Matter Verses Mind

Scotland's greatest philosopher, David Hume, was an atheist who claimed that he had no soul – for whenever he searched around in his own consciousness, he couldn't even find his own 'I', but only a shifting tangle of sensations, images and thoughts. And if you have no central 'I', then you have no permanent self, and what could possibly survive?

In the year 2001 – an excellent year for such a resolution! - I thought I would incautiously explore the present state of knowledge about God, the Universe and the soul. Is it true, as (we are told) 'most thinking people believe', that science has got it all wrapped up – so that there is no room for spirits, souls, or things of that ilk? My researches (recorded in Does It Matter? The Unsustainable World of the Materialists) surprised me. I was amazed to find how much room there is – how far the materialists are from disproving such notions.

What are the claims of materialism? Let's take the following three to begin with. (1) Consciousness arises from physical processes in the brain. (2) Since it is physical, and human beings are nothing but complicated machines, we shall eventually be able to manufacture consciousness in computers. (3) Consciousness in living things evolved out of dead, unconscious matter.

Let us take these three claims in turn. (1) If consciousness is indeed in the brain, its location there has never been found. Moreover, as contemporary philosophers have pointed out, no physical explanation has been found for the qualia. These are the 'feel' and 'look' of colours, sounds, textures, tastes, odours, bodily movement, pain, etc – i.e. the colourful world of the senses. It simply cannot be understood how these can emerge from mere physical brain processes. An electrochemical message can be identified in the brain conveying (for instance) 'Sense this as Red!' However, WHAT does this message do to WHAT so as to make WHAT experience the sensation RED? The answer is that none of these WHATS can be found in the brain, and the whole business of experiencing qualia is completely mysterious. Moreover there are about ten senses (not five as is conventionally supposed). Yet the brain processes related to each of them are all exactly similar. Not only can we not tell how any sensation arises into consciousness, but we have the further problem: how do you get ten different sorts of sensation, each more different that chalk from cheese, out of one same-type physical process?

(2) Computers can handle abstractions, i.e. things like numbers and words. But numbers and words are signposts, they are not the experiences they point to. So how could computers ever come to handle experience itself? And experience is the raw material of consciousness. (3) Large numbers of scientists and philosophers have tried to explain how, in the course of evolution, conscious experience might have emerged from pure unconscious physical process. I have examined many such 'explanations'. Every one is a fraud, to be compared to the stage magician's pretence of wizarding a white dove out of a hat.

In short, consciousness has no physical explanation. Moreover it looks as if physical theories are by their very nature incapable of providing one. This immediately suggests that consciousness and its contents are precisely that non-material element which we might identify by those mysterious terms 'soul' or 'spirit'. There is a mystery here which materialism cannot explain.

By the way, what is the answer to Hume's conundrum? Why couldn't he find his 'I'? Because of course it was his 'I' that was doing the searching. And how (as Indian philosophers long ago pointed out) can you see your own seeing?

Two of materialism's other major claims are: (4) There is no need for a Creator, because the Universe began by pure accident. (5) There is no need for an intelligent designer of life, because the whole process from its beginning to its present culmination can be easily explained by evolution.

(4) Well, let us take the calculation by Roger Penrose. The Universe is constructed out of all the forces in physics. If one is to produce a universe which contains life of our sort, then – at the point of its creation – all the forces of physics need to be very precisely fine-tuned. So fine is the tuning that the odds against a universe with life in it are enormous. These odds are one against a figure so large that, taking all the elementary particles in the Universe, and writing one digit on each particle, there are not enough of them to write the figure out in full. I take it that this makes the argument for an intelligent creator rather likely.

Materialists detest the evident conclusion that the Universe came into being through intelligent design. Their usual way out is to adopt the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Physics. This suggests (it is of course merely a theory) that every time a particle interacts with another particle, all possible alternative results occur. Each possibility creates a different universe. But this is mind-boggling. The hypothesis is that the Universe is splitting into uncountably many copies of itself at every instant, and has been doing so ever since its creation 15 billion years ago. How many universes are we expected to believe in? Despite its providing Science Fiction with many fascinating plots, is this not the most absurd theory ever proposed in the name of science?

Besides, it is a principle of science that, in proposing explanations, one should not introduce entities beyond the absolute necessary minimum (Occam's Razor, as it is termed). We might rewrite this as 'Do not introduce additional universes beyond the necessary minimum.'

(5) During my research, I discovered that there are problems with evolution. This both astonished and alarmed me. For here we reach the great Shibboleth, the point where most educated people stop listening. I must therefore utter two warnings. First, of course we know that the world is four and a half billion years old, and its denizens were not magicked into existence by Yahveh in 4004 BC. Secondly, of course evolution occurs. However it is easy to be convinced that evolution is not a total explanation.

For orthodox neoDarwinism has no room whatever for life forces or purposes. Evolution's epic upward struggle is a mirage. The entire pageant of nature has been produced by blind accident, by pure mindless chance. But is even four and a half billion years long enough for this? Let us read the physicist Paul Davies in The New Scientist (5.3.2005). He mentions careful calculations made by a contemporary mathematician: treating the Universe as a computer, how many 'bits' could it process throughout its known duration? His answer is 10¹²⁰. He then calculates that pure accident cannot account for the evolution of any typical small protein, since the number of possible combinations is about 10²⁰⁰. And that's just one small protein. There are thousands. How did they all evolve together, during the same period of time, against such enormous odds?

The problem is that, as biochemistry has recently discovered, the processes of life are almost infinitely complex and detailed. The astronomer Fred Hoyle and Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, both agreed that (in the light of these complexities) the timescale of the Earth was not long enough for life to have developed. Hoyle thought this showed the Universe must be eternal; Crick resorted to aliens from outer space! But neither solution works. For, if Crick is right, you still don't have enough time since the start of the Universe for the necessary aliens to have developed. If on the other hand Hoyle is right, and the Universe has existed for ever, then this provides infinite time; and infinite time allows everything possible to develop – including therefore beings of infinite power – 'gods' or their equivalent. He therefore hasn't avoided the materialist's bugbear, 'supernatural powers'.

David Hume thought the arguments for Intelligent Design were not persuasive. 250 years on, however, biochemistry and the mathematical laws of chance make it the most likely possibility.

What should we conclude? IF consciousness had been found in the brain – IF it could be put together artificially – IF qualia were explicable physically –IF the creation of the Universe could be ascribed to sheer chance – IF neoDarwinism could explain the complexities of living organisms – THEN it would be reasonable to profess materialism. On the contrary, however, I believe that the weight of evidence favours the reality of the soul, and a deliberately created Universe.

The materialist philosopher Jaegwon Kim writes, 'It is not obvious how positing immaterial souls helps us with our problems.' On the contrary, it's easy to see how it assuages everyone's most serious problem. It puts purpose back into the Universe, and meaning back into life.

© Graham Dunstan Martin, Aug 2006