Why I Am Not a Materialist

There is a rumor going around the internet that I am a “materialist”.  This seems to have started with David Klinghoffer, a senior fellow with the creationist organization the Discovery Institute.  On their website “Evolution News” (which generally contains very little  actual news about evolution),  he writes in reference to my ongoing debate with Michael Egnor, “(T)he question before the (sic) Faizal Ali and Michael Egnor is whether the mind, with its power of abstract thought, can be fully accounted for just with reference to a physical organ, the brain. Ali thinks so — as a materialist, he would have to do so….” And in a more recent article he continues to imply that my disagreement with Egnor is motivated by a prior commitment to “materialism” (though I will say that his analysis of the reasoning behind my choice of banner art is bang on.)

For his part, Michael Egnor himself, while at least acknowledging my denial of the label “materialist”, does not seem to be convinced of my sincerity, writing “Psychiatrist Dr. Faizal Ali, who claims not to be a materialist (but plays one on the internet), clings to materialist theories of abstract thought despite the powerful scientific evidence against materialism as a theory of the mind.”  So it would appear a further explanation is in order.

First of all, what is “materialism”? The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy uses the term “physicalism”, which is probably more accurate as it encompasses things like forces, fields, and energy, which do not fall under the narrower category of “matter”, and defines it as follows:

Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on the physical. The thesis is usually intended as a metaphysical thesis, parallel to the thesis attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Thales, that everything is water, or the idealism of the 18th Century philosopher Berkeley, that everything is mental. The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don’t deny that the world might contain many items that at first glance don’t seem physical — items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or social nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such items are either physical or supervene on the physical.

The article then goes on to provide a very exhaustive discussion of the history of the concept and the various arguments that have been made for and against it. The discussion quickly becomes quite heady and, to be honest, beyond my limited familiarity with philosophy. Which brings us to the simplest answer to the question of why I do not consider myself a “materialist” (or, if you prefer, a physicalist): As I said in an earlier post, I simply do not have the background and training in philosophy to feel competent to commit to a particular position on this question. More to the point, even among those who are expert in this field, there remains no agreement on the question of whether all that exists is physical. So it would be quite presumptuous of me to take a position on this question. Not being a metaphysicist myself, on metaphysical questions I will defer to those who are, and wait for them to resolve the questions (if that is something they ever do).

Perhaps I would be wise to leave the issue at that, but I do have more to say. I see this entire question of “materialism” as a red herring in the debate between me and the members of the DI who are arguing for the immateriality of the mind. The reason is that this discussion is scientific in nature, and the scientific method is neutral on metaphysical questions such as whether physicalism is true. The specific question we are debating is whether mental processes can be fully attributed to brain processes, or whether they can only be fully accounted for by invoking “immaterial” processes or entities. Michael Egnor’s argument for the latter involves giving examples of observations that, be believes, cannot be accounted for if they are presumed to arise from the brain. His conclusions are wrong, in my opinion, for the reasons I have already discussed. But even if he was correct, this would still not demonstrate that immaterial factors are at play. For instance, it could be that our “higher” cognitive functions such as abstract thinking are the result of interventions by highly advanced alien beings, who are using physical processes unknown to humanity to influence our minds. If so, then this would still fall within the category of “physical.” In other words, even if Egnor had succeeded in demonstrating that not all mental processes can be brain processes (which he has not), he would still have a lot of heavy lifting left to do in order to demonstrate that these are due to “immaterial” processes.

And, by the same token, if one believes that all mind functions are fully explicable through physical brain processes, this does not entail the acceptance of materialism. There could still exist gods,angels, spirits, ghosts and other entities who may be non-physical. There is no contradiction between the two positions. It is a near certainty that many of the researchers who are convinced that they can discover the neural processes behind abstract thought also believe in an immaterial God.

All of which is to say I have no dog in the physicalism vs non-physicalism fight. I’ll leave that to the philosophers (who, if history is any indication, will continue to debate this until the the end of time). The same cannot be said of Klinghoffer, Egnor and the rest of the Discovery Institute, who have made it clear from the inception of their organization where they stand on this issue, and what they believe to be at stake. In the DI’s founding document, it is written:

The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built. Its influence can be detected in most, if not all, of the West’s greatest achievements, including representative democracy, human rights, free enterprise, and progress in the arts and sciences.

Yet a little over a century ago, this cardinal idea came under wholesale attack by intellectuals drawing on the discoveries of modern science. Debunking the traditional conceptions of both God and man, thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud portrayed humans not as moral and spiritual beings, but as animals or machines who inhabited a universe ruled by purely impersonal forces and whose behavior and very thoughts were dictated by the unbending forces of biology, chemistry, and environment. This materialistic conception of reality eventually infected virtually every area of our culture, from politics and economics to literature and art

The cultural consequences of this triumph of materialism were devastating. Materialists denied the existence of objective moral standards, claiming that environment dictates our behavior and beliefs. Such moral relativism was uncritically adopted by much of the social sciences, and it still undergirds much of modern economics, political science, psychology and sociology.

Materialists also undermined personal responsibility by asserting that human thoughts and behaviors are dictated by our biology and environment. The results can be seen in modern approaches to criminal justice, product liability, and welfare. In the materialist scheme of things, everyone is a victim and no one can be held accountable for his or her actions.

Finally, materialism spawned a virulent strain of utopianism. Thinking they could engineer the perfect society through the application of scientific knowledge, materialist reformers advocated coercive government programs that falsely promised to create heaven on earth.

In my business, we have a word for Egnor and Klinghoffer’s attempts to portray those who disagree with them as blinded ideologues. That word is “projection.”