the greenness you experience when
looking at a green object is entirely a creation of your mind. The
perceived object is not actually green at all in the commonsensical use
of the word green. As a consequence, the world out there became
wholly quantitative and devoid of anything qualitative. This made the
external world wholly unlike that which we perceive it to be; indeed
unimaginable. Moreover, as Thomas Nagel mentioned, human intentions and purposes were subtracted too.

4. Consciousness cannot in principle be accommodated by Science

Thus, a consequence of the mechanistic philosophy is that it stipulated -- again I stress that this was not a discovery -- a very much emaciated conception of the physical external world. A bare skeletal outline denuded of the flesh of the qualitative. But that brings with it a huge problem. If only the quantitative, or that which is measurable or detectable, constitutes the external world, how can we suppose that minds or consciousness are part of that reality?  Hence the mind-body problem or what has been referred to as the hard problem.




Since almost everyone, including the "intelligentsia", has so much difficulty in understanding this, it might be a good idea to try and hammer this point home.


Let's return to the example of a clockwork clock brought up in section 2. As mentioned previously, by looking at the components of that clock - namely the cogs, the springs, and the wheels - and how they all interrelate together, we can actually understand how the hour, and the minute hands move. Each cause and each effect in the causal chain(s) leading to the movement of the hands are wholly quantitative, something which can be measured.


The same pertains whenever we reach an understanding of some phenomenon. Consider tornadoes for example. They seem to be entities in their own right; they seem to act as organised wholes.  Nevertheless, they are nothing more than the movement and interactions of all the air and water molecules which constitute them. But whether we are talking about clocks, tornadoes or anything else, reductionism holds that the number of parts constituting that thing doesn't allow for the possibility of producing anything beyond what a
colossal number of interacting particles are capable of producing.  A clockwork clock can display the time, but that's just the inevitable consequence of all its interacting parts. If a functioning clock, or a tornado, or any other device or phenomenon was also associated with conscious experiences, then that could not be reductively explained.  It would, in a sense, be miraculous.  

Why should brains be any different? If the brain does indeed produce consciousness, then we have chains of quantitative causes and effects which at the end of these chains produce purely qualitative phenomena; namely conscious experiences. But then this contradicts the mechanistic philosophy since it stipulates that reality is wholly quantitative. And hence consciousness also eludes any possible physical theory since physics deals exclusively with the quantitative or that which can be measured.



To try and explicate this fact yet further what we have is a chain of physical causes and effects following physical laws, and at the end a conscious experience such as the experience of pain. Unlike our clock or tornado, where we can always understand, at least in principle, how an effect is brought about by a thorough understanding of the arrangements and properties of their parts, we cannot have a similar understanding with consciousness. All we can note is that when certain physical events occur in the brain, this might be correlated with a certain characteristic experience -- an experience moreover which can only be known by the subject. Consciousness is not objectively detectable.

5. Consciousness is what the brain does?

One way of putting consciousness back into the world is to claim that it is literally one and the very same thing as some physical thing or process (not merely caused by a physical process). I think this is an act of desperation.


We think of the world as being populated with objects. Sometimes what we think of 2 different objects are in fact one and the same object e.g. the morning star and evening star. However we can trace their paths through space-time and see that they coincide. However we cannot do this with brain processes and conscious experiences. We can trace the formers path in space-time, but not the latter.



Also if 2 objects are in fact the very same object, they should share very similar properties. It's true that one and the same object can change its properties over time e.g. a spanking brand new table will not look quite the same 20 years down the line, although they'll look broadly similar.



But physical states and the correlated conscious experiences exist at the same time. However they are utterly different in their properties. The former is characterised by the quantitative and is observable from a third person perspective. The latter is characterised by the qualitative and is not observable from the third person perspective -- it is only known through the experiencing subject. Since conscious experiences share no commonality with any physical states or processes whatsoever, it is gratuitous and vacuous to declare they're one and the very same thing.

6. But does the brain produce consciousness anyway?




Even though, being qualitative through and through, consciousness is non-physical, the foregoing should not be understood as suggesting that the brain cannot produce consciousness. It's just that if it does, then that's simply a brute fact about reality. In fact, arguably, we have good reasons to suppose that the brain produces consciousness and these reasons come in the form of mind-brain correlations. Just to mention a few examples; our capacity to understand written and spoken words, or the capacity to speak, are impaired or even eliminated with injuries to certain regions of the brain. Damage to the hippocampal and thalamic areas of the brain can destroy one's ability to store new long-term memories. In addition radical personality change may be brought about by injury to the brain. The most famous example here is undoubtedly Phineas Gage. We can also point to the effects of drugs that have a propensity to affect our emotions, attitudes and dispositions. Indeed even alcohol and caffeine do this. Most importantly we enter deep sleep every night where we do not seem to be conscious at all.

To return yet again to our clock analogy. Let's suppose we have a thorough understanding of the properties and arrangement of its parts. There's nothing about the arrangements of these parts which could account for the fact it sounds an hourly alarm. In addition let's suppose that removing a particular component of the clock results in it not sounding the alarm. And replacing that component but removing another component also results in it not sounding the alarm. But removing other components one at a time has no effect. So even though the reason why it sounds an alarm might be wholly mysterious, we have, so it seems, specified critical components whose presence are essential to causing the alarm. We might, therefore, feel justified in supposing that such critical components jointly produce the hourly alarm.




It might well be that something similar is happening with brains and consciousness. Science can never in principle explain why brains produce consciousness, but this needn't prevent us, in the absence of any other reasons, from supposing that it is specific parts of the brain which are somehow producing this phenomenon. It seems to me that this is especially compelling when we consider the comatose state, or even the deep sleep state we enter every night where we do not recollect any conscious experiences. This at least suggests that the brain is playing a crucial role in whether we are conscious or not. The most straightforward explanation for this is that the brain produces consciousness.

7. The implausibility of the brain producing consciousness thesis.

As a preliminary I should point out that the case for the brain producing consciousness outlined in the previous section would not curry much favour amongst the “intelligentsia”. It is deeply unsatisfactory since consciousness spontaneously appearing without explanation when certain physical processes occur seems essentially magical. Hence, the tendency to conflate conscious experiences with some physical process, thing or function. A strategy I have already argued in part 5 as being gratuitous and vacuous. Nevertheless, we may feel that the arguments of the previous section make it extremely likely that brains do somehow produce consciousness. So let's explore this further.




In the previous section I mentioned removing components of a clock and noting that should the alarm cease then these components might justifiably be supposed to be jointly producing the alarm. Let's replace our clock with a Television set. Removing certain components of the TV set will result in the picture disappearing, and generally tinkering with the internal components will affect the quality of the picture displayed. So we might suppose that at least some of the components produce the picture.



But it’s not quite as simply as this since there is a distinction between the TV set’s ability to display a sequence of pictures, and the form those pictures take. On a standard TV set it would be scientifically inexplicable why it should display a sequence of pictures constituting a TV programme in the absence of any TV signals.





Likewise, since it is scientifically inexplicable, indeed in principle, that the processes of the brain produce consciousness our preference ought to be that something external is involved. But, unlike the case of the TV set which explains the sequence of pictures shown by virtue of TV signals, this external influence accounting for consciousness couldn't be anything physical since we simply get the same intractable scientific problem of the quantitative creating the qualitative. It would need to be some non-physical influence -- perhaps a self or "soul" which has, as an essential property, conscious states.





In short, in a comparable way in which the internal components of a standard TV set is insufficient to explain the sequence of pictures being shown, it seems to me that the brain itself is insufficient to produce consciousness. In both cases something external is required. The fact that altering brain function changes our conscious states and abilities, or indeed even suppresses any consciousness completely, doesn't entail that the self which undergoes and underlies and unites these various conscious states is itself affected. Compare this with the fact that fiddling with the internal components of a TV set might affect the picture, but which in no shape or form alters the TV programme being screened (See my essay Is a "life after death" conceivable? for an explication of what I mean by these ideas).

8. Conclusion

I have pointed out that consciousness must forevermore remain scientifically inexplicable, at least as science is currently conceived. However, the mind-brain correlations and the apparent complete dependency of mind states on brain states might dispose one to feel the brain produces consciousness anyway. Nevertheless, this still remains deeply unsatisfactory and it seems to me a new way of conceiving consciousness and its relationship to the world is required. Since something extra over and above the brain seems to be required, this suggests that we might well survive our deaths.



Note that in reaching this conclusion I have made no mention whatsoever of any of the evidence that suggests an afterlife (NDEs, apparitions, memories of previous lives etc). The possibility that consciousness might well survive the deaths of our bodies has been established purely by philosophical argumentation. Once we take such evidence into consideration the case for a "life after death" becomes that much stronger.

9. So why do the "Intelligentsia" believe otherwise?

But then what are we to make of the comment by John G Messerly at the beginning of this essay? With just a few exceptions, professional philosophers, professional scientists, and more generally the "intelligentsia", are all united in thinking that modern science has shown there is no afterlife and it is only foolish and ignorant people who suppose otherwise.



But, as I have argued, this is simply not the case. Are the "intelligentsia" all unaware of the history and philosophy of science and the mind-body problem? Are they all unable to think through the issues?




I think the problem here is that science has been so incredibly successful in describing the world that the "intelligentsia" conclude that it is reasonable to infer that the methods of science are susceptible to explaining all aspects of reality.  Consciousness should be no exception. Couple this with the fact that scientists tend to be quite poor at philosophy, but yet at the same time enjoy a high level of prestige. Thus scientists opinions carry a great deal of weight. Hence, when they continually extol the outstanding successes of science, but at the same time depreciate the value of philosophical thought claiming it doesn't deliver the goods, we have fertile grounds for reaching fatuous conclusions. Fatuous conclusions, moreover, not just about how consciousness fits into the physical world, but on more general questions pertaining to the nature of reality which rightfully belongs to the province of philosophy.



Professional philosophers operate in this environment that scientists have created. Those that offer dissenting views are ferociously attacked. The most notable recent example is Thomas Nagel's recent book Mind and Cosmos, which I mentioned and quoted in section 3. For example Andrew Ferguson who is a senior editor at the Weekly Standard has written:

The Guardian awarded Mind and Cosmos its prize for the Most Despised Science Book of 2012. The reviews were numerous and overwhelmingly negative; one of the kindest, in the British magazine Prospect, carried the defensive headline “Thomas Nagel is not crazy.” (Really, he’s not!) Most other reviewers weren’t so sure about that.

. . .



“Evolutionists,” one reviewer huffily wrote, “will feel they’ve been ravaged by a sheep.” Many reviewers attacked the book on cultural as well as philosophical or scientific grounds, wondering aloud how a distinguished house like Oxford University Press could allow such a book to be published. The Philosophers’ Magazine described it with the curious word “irresponsible.” How so? In Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, the British philosopher John Dupré explained. Mind and Cosmos, he wrote, “will certainly lend comfort (and sell a lot of copies) to the religious enemies of Darwinism.” Simon Blackburn of Cambridge University made the same point: “I regret the appearance of this book. It will only bring comfort to creationists and fans of ‘intelligent design.’ ” (From here.)

This despite the fact that Nagel is both an atheist and rejects the existence of a soul or any possibility of a "life after death". The very fact he thinks materialism simply cannot withstand scrutiny is sufficient to earn their opprobrium. But he also has a few defenders. Edward Feser, an American associate professor of philosophy at Pasadena City College, has mounted a rigorous, uncompromising defence of Nagel's book from his varied detractors that may be found here (the link is merely part 1 of 10 parts! In my opinion Feser comprehensively dismantles the negative reviews of Nagel's book showing they frequently rest upon a misunderstanding of Nagel's arguments).



Thus there are pressures -- subtle and not so subtle -- for philosophers to conform to mainstream thinking. Those who rise to the top in the academic community are liable to express views consonant with the prevailing orthodoxy -- for if they do not then they will be less likely to have risen to such a position in the first place. So certain beliefs about the world tend to be perpetuated, not necessarily because of their underlying merits, but because there are influences actively discouraging the expression of views which are at variance with generally accepted beliefs.





On a final note, I recommend people read my related essays:


Neither Modern Materialism nor Science as currently conceived can explain Consciousness


Is a "life after death" conceivable?


Science and the Afterlife

Science and the Afterlife

It seems to be widely believed that modern science has shown that there is no afterlife, that this life is the only one we will have, that only this physical world exists and only gullible people are disposed to question such established truths.



This is a complete travesty of what is actually the case.  What very few people seem to know, or  understand, is that science completely leaves out consciousness in its description of reality.  Indeed, so far as science is concerned, we might as well all be what has been termed philosophical zombies  -- that is to say we might as well all be entirely devoid of any conscious experiences whatsoever, even though we externally look and behave exactly like real people.



This is because it is held that we are merely very sophisticated biological machines.  Thus it is the physical events in our brains, together with the input from our 5 senses, which wholly explains everything we ever do, say, and think.  In and of itself consciousness is not regarded as having any causal efficacy.  Hence I am typing this out, not because of an intent on my part to express certain ideas, but due to physical laws playing out.



Now materialists deny this, but only by advancing a transparently false metaphysical hypothesis.  This hypothesis is that consciousness is the very same thing as the underlying neuronal activity, or it is the very same thing as what the brain does.  Note here they are not saying that such processes causes or produces consciousness, rather consciousness is one and the very same thing as some physical process.



It seems to me transparently clear that such a claim is vacuous.  Physical things and processes are characterised by mass, electric charge  and so on. They have a location, they can be measured and anyone can potentially observe them.    Conscious experience, on the other hand, is wholly defined by its
qualitativeness -- the pain of a toothache, the taste of Pepsi, the
experience of greenness, the feeling of contentment  -- all these are
paradigmatic examples of conscious experiences, or qualia as they are sometimes referred to.  Most importantly ones consciousness can only be known by you, no one else can observe your pain, your jealousy and so on.   Since physical processes and conscious experiences have absolutely nothing in common whatsoever, then to say they are one and the very same thing is simply an abuse of language (although of course it is still possible one can cause the other, and vice versa).



The truth of the matter is that we have this philosophical problem called the mind/body problem.  It's persisted for thousands of years and we are no closer to solving it now in the 21st Century than we have ever been.  The proposed materialist solutions are acts of desperation.



The truth is that consciousness exists in its own right.  And we cannot perceive anyone else's consciousness, we can only infer it from their bodily behaviour.  So consciousness itself is invisible, we only infer its presence in other people via the voluntary movement of their bodies and their speech.  When their bodies cease to function at death nothing can be definitively concluded about the consciousness which formerly was able to move that body.

This blog entry by me will also be of interest:

Science, the Afterlife, and the Intelligentsia

Science, the Afterlife, and the Intelligentsia