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that seems to not have any basis in the physical at all and yet it exists
If it has no basis in physical reality, how would you detect, measure or quantify it? On what basis would you prove its existence?
I mean, if spontaneously every person on Earth heard a voice in their head say "I'm God and I love all of you, be nice to each other" in their own languages, but no physical evidence of the event could be found, that could count.
Possibly. Let's revisit the issue if that ever comes to pass.
Except that's a pretty material event. If thing A interacts with thing B there is a material thing happening between them, which can immediately be measured and quantified.
It wouldn't help that such an event happens only once, but you'll still have 8 billion data points to draw a conclusion from.
Assuming that the universe actually exists outside ourselves and that our perceptions can be explained by some set of rules (that we call "physics") seem like necessary axioms to get anywhere in science. You could reject those assumptions, but then I don't see much of a compelling reason to accept anything beyond solipsism if you don't believe in reality.
That said, I'm not sure that physics will ever be able to provide a good, complete explanation of qualia.
What about biology? What if one day a neurologist finds the brain part that creates the illusion you're not just a brain?
Of course it can. We are biological machines. Not every machine is perfect copy of another. Differences in the organs that perceive the world will lead to subjective experiences. There's no "mystery".
So the thing is, like other commenters have said, you're asking metaphysics things through the prism of science, which does not work because by nature, science uses the (mostly) objective scientific method, while metaphysics is based on subjective assessments.
You have to separate the physical, material universe as being in the domain of what can be known, from the rest, which can not be, and never will. This does not mean it doesn't exist, just that it can never be studied or proved in any way, so anyone can believe what they wish about it without leaving rationality (as long as the belief does not imply things concerning the material universe)
Any reason to doubt physicalism?
Describe "doubt" in purely physical terms.
Not sure what you are talking about. Science isn’t philosophy or religion, you can’t make choices what’s true or isn’t. A fact is a fact.
"Has anyone found a viable alternative to falsifiable hypotheses?"
I think it is possible, logically at least, to have gods, free will and souls even if everything were physical matter, unless you define those terms specifically to be metaphysical but then its like a True Scotsman fallacy.
Physicalism might be the most viable, but that does not mean its viable enough. There are huge holes - we have no explanation for consciousness, sentience, free will, physics still doesn't explain everything physical, and quantum mechanics is such a weird aberration of physical matter I am tempted to not call it that.
However, nothing beats the scientific method for truth finding at the moment. And, at the moment, the scientific method is content with only giving us physical results.
I mean, that living beings have no consciousness, sentience or free will totally distinct from inanimate objects would be the simplest hypothesis, and is also what the models predict.
True, but its contradictory in a way to our own experience. From its nature, I can only speak for myself. I can believe that everything outside of me, including humans, have no free will or sentience. No contradictions there. However, I cannot believe that I myself am not sentient - it just doesn't make sense. I must be sentient. I dont hâve a good argument, its just that its so obviously true.
True, that is the big hang up. If you absolutely require some kind of transcendental otherness to your own mind, and most people do, then there's an unavoidable disconnect with science.
I think the framing of questions like this assumes that there are certain “physical” things that follow one intrinsic set of laws, and certain other things that follow a fundamentally different, incommensurate set of laws.
But we don’t actually have direct knowledge of any intrinsic laws, physical or otherwise—the best we have are a set of purely provisional laws we’ve made up and regularly revise on the basis of cumulative evidence. And our method for revising these provisional laws requires that any new evidence that contradicts a law, invalidates it—provisional laws must apply to everything without exception. If we give ourselves the out that contradictory evidence can be attributed to “non-physical” causes, we can never invalidate anything nor update our models. So dualistic models are inherently unscientific—not because they’re wrong, but because starting with such assumptions is incompatible with the scientific method.
this seems more like metaphysics, or philosophy than actual science, this would be more appropiate in that discussion. you odnt want to mix religion into science.
It also depends how you define physical matter.
If it's something you cam touch, then there definitely is, starting with neutrinos.
If you mean particles we know about, can describe and sort of understand, then there's dark matter, which is probably particles we don't know yet, but have several candidates we didn't manage to confirm or disprove yet. They can only interact by gravitational (and perhaps weak?) force.
If you mean something we know at least something solid about, there's dark energy, which isn't absolutely 100% certain that it exists, but is widely accepted.
If you mean something physics doesn't detect and try to explain, then obviously not.
Basically, there's a little wiggle room left in our current model of the universe, but not much, and absolutely nothing close to human-scale. Dualism is nowhere to be found - we can observe the mind breaking or operating physically - and Idealism better be indistinguishable from materialism to work.
I hear that “Oh actually the science is moving away from materialism” as well, but that seems to be more crystal talk as well.
Yep. The grain of truth here is that materials at really small scale look quite different. At small scale, and in a specific, rigorously defined way. I don't want your crystals or dog THC, Karen.
“Huh well that seems to not have any basis in the physical at all and yet it exists”
Observed particles behave different.
No they don't. Or, maybe, depending on what you mean by "observed". A consciousness doesn't have to be involved in any case.
Double slit experiment?
"observing" means interacting with.
Of course interacting with something changes how it behaves. It's in the name.
The Dual Slit Experiment doesn't actually work that way
This is completely incoherent.
Matter doesn't even exists. Only energy and fundamental forces, as far as we know.
Umm, I thought there was the concept of antimatter. No?
In the sense philosophers mean it, that's still material. A visible chunk wouldn't even look or act different until you graze a few atoms and explode.