Scientific Materialism and its humbling implications
What I want to achieve through this post is to inform my readers about the prevailing scientific materialist worldview and probe some of its soul-crushing philosophical implications.
Note: The ‘scientific materialism’ being discussed here should not be confused with the more colloquial understanding of materialism, i.e. the conspicuous pursuit of material goods.
Most of my readers may be dispassionately familiar with the doctrines of materialism to one extent or the other, but I doubt many will be aware of its accompanying philosophical baggage. Though materialism may be the prevailing world-view among scientists and philosophers, complete acceptance of materialism can only be accomplished through an overhaul of some of our most strongly-held intuitions about free will, agency, meaning, and the organisation of our societies.
Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental aspects and consciousness, are results of material interactions.
That’s the Wikipedia definition, let me re-frame it this way. Materialism is the simple contention that the universe is a three-dimensional isolated system, with initial conditions and boundary conditions fixed at the beginning of time, and everything that has transpired since has been governed by the laws of physics. This means that anything that has happened or will happen at any point in time is purely a result of particles interacting with each other according to physical laws.
It might sound extreme to my readers without a scientific background, but this has been the prevailing world-view in scientific circles ever since the Enlightenment. In fact, you wouldn’t have been taken seriously if the theory you proposed in order to explain some phenomenon had a non-materialist component.
But what are the implications? Why should you and I care about what physicists in chalk-covered tweed jackets discuss in their ivory towers? You see if materialism is indeed sacrosanct, it overthrows some of the most basic intuitions humanity has organised itself around.
Like the problem of grounding in ethics. Some background before I continue — broadly there are 2 types of claims, empirical (descriptive) and moral (normative). Empirical claims assert that such-and-such IS the case; and moral claims assert that such-and-such OUGHT to be the case.
Empirical claims do not require grounding because they are simply descriptions of the world. But moral claims are non-falsifiable, and if they do not have any objective ground to rest upon they can be attacked endlessly. Since every known philosophy of ethics relies upon a moral claim at some point in its structure, lack of objective grounding slowly but surely leads to a descent into the confused hellhole that is moral relativism.
Given that in a materialist universe, we are just a collection of particles bouncing around without any grand plan or purpouse, it follows that any moral claims (and hence moral philosophies) we come up with are bound to be entirely arbitrary. Thus, ethics is reduced to a subjective social agreement that only survives if members of said society agree never to question the underlying moral claims. Thank god regular people are too dumb to understand materialism, else we would never be able to converge upon a uniform moral code.
Next, I will explain why the notion of free will — something every reader holds so dear — is nothing but an illusion *evil laugh*.
When we concede that the universe evolved from a certain set of initial conditions (the Big Bang) and that its evolution has been governed by physical laws alone, every event since can be computed given complete information about the initial state. This implies quite obviously that you, whatever ‘you’ are, do not have a say in what the future is going to turn out to be. Any thought you have, any decision you make, even the next word out of your mouth was all scripted at the time of the Big Bang. It is part of a chain of cause-and-effect events tracing all the way to the beginning of time. The next thought you have will simply be the consequence of an electrochemical response generated by your neurons in response to the state of the universe at this moment. If I have complete knowledge about the state of the universe (including your neuro-physiology) at time step (t0), then I can predict your response at time step (t0 + 1). Just like when a tap is opened, we can simulate the motion of every molecule of water for eternity, with accuracy limited only by knowledge of the initial state.
This means you no longer possess any agency whatsoever, in fact what even is ‘you’? Why get out of the bed in the morning, not that it matters of course — whether you do or not has already been predetermined. Realise that every time you feel you are making a decision, or delaying gratification, or owning up responsibility, that it’s all an illusion. You are no conscious agent, you are simply atoms in motion along for the ride.
Technical side-note: I don’t mean to say that the universe is purely deterministic. It is true that random events occurring at a quantum level cannot be predicted, but it is still unclear how this would manifest into macroscopic ‘forks in the path’. Either way, since these quantum events are truly random, they cannot be influenced by anything or anyone. Thus, we end up with the same conclusion of ‘you’ having no effect on the outcomes of the future.
This clashes head-on with the strongest intuitions we possess about ourselves. It feels patently absurd for me to sit here and tell you that all those moments in your life when you felt the deepest sense of agency and free will — like when you made a sacrifice for a loved one, or when you stood up to a bully, or when you asked out that guy/girl you really liked — was illusory and that you are but a fool to think you deserve any credit. Sorry though, that’s the buy-in for scientific materialism *shrugs*.
No free will means no moral accountability either. That may even be a good thing. Your wrath may be rendered pointless, since the object of your anger simply could not have done otherwise. Any punishment therefore would be determined merely on the basis of deterrence, i.e. to prevent future negative outcomes. But if anger is no longer justified, neither is gratitude. Why be grateful to the person who drove you to the airport if they were only doing it because physics had a gun pointed to their head?
An interesting thought experiment (credits: Me) –
If tomorrow a mathematician publishes a proof that free will does not exist, and communicates it to the world clearly enough that everyone has no choice but to believe it, what would happen next? The world would likely descend into chaos and anarchy, because people would no longer be bothered to show up to work, or pick up their kids from school, or obey the rule of law. In this case, should the mathematician choose not to publish his/her proof? Does s/he even have a real choice in the matter?
Buy into materialism and you need to reject the concept of God and an eternal soul; realise that your life has no purpose other than any you choose to manufacture; recognise that there is nothing special about humans over bugs (or even AI); and many more. But enough cognitive dissonance for a day.
Not to worry though, materialism is only a theory. We are after all speculating based on incomplete information. Our models of the universe don’t fit perfectly yet; the jigsaw puzzle is yet to be fully pieced together. We keep encountering weird empirical phenomena that require spirited intellectual gymnastics to explain materialistically. It is certainly possible there may be more to the nature of reality than three-dimensional matter, and science is starting to open up to this possibility. Because let’s face it, no one wants to have to give up free will.
In conclusion, here are the implications of scientific materialism. Do with them what you will. If you worship materialism; or hard atheism; or think that compatibility with materialism is the prerequisite for any direction of scientific inquiry, you should be aware of and willing to embrace the soul-crushing implications.
Stay tuned to find out my personal kooky non-materialist views on this topic.
