Marginalization of the Mind
While the nineteenth-century adoption of the closure principle denied causal efficacy to anything that is nonphysical, the twentieth-century version of physicalism denies that anything nonphysical even exists in reality. This shift has major implications for the relation between the mind and the physical universe. It is noteworthy that, while physical science was well established by the late seventeenth century, a science of the mind was not initiated until a full two centuries later. And even then, particularly in the Anglo-American world, the focus of academic psychology swiftly shifted away from the mind and towards behavior, and then to neuroscience. Only in the latter half of this century has cognitive psychology, for example, begun to reconsider the functions of the mind as it is experienced first-hand. In the historical development of modern science, the study of the mind occurs only as an afterthought, subsequent to the elaborate development of physics, chemistry, and biology; so it is no coincidence that in the world as conceived by science, the role of the mind in nature has been marginalized. According to this view, the universe is conceived as a giant computer, and the emergence of consciousness during the course of cosmic evolution is attributed solely to the laws of physics, which over the immensity of time give rise to a nearly infinite complexity that is purportedly sufficient to give rise to consciousness. This "explanation" places an enormously heavy explanatory burden on the term "complexity," which in fact explains nothing.
Since the Scientific Revolution, subjectively experienced mental events have gradually lost their status as real entities. Advocates of scientific materialism now variously regard them as mere epiphenomena, as propensities for behavior, as being equivalent to brain activity, or as bearing no existence whatsoever. As one indicator of this phenomenon, it is worth noting the types of discoveries for which Nobel awards have been granted in the fields of physiology and medicine. While it is well known that many mental phenomena-including hope and fear, happiness and depression, trust and suspicion, and belief and disbelief have profound influences on the human body and state of health, since Nobel awards were first granted in 1901 for discoveries in physiology or medicine, not a single one has been given for discoveries into the nature of the mind. One could rationalize this fact by claiming that research into the nature of the mind and its possible influences on the body is not included in the domain of "hard science," and is therefore unworthy of such a distinguished award. But "hard science" in this context means nothing more than science that rigidly conforms to the metaphysical dictates of scientific materialism, even at the cost of ignoring significant aspects of health and disease.
How did the mind, which exerts such a powerful influence in our daily lives, and which makes science possible, become so marginalized? In his classic work The Principles of Psychology, the American psychologist and philosopher William James (1842-1910) presents a thesis that sheds brilliant light on this issue:
The subjects adhered to become real subjects, attributes adhered to real attributes, the existence adhered to real existence; whilst the subjects disregarded become imaginary subjects, the attributes disregarded erroneous attributes, and the existence disregarded an existence in no man's land, in the limbo 'where footless fancies dwell.'... Habitually and practically we do not count these disregarded things as existents at all... they are not even treated as appearances; they are treated as if they were mere waste, equivalent to nothing at all. [23]
James sums up this idea with the statement, "our belief and attention are the same fact. For the moment, what we attend to is reality..." [24] A historical illustration of this theme is to be found in the history of behaviorism. In 1913, the American behaviorist John B. Watson wrote that "the time has come when psychology must discard all reference to consciousness...," [25] and he attributed belief in the existence of consciousness to ancient superstitions and magic.[26] Fifteen years later, he expanded this principle by declaring that behaviorists must exclude from their scientific vocabulary "all subjective terms such as sensation, perception, image, desire, purpose, and even thinking and emotion as they are subjectively defined." [27] Behaviorism duly followed this dictum, with the result that in 1953, B. F. Skinner concluded that mind and ideas are nonexistent entities "invented for the sole purpose of providing spurious explanations...Since mental or psychic events are asserted to lack the dimensions of physical science, we have an additional reason for rejecting them." [28] Assertions concerning subjective experience were similarly denied by certain philosophers of this same period who refuted the very existence of subjective statements. [29]
A similar denial of mental phenomena, which Skinner eventually retracted, [30] is to be found nowadays in a contemporary philosophical school known as eliminative materialism. Proponents of this view, such as Paul Churchland and Stephen Stich, argue that subjectively experienced mental states should be regarded as nonexistent, on the grounds that the descriptions of such states are irreducible to the language of neuroscience. [31]
Since the time of Galileo, scientific materialism has been absorbed in extraspection: it has focused its attention even beyond the external world of human experience to the objective reality that purportedly lies behind the veil of appearances. This, it deems, is the world of science, and it alone is real; whereas mental phenomena, which are purportedly accessible to introspection, have come to be treated by the advocates of scientific materialism as "mere waste, equivalent to nothing at all."
The central aim of science is to understand and control the objective, physical world; yet the subjective mind, with its powers of observation and reasoning, is, awkwardly, the fundamental instrument of scientific inquiry. With their ideal of absolute objectivity, in which all subjective influences are excluded, the advocates of scientific materialism have sought to exclude the subjective elements of even the human mind. According to this ideal, scientific research is to be conducted in an utterly dispassionate manner, free of all personal biases; and even scientific thinking is portrayed as an impersonal activity. Moreover, instead of human logic and language, scientists are to employ as much as possible the laws of mathematics, which are thought by many to be purely objective rules.
Scientific materialism's disdain for subjectivity has also shaped the very concept of scientific observation. While nonscientific kinds of observation also detect phenomena-such as our joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, ideas and inspirations-they are thought to be tainted by human subjectivity and are therefore suspect. From the perspective of scientific materialism, human sensory perception may be deemed not only unreliable but irrelevant. For a scientific observation to take place, all that is required is a detector, or receptor. The human eye is one type of receptor which detects a certain range of electromagnetic frequencies, but other instruments also measure this and other types of information, and they are regarded as more reliable.
In common parlance, for an observation to take place, the received information must be transformed into humanly accessible information which is, sooner or later, perceived and understood by a human being. But according to scientific materialism, observation is assimilated into the general category of interactions, thereby freeing it from the subjectivity of its normal associations. This interpretation is said to be central to grasping what is involved in scientific objectivity in the search for knowledge and the justification of belief. [32]
If we were to accept the assertion of scientific materialism that observation and measurement occur without any relation to consciousness, there would be no valid reason to exclude any physical interaction from this category. Not only instruments of artificial intelligence, but all phenomena with spatial dimension would always be detecting-that is, observing and measuring-all the phenomena with which they come in contact. Likewise, not only clocks but all physical phenomena that endure in time would be observing the duration of the phenomena with which they come in contact. In other words, every animate and inanimate phenomenon in the entire universe would constantly be observing its surroundings.
However, arriving at panpsychism by such a route blurs any real distinction between the statements that everything is conscious and that nothing is conscious. Moreover, from this vantage point it becomes impossible to ascertain the real difference between conscious and unconscious measurements. Thus, the assertion of unconscious observation and measurement has the effect of obscuring the unique, phenomenal nature of consciousness, which has been ignored by scientific materialism all along.
The Religious Status of Scientific Materialism
The sheer fact that scientific materialism as it has been formulated in the twentieth century is incompatible with all the traditional world religions is enough to provoke the question of whether this doctrine has itself become a kind of modern religion. If the only thing that can displace or substitute for one religion is another religion, scientific materialism would appear to fill that role; and there is no question this dogma has won many converts from traditional religions.
For the advocates of scientific materialism, traditional religions no longer make sense of the world and human existence in light of modern scientific knowledge. In this light, science, for scientific materialists, becomes an indispensable quest for intelligibility, without which the world and human existence become meaningless. But science alone is incapable of grappling with normative and intrinsic values; it cannot point to the purpose of human existence; and the shifting sands of scientific theories do not provide a firm ground from which to view the world. In short, science itself is not a religion, and it cannot serve the functions in human life that a religion must fulfill.
The metaphysical doctrine of scientific materialism, on the other hand, does fulfill these needs for its proponents. Not only does it present a framework within which to live, it provides its followers with a sense of meaning, and thereby connects their lives with a greater reality. This meaning and greater reality are included in the development of science and technology, aimed at a complete scientific understanding and technological conquest of nature.
Scientific materialists might disagree with the above thesis on the grounds that rational, empirical truths may refute religious creeds. It is certainly true that scientific research has revealed truths about the natural world that are incompatible with the descriptions of nature found in many pre-scientific religious doctrines. However, the notion that the principles of scientific materialism, unlike traditional religious beliefs, are evidently true to all open-minded, intelligent people is nothing more than propaganda. To many people who accept these principles, they do indeed seem self-evident and irrefutable, just as the fundamental premises of the world's traditional religions seem self-evident to their most devoted followers. But to the outsider the "truths" of all these creeds may seem nothing more than articles of faith.
To illustrate the dogma-to-dogma confrontation between traditional religions and scientific materialism, let us examine Edward O. Wilson's account of the sources of religion. Wilson's central claim is that religion is instinctive, meaning "only that its sources run deeper than ordinary habit and are in fact hereditary, urged into existence through biases in mental development that are encoded in the genes."[33] He elaborates on this point by drawing a radical distinction between the origins of religion and biology:
The human mind evolved to believe in gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology. Acceptance of the supernatural conveyed a great advantage throughout prehistory, when the brain was evolving. Thus it is in sharp contrast to the science of biology, which was developed as a product of the modern age and is not underwritten by genetic algorithms. The uncomfortable truth is that the two beliefs are not factually compatible. As a result, those who hunger for both intellectual and religious truth face disquieting choices. [34]
This theory of the origins of religion is a direct product, not of any universally compelling scientific evidence, but of the principles of scientific materialism. While advocates of this dogma will likely find his explanation plausible and comforting, to believers of more traditional religions, it may seem unsubstantiated and offensive. From their perspective, Wilson's speculations may sound more like an evangelical tract condemning the unholy origins of other faiths, rather than an unbiased, scientific theory supported by compelling evidence.Wilson throws to the winds any notion of reconciliation between science and religion, claiming, "Science has always defeated religious dogma point by point when differences between the two were meticulously assessed." [35] When surveying the history of scientific discoveries in the face of religious dogmas, one finds much to support his position. On the other hand, when it comes to ostensibly scientific responses to a wide array of human experiences that do not conform to the metaphysical principles of scientific materialism, one finds them classified as "anomalies" and "mere coincidences." To scientific materialists, such responses may be satisfactory, but to those not of their faith, such "explanations" appear inadequate and at times even irrational.
To draw a further parallel between the origins of traditional religions and of scientific materialism, we return to Wilson's own account: Successful religions typically begin as cults, which then increase in power and inclusiveness until they achieve tolerance outside the circle of believers. At the core of each religion is a creation myth, which explains how the world began and how the chosen people-those subscribing to the belief system-arrived at its center. Often the mystery, a set of secret instructions and formulas, is available to members who have worked their way to a higher state of enlightenment. [36]
As we shall see in the following chapter, the articles of faith of scientific materialism are largely rooted in the philosophical and religious beliefs of ancient Greece and of Judaism and Christianity. During the rise of modern science, the percentage of scientists and their followers who advocated the principles of this new creed were a small minority, or "cult," to use Wilson's term, but by the twentieth century, they had increased in power and inclusiveness until they achieved a tolerance outside their circle of believers. At the core of this creed is an account of cosmogony and evolution, which is based on scientific research that is conducted in conformity with the principles of scientific materialism. Traditional nature religions posit that the nature of our existence in the world is determined by forces and agents to which only the priests have access and can manipulate. In scientific materialism, scientists and engineers have assumed the earlier role of the priests and sorcerers who know and control the mysterious forces of nature.
Scientific materialists are committed to the tradition of science and characteristically display considerable confidence in the authority of science and in its future progress. The noble ideal of this doctrine is that the march of science will proceed to an increasingly complete and flawless understanding of the universe, and through the resultant control of the natural world, science will provide solutions to humanity's problems. The most optimistic of these proponents go so far as to suggest that scientific knowledge of the physical world will be essentially complete in the near future. [37]
Modern science was originally conceived of as the pursuit of absolute, certain knowledge of the natural world, as this ideal is expressed in the writings of Galileo and Newton. However, as science matured, many scientists have relinquished their claims to absolute, certain truth as old scientific "truths" were successively modified or abandoned and replaced by new theories. In this regard, a religious creed may be said to differ from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, while science is always tentative and open to eventual modifications in its present theories. Astute scientists are aware that their methods are incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration. Scientific materialists, in contrast, tend to hold onto their metaphysical principles with all the tenacity of religious believers. Just as medieval theology took the most general principles as its starting point, so did scientific materialism begin with large metaphysical assumptions and not simply with particular facts discovered by observation or experiment.
The origins of scientific materialism are permeated with theological beliefs; this doctrine was founded with ideals that were largely religious in nature; and it has traditionally been defended on theological grounds. In addition, this creed has drawn converts from other religions, and it attempts to fulfill the religious needs of its followers; and, like many other religions, it demands exclusive allegiance. It is therefore misleading for its devotees to present it as an antithesis of religion, when in reality it is a modern kind of nature religion.
Endnotes
[23] William James (1890/1950) pp. 290-91.
[24] Ibid., p. 322.
[25] Cited in Arthur Koestler (1967) p. 5.
[26] John B. Watson (1913).
[27] Cited in Arthur Koestler (1967) p. 5.
[28] Ibid., p. 7.
[29] Cf. A. J. Ayer (1946) pp. 90-94.
[30] B. F. Skinner (1974) p. 4.
[31] Cf. Paul M. Churchland (1990a) and Stephen Stich (1983).
[32] Cf. Dudley Shapere (1982).
[33] Edward O. Wilson (1998a) p. 65.
[34] Ibid., p. 68.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Ibid., p. 64.
[37] Cf. Stephen Hawking's comments in Renèe Weber (1986) p. 208; Richard Feynman (1983) pp. 172-3.