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Has there ever been a viable alternative to the phsycialist model of the universe? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works to c/askscience@lemmy.world

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Physicalism or materialism. The idea that everything there is arises from physical matter. If true would mean there is no God or Free Will, no immortal soul either.

Seems to be what most of academia bases their world view on and the frame work in which most Science is done.

Often challenged by Dualism and Idealism but only by a loud fringe minority.

I've heard pan-psychicism is proving quite the challenge, but I hear that from people who believe crystals can cure autism

I hear that "Oh actually the science is moving away from materialism" as well, but that seems to be more crystal talk as well.

So lemme ask science instead of google.

Any reason to doubt physicalism? Is there anything in science that says "Huh well that seems to not have any basis in the physical at all and yet it exists"

Edit: I have heard of the Essentia Foundation and Bernado Kastrup but since it's endorsed by Deepak Chopra I'm not sure I can trust it

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[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Does an LLM have subjective experience? The characters in The Sims -- or the game itself? A thermostat? An ant colony, collectively -- separate from its individual ants? The entire country of, say, Honduras, collectively? A corporation? A database? Bacteria? A human skin cell? A tumor, independent of its host? A traffic jam? Grains of sand in an hour glass? A tree? A flea? A dog?

You are asking questions that seem unanswerable. In order to know whether something is having an experience, you'd have to first define what an experience is. Is it possible to define something that fundamental like that from the perspective of a biological machine for everything including non biological machines and everything in between? It's much easier to define particles than such fuzzy things.

Once you define them, you will have to conceive experiments to test whether those definitions are wrong.

Why is my perception of the color red the way that it is?

You are different from other beings. You are an amalgamation of mutations of your parents, your environment, your upbringing, your place in time and space, the contents of body, and everything else. There is no need to invoke something extra-physicalist to explain that.

[–] e0qdk@reddthat.com 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You are asking questions that seem unanswerable.

Yes! That is my point. I'm not sure that explaining qualia properly is possible from our limited vantage point in the universe -- even though I think there probably are actually answers to the questions I'm asking.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago

I content that the questions I quoted in my first part of the response are logically not answerable. It's not a matter of being unanswerable by physicalism.

There are other questions you posed in the second part that are answerable and they are answerable I the realm of physicalism without adding any other realms.