Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Topic

physicalism

Eric Holloway at Mind Matters News: Can the “physical world” be wholly physical? Physical at all?

The Epicurean philosophy of pure physicalism is attractive to many but the logic of it, followed consistently, refutes itself. Read More ›

At Mind Matters News: Why physicalism is failing as the accepted approach to science

Essentially, panpsychism offers a way for scientists to address human consciousness, as currently understood, without explaining it away as an illusion. It would allow us to say that if Zombie-Jane existed, she would be missing something critical that Jane has (and so does everything else, to some extent). Whether that makes panpsychism a better explanation of reality than idealism or dualism is a separate question. Like all points of view, they have their own issues but the Zombie isn’t one of them. Read More ›

Michael Egnor: Materialist science is like driving with the parking brake on

Egnor: None of the good philosophy being done today is being done by any materialist. That is that whatever good philosophy is being done, and there is some, is being done by people who at least in part reject materialism. The good part of their philosophy is the part that rejects materialism. Read More ›

Philosopher Angus Menuge on why traditional physicalism isn’t really working

The shift toward emergentism will probably begin to affect debates over evolution. Evolution theories based on physicalism will likely face challenges from unexpected quarters. Read More ›

Mind vs Matter: the Result of an Error of Thought

(I think we’ve corrupted KF’s thread long enough.) The entire problem of mind/matter dualism is rooted in a single error of thought: the reification of an abstract descriptive model of experience into an causal agency independent of the mind that conceives it and the mental experience it is extrapolated from. It is similar to the same error of thought that mistakes “forces” and “physical laws” and “energy” as independently existing causal agencies, when in fact they are abstract models of various mental experiences. All experience and all thought about experience takes place in mind, regardless of whether or not it is caused by something external to mind. Therefore, “an external, physical world” is a mental abstraction about mental experiences. Insisting Read More ›