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Don Salmon's avatar

Excellent article and I have a number of questions and points to raise

1. As i understand it, you rightly reject the observer effect. Now maybe I’m drawing a wrong conclusion, but it seems that even if one accepts every point you made - the universe or “matter” or whatever is “physical” is ultimately indeterministic, non local and irreducible - I don’t see how this necessarily requires the rejection of physicalism.

2. While all of these observations about the implications of quantum physics are helpful, did we ever “need” the philosophy of materialism/physicalism (I’ll use “physicalism” from here on to simplify things)? There never has been any evidence that something purely physical exists; it’s always been a philosophic, non empirical speculative idea. Why not start with this - the notion that the scientific method of focusing on measurable aspects of sensory experience does not in itself confirm or deny any philosophic perspective - and then consider, what are universally accepted aspects of the universe (the experienced universe, that is, the only universe we actually know) which need to be explained, and then compare - what philosophic outlook more comprehensively explains that experience - physicalism or a non physicalist view?

Since physicalism, as I understand it, explains nothing, it seems if #2 was sufficiently spelled out, we’d find that physicalism is the worst possible philosophic foundation for science.

In his book, “The Experience of God: Existence, Consciousness Bliss,” David Bentley Hart presents h is “Vedantic Christianity” and in fact, comes to this exact conclusion - there has never been a philosophic outlook, in all of human history, that is as utterly incoherent and nonsensical as naturalism (his umbrella term for materialism/physicalism - sometimes he refers to it as “mechanical naturalism”)

As Hart is one of the most brilliant writers alive, as far as I can see, it seems his views are worth considering.

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