The Atman, Part 3
Part 3 of 10: We Need Not Fear Immateriality
In Part 1 of this series, I proposed two “mind-blowing” questions:
1. “How is it that I’m me and you’re you?”
2. “How (and why) does consciousness exist at all?”
I went on to argue that science alone can never answer either of these questions. I am quite convinced of this. But why do so many people disagree? Daniel Dennett, David Chalmers, Colin McGinn, Thomas Nagel, Galen Strawson, Steven Pinker, Sam Harris, Annaka Harris, Roger Penrose, John Searle …… they all think that consciousness is only a scientific phenomenon, in one way or another. Why do they think that?
I have four answers to this question: 1. Some people have difficulty comprehending the two “mind-blowing” questions, 2. The progress of science has led people to believe that nothing can be beyond science, 3. People are afraid of a “slippery slope”, and 4. Some of them are just biased, plain and simple. Let me address each of these in turn.
1. Some people have difficulty comprehending the two “mind-blowing” questions.
I often bring up the two “mind-blowing” questions with people. Sometimes, their answers reveal that they don’t understand the questions. If they say something like, “Well, I’m me because I was born — what’s so hard about that?” then they don’t really get it. Honestly, I think that a sizeable fraction of all the people in the world (regardless of their intelligence or degree of education) have a really hard time understanding the meaning of those two questions.
In fact, I think my own father doesn’t understand them. I often bring up these philosophical topics at the dinner table with my parents. My dad usually rolls his eyes — mind-blowing questions are not his thing. When I ask him, “How is it that I’m me and you’re you?” he seems to think that it’s a stupid question, and his answers reveal that he doesn’t really get it. (By the way, my father is a very intelligent person. Just because someone has a hard time with these questions doesn’t mean they’re dumb. My dad has much better organizational skills, leadership skills, interpersonal skills, and decision-making skills than I will ever have. But I am better at philosophy than he is.)
But I shouldn’t be surprised that my dad doesn’t get it. A lot of people don’t. To be sure, I have no way of knowing exactly how well the average person understands these two “mind-blowing” questions, but I do know that I’ve spoken with quite a few people, including some very smart people, who do not understand them.
However, in the world of academic philosophy, most people do understand the meaning of these two questions. If they decided to become professional philosophers, that means they must have a talent for thinking clearly about these sorts of abstract, confusing questions. In their case, the problem must be something else, most likely a personal bias (see #4, below).
2. The progress of science has led people to believe that nothing can be beyond science.
I realize that in the 21st Century, the idea that something is beyond the realm of science has fallen out of favor. It seems like a relic of the Middle Ages. And it’s understandable that people feel that way.
In the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries, there were countless instances in which some phenomenon was generally considered to be unexplainable (and that only God could ever understand it), but then scientists shocked the world by explaining it scientifically, without any references to God or to anything immaterial or supernatural. Examples include the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Lavoisier, Wohler, Pasteur, and most importantly, Darwin. As the centuries have gone on, science has grown exponentially, and more and more gaps have been filled. In the modern era, theoretical physicists, neuroscientists, and computer scientists are the three groups of scientists who have broken the most ground to expand the domain of science and to explain things that were previously assumed to be unexplainable by science. In fact, it seems that every time in history in which someone claimed that something is beyond science, they were ultimately proven wrong. Thus, it seems natural to conclude that nothing can be beyond science.
But if you take a step back and think about it, you can see that that line of reasoning is fallacious. Just because science can explain many things does not imply that it can explain everything.
It would help us to remember the purpose of science. Science is a tool that can be used to explain how things work in the physical world. The development of science was largely motivated by two factors: curiosity and practicality. Some scientists (like Isaac Newton) were just curious about how the world worked, while others (like Jonas Salk) were more acutely aware of all the benefits that science could provide to society. But for either motivation, it was simply intended to be a tool that can explain the workings of the physical world. There was never any reason to think that it has to be able to explain every single phenomenon in our lives. In fact, the early pioneers of science, such as Isaac Newton and Antoine Lavoisier, never would have thought that it could.
Think of it this way: let the totality of reality be a big square. Let science be a little bubble within the square, and the bubble is growing, like in the computer game “Filler”. In 1500, it was only a tiny bubble. In 1700, it was ten times bigger but still very small. In 1850, it was another ten times bigger. Finally, in 2020, it is a massive bubble that takes up ninety percent of the square, since most topics now fall under the domain of science (whether directly or indirectly). The bubble has been growing continuously for centuries, but there’s no reason to think that it will ever occupy every single point inside the square. It would be a very tall order to think that it would.
As such, the idea that something is beyond the realm of science is not such an absurd idea after all. Science is a remarkable tool that has answered innumerable questions about the world and that has improved the quality of life for just about everyone on earth. But there are a handful of things that it will never be able to explain, and the mystery of consciousness is one of them.
3. People are afraid of falling down a “slippery slope”.
Let’s take a look at the people who promote the view that consciousness is beyond science. What else do they promote? Honestly, a lot of them promote specific religious doctrines which I think they take too seriously. For example, Christian apologists like Richard Swinburne and William Lane Craig, both of whom argue that science cannot explain consciousness, also argue that Jesus rose from the dead, that hell exists, that God is all-powerful, that we will still have our bodies in heaven, and other traditional Christian doctrines. Meanwhile, the new-age author Deepak Chopra also considers consciousness to be beyond science, and he is an advocate of alternative medicine, as well as of a long list of pseudoscientific theories which most of us could identify as BS.
Unfortunately, this gives people the impression that if we admit that some things are beyond science, we would fall down a “slippery slope” after which we might become devout scholastic Christians like William Lane Craig or pseudoscientists like Deepak Chopra. In fact, I think that the case for immaterial consciousness is sometimes ruined by its own proponents, because they choose to connect it to ideas that most people can’t take seriously (e. g. the resurrection of the body or alternative medicine). Thus, it seems that if today, we decide that consciousness is immaterial, then tomorrow, we’ll be advocating faith healing, astrology, and a literal interpretation of the Bible.
But that’s not really true. In reality, it is possible to admit that consciousness is immaterial without going on to endorse pseudoscience or specific religious doctrines.
First, let me point out that most “slippery slope” arguments are false. In fact, the idea of the slippery slope is a logical fallacy and is roundly criticized as such.
Furthermore, if you want proof that one can reject a scientific explanation of consciousness while still maintaining a healthy skepticism towards religious doctrines, you can look at my own views. I believe that consciousness is beyond the realm of science. I also happen to believe in God (I was raised Catholic). But let me tell you some of the things that I do not believe in:
I do not believe that God is all-powerful. I do not believe that God knows the future. I do not believe that a miracle has ever occurred, at least not in the traditional, literal understanding of the word “miracle”. I do not believe that Jesus was the Son of God, nor do I believe that he rose from the dead, nor do I believe that his crucifixion had any theological significance. I do not believe that the Bible was divinely inspired. I do not believe that praying for something makes it happen (at least not in the supernatural sense). I do not believe in hell. I do not believe that anything supernatural happens during religious rituals. And finally, I do not believe that the Catholic Church is infallible.
(Please keep in mind that I am only expressing my own views. You don’t have to agree with anything I just said. Everyone is welcome to have their own opinions.)
But as you can see, I don’t take the doctrines of Catholicism very seriously. I guess I would best be described as a non-denominational theist. After thinking it over, I don’t think I can really call myself Catholic anymore, although I do still believe in God. Hence my identity as a “non-denominational theist”.
Anyway, my own personal religious views prove that believing that consciousness is immaterial doesn’t mean that you have to become a dedicated Christian. It doesn’t even mean you have to believe in God (although personally, I do believe in God). All it means is that you have to admit that the mysteries of consciousness lie beyond the realm of science — because they probably do.
4. Some people are just biased, plain and simple.
The above three factors make it seem like physicalists are merely misunderstanding the concept. It seems like an innocent misunderstanding. But in reality, it’s not. In addition to the misunderstanding, there is also a bias at work. Physicalists are biased against the idea that something can be beyond science.
Physicalists are, by definition, atheists. If you think there’s nothing beyond science, then obviously, you don’t believe in God. And in my opinion, that comes with a certain bias. I think that most atheists have biases against certain ideas that they don’t like, even when these ideas are not directly connected to religion.
To be fair, not all atheists are the same. They are a diverse group of people. Some atheists, like David Chalmers, are thoughtful, nuanced, and respectful, while others, like Richard Dawkins, relish in mocking religious people. But what most of them have in common is a bias against non-scientific explanations for anything at all. Even when you’re talking about the most abstract and “mind-blowing” questions in philosophy, they seem to think that science must be the sole answer.
The majority of atheists consider the idea of an immaterial locus of consciousness (a. k. a. an immaterial soul or Atman) to be something that could only be plausible in the pre-scientific era. They assume that whenever there is a question, science is the answer. But that’s just their own personal bias.
In reality, there is no good reason to assume that science has to cover everything in the universe (see #2, above). There is no reason to dismiss the idea that some phenomena in the universe are beyond science. And when you examine the peculiar and mysterious phenomenon of human consciousness, I think there are good reasons to conclude that it is indeed a metaphysical thing, not a scientific thing. Meanwhile, it seems to me that the atheist philosophers often bend over backwards to insist that consciousness is scientifically explainable, in spite of all arguments to the contrary. And I think that is evidence of their bias.
Their bias is especially evident in their support of panpsychism. In Part 1, I estimated that I am 95% confident that consciousness is beyond science. But my confidence in panpsychism is less than 0.01%. I think it is highly unlikely (see Part 2). You might not agree with my estimate of 95% (perhaps I made it too high), but I think most of us would admit that the possibility of consciousness being beyond science is more likely than the possibility of panpsychism, which is the theory that holds that all particles in the universe possess some degree of consciousness. I think panpsychism is an absurd idea, and I feel very confident that it is not true.
But there are a lot of panpsychists. Thomas Nagel, Annaka Harris, Galen Strawson, Philip Goff, David Chalmers — they are all panpsychists, at least to some extent. Most of them are also atheists, and they dismiss the idea that consciousness is beyond science.
But take a step back and think about that. They dismiss the idea that consciousness is beyond science, but then they endorse panpsychism, the theory that holds that atoms and molecules are conscious. That is evidence of a bias. If they are so desperate for an answer that they resort to the absurd theory of panpsychism, but they never consider the possibility that consciousness is immaterial, then that means they have a bias against the idea that something can be immaterial.
Of course, I have a bias, too. I want it to be true that consciousness is beyond science. But at least I admit to the fact that I have a bias.
If someone could look at this issue with a truly unbiased mind, I think that they would be open to the possibility that consciousness could be immaterial. They might not endorse that view completely, but they would give it serious consideration. They would certainly consider it to be more likely than panpsychism, which is an absurdity.
Other parts of this series:
Part 1: Consciousness is Beyond Science
Part 2: Responding to Counterarguments
Part 4: Definition of the Atman
Part 5: Brain, Soul, Self, Atman, Mind
Part 6: The Views of the Philosophers
Part 7: [under revision]
Part 8: The Atman is the Definition of Life
