scientisim

Physicalism: Does it really have explanatory power?

Physicalism–the view that the human body is wholly physical–claims to have better explanatory power (and indeed, the only explanatory power) than other world views. Is this really true?

One way to defeat such a claim is to show that physcalism does not actually have such a monopoly on explanatory power. I believe that dualism offers just such a defeater:

The main argument I have against physicalism (and hence, for dualism) is that there are things in existence that physicalism cannot account for. These things include, but are not limited to:

1) There is causation. Physicalism essentially seems to claim that a thought or an idea, an emotion, is identical to the cause. In other words, touching part of the brain with an electrode, which triggers a sensation, IS the sensation. What physicalism then states is that things are not responses to emotions, they just are the emotion. But that is seemingly false, for all that is proven is that the mind is causally connected to the brain, not that they are identical. There is no part of the brain, for example, that is a memory. It may be shown that one can cause a memory to occur with stimulation, but that only proves that some memory (B) is caused by some firing of a neuron (A). But A is not B.

Take, for example, the idea within physicalism that love is the chemical reactions and neurological firings in the brain: love (B) is caused by chemicals (A). To say that the chemical is love is not true, for a chemical is ontologically different from an emotion—consider this example: if I conceive of a pink elephant, does that mean that whatever neurons need to fire in order to bring that thought into my brain are indeed a pink elephant (Moreland, 234)? Or do they merely cause the image of a pink elephant to appear? Likewise with any real object or imagining. These things are not physically contained in our brain, nor are they actually the chemicals or neurons themselves, they can simply be caused by such mechanical things. That does not make them identical. A may cause B, but A is not B.

2) Self-presenting properties. There are things that present themselves directly to the subject, and are considered wholly mental in nature. Things like love, the experience of red, thinking that three is an odd number—these things are directly present to a subject because that subject has them immediately in his/her field of consciousness. Two evidences exist for these properties: the first is that one can have private access to mental properties, but not physical properties… and the second is that one can know at least some of one’s own mental properties incorrigibly. People can know things themselves that they cannot be wrong about. In other words, I can know without question what the color green appears to be to me. No one else can know that.

3) The subjective nature of experience. This is called the “knowledge argument.”  This one is something that is hard to explain without using an example (ty to J.P. Moreland for this). Suppose there is a deaf scientist who is the single leading expert on the neurology of hearing. It would be possible for him to know and describe everything involved in the physical aspects of hearing… yet not actually have knowledge of hearing itself. This experience is essential and subjective. It is also outside of the realm of physicalism to explain.

4) Intentionality. We can have an ‘ofness’ or ‘aboutness’ with our action that is inexplicable through physical needs. “Mental states have a directness that is intrinsic to them (Moreland 237).” In other words, many mental states are of or about something: fear of something, thoughts about something, etc. Now, there doesn’t seem to be any way to reduce something such as a thought about something to a physical explanation. In other words, the ‘aboutness’ of a thought defies physical explanation.

These are just a few arguments against physicalism. There are a couple more that could be made, but that would make this longer than I think it needs to be. Further, each individual kind of physicalism is subject to a wide array of critiques.
Moreland, J.P. & William Lane Craig. “Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview.”