There are only three fundamental ways to view human consciousness and mind:
a) Materialism: everything is only matter and energy, there is no spiritual or immaterial realm. your mind is what your brain does. This is the default belief of all atheists and many scientists.
b) Dualism: humans are a combination of a material body/brain and an immaterial soul or spirit. The mind has a brain but is more than a meat computer. This is the default position of most religious people, even if they don't express it.
c) Idealism: all of reality, including humans is immaterial, there is no matter or "real world" aside from ideas or thoughts in our entirely immaterial minds. This view takes some getting used to but is strongly held by many, and especially some religious people.
Those appear to be the only possibilities. Each of these views exists in various forms, differing only in subtleties, but all versions of any one have the same basis. Many people have critiqued materialism as inadequate to account for the whole of reality, so I won't go there right now. Instead, in this post I will critique idealism.
Idealism as a theory of mind or human consciousness arose from several philosophers, notably Berkeley, Hume and Kant. they correctly explained that we never perceive or interact directly with the world or "external reality", but rather, solely through our senses, nerves and brains; that is, only via sensations or signals coming into or leaving our minds. We do not know the "real world", whether it exists at all, or what it is truly like. The only thing we know for certain and thus, all that for sure can be said to exist is our thoughts and ideas! Hence idealism: only thoughts and ideas are real, everything else is an illusion! While initially difficult to absorb and counter-intuitive, idealism is unfalsifiable - it cannot be disproved, even in principle. Nevertheless, my intent here is to offer some counterarguments to undermine the claim that idealism is the best way to explain all of reality.
My previous post on "mental reality theory" was a first attempt at doing that. Since then however, I have studied idealism, especially through a couple of chapters by Bruce L. Gordon in the book Minding The brain, in particular, Chapter 20, which is free to read at: https://www.discovery.org/b/minding-the-brain/ The chapter is extremely dense and an ambitious undertaking, collecting concepts from various sources to apply to the author's idealist thesis. Gordon offers arguments from quantum physics, neurology and psychology, as well as philosophy and theology. My critique will therefore look at each of these in turn.
Gordon claims that quantum research demonstrates that, at the most fundamental level, matter does not exist. Based on the famous dual-slit and quantum-eraser experiments using photons, electrons, atoms and even molecules, when physicists dig down, subatomic particles are not real; they are just uncertainties, superpositions and probabilistic wave functions. As Gordon writes, "Unobserved quanta do not exist anywhere in space ... apart from measurement." And, "There are no mind-independent microphysical substances." The perception of reality occurs when an observing mind collapses the wave function. Yet even then, the "reality" is only in the mind, "none of the superposed states are materially substantial — they are mere phenomena ... of conscious awareness", Gordon says.
This unreality builds up to the macroscopic scale of supposedly real physical things and the entire external world. In our "phenomenal experience" everything we think we see, feel, hear, smell around us is just immaterial ideas, including our own bodies and brains. The perception in the mind is merely mental activity (ideas). So we think we interact with what is around us, when in truth, there is nothing physical and we are just minds thinking thoughts and exposed to ideas. Moreover, there is no physical causation because matter does not exist. Rather, all events and seeming physical occurrences are just mental perceptions of the phenomenal reality in our minds. As I said, this takes some getting used to, but it is consistent when you think it through.
Gordon places a lot of weight on quantum physics: concepts like Heisenberg uncertainty, superposition, entanglement, the measurement problem and even Schrodinger's cat, to get where he wants. I have some non-expert doubts in places about his usage of these, with unsubstantiated logic leaps and seeming hand waving assertions. For example, yes, small macroscopic quantum superpositions are possible; e.g. with care these quantum effects can be seen in large molecules. But the larger the objects become, the more fragile they are to set up, display, measure and maintain in those states! So the quantum nature fades as things get larger, shifting toward our classical physics of real physical objects, fields, interactions and causes! Yes, there are uncertainty and probability at the subatomic scale, but as things get larger, the statistics of large numbers comes into play, those uncertainties shrink and the probabilities tend toward certainty and solidity at the collective level! Gordon can't hide behind uncertainties at the microscopic level to claim nonexistence at macroscopic scales!
As an analogy, a cloud is real and exists even if you cannot identify its molecules and edges precisely! A gold atom exists and has mostly well-defined properties, whether I observe them or not. And together with many other such atoms, makes up my wedding ring, for example, which is very real and well defined to 99.99+% certainty; close enough to unity for all practical purposes. And so, despite microscopic uncertainty, real macroscopic objects do exist and seem to interact causally, notwithstanding David Hume's (and Gordon's) concerns about induction and causation.
Moreover, the wavefunction is just a model of the quantum state, and is rarely determined mathematically for anything real, anything beyond simple subatomic examples. And those wavefunctions must be collapsing all the time without any measurement or human observation; as during the myriad fusion reactions occurring inside the sun for example.
Even if we accept the view that "matter = fields = quantum information = thought", that does not mean matter does not exist! Not knowing everything at the micro level does not mean knowing nothing, and statistical properties of what we do know or can assume lead to valid knowledge at the macro level, which fits our observations or measurements except in extreme cases. Moreover, models of physical cause and effect work for the most part, so how can it all be mere mental illusion? Why have a complicated illusion of physical reality if there is no such thing?
Along the way, Gordon shifts into philosophy and so I have some philosophical doubts as well. For instance, are physical laws mere human descriptions of reality or the actual laws governing it? Quantum theory, despite its predictive and explanatory accuracy, is a model or description of reality, not necessarily its controlling prescription. Quantum outcomes may be indeterminate yes, but they are still highly constrained and are predictable within limits! For example, the carbon atoms in my cells are mostly fixed in place, each one with six electrons nearby, used to bond to other atoms. Without that arrangement and assurance, chemistry (and my body) wouldn't work!
Moreover, the apparent need for an "observation" to collapse the wavefunction is rather vague. What level of observation is needed one wonders, a detailed science experiment, a casual glance by any human (or non-human), or God himself? Also, what size or level of observation is sufficient: atomic, cellular, macro, or cosmological? Science studies what exists in the natural world and how things interact. If all of that is unreal, what value can be placed on any scientific findings?
One major concern of mine is Gordon's invoking quantum mechanics to demonstrate that physical reality does not exist! He's using materialist quantum physics and lab experiments using material apparatus on material entities, including biology and neuroscience to bolster a view that entirely denies material existence and matter! Am I the only one to see something fishy with that? How can quantum physics be used to show that quanta do not exist? How can exploring matter at the deepest levels produce the claim that matter does not exist?
Gordon includes some neurological arguments as well, saying, "the phenomenology of our brain-states is subject to empirical study just like every other aspect of experiential reality". "The neurophysio-logical correlates of our phenomenological experience are subject to proximate causal analyses." (Try saying that five times!) For instance, a damaged or chemically changed brain can affect the access, control and perception from the immaterial mind, since they correlate with each other. He goes on, "In the brain-coupled state, memory is stored in neuronal configurations subject to less-than-perfect information-retrieval." Does brain function involve coherent quantum information processing? Gordon thinks yes, referring to analyses and theories on how to apply quantum effects to neurons and cellular processes in the (phenomenological) brain. This seems to me to be a tangent, unimportant to the idealism thesis. Basically he is trying to explain how the illusion of having neurons and a brain can work consistently in an idealist world.
A robust idealism without God seems to be impossible; Berkeley, Gordon and others sooner or later call upon God to get idealism to work, so we now move into the theological/metaphysical. God is needed to provide coherence and continuity to the phenomenological world we experience together. Mere human minds cannot observe everything all the time, so Gordon writes, "Causal closure is achieved by a transcendent immaterial cause that is always active, not by contingent postulations introduced in a futile effort to make nature autonomous." Hence God's role is to maintain the phenomenological world we experience in our minds! Moreover, "all causal appearances in inanimate nature simply are the result of divine action," says Gordon, tying it together with, "Theistic informational idealism and theistic conscious realism thereby seamlessly unite as corollaries of theistic quantum idealism."
In short, without God's presence, the world would not exist when we are not watching, and even our watching is incomplete and distorted, yet the world seems solid and stable to us, all via God's thinking. To me, including God in the background, yet without his clear presence to us -- as perhaps through direct mental contact -- seems dodgy and self-serving for idealists; rather like magic or slight of hand. Gordon goes on to claim a Biblical warrant, with, "God is the one in whom we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28), and "the one who is before all things, and in whom all things hold together" (Colossians 1:17). I somehow doubt that Gordon's interpretation is what St. Paul had in mind in those passages!
The following seems to be how reality works in idealism. The human mind is an individual immaterial substance, separate from others, yet fully known to God. Each human mind has memories, personality, abilities, language, thoughts, etc. all collected through life. This sequence describes how things happen in this mental-only reality:
1. a human mind has a thought or intent and decides to "act", with only a mental output.
2. God knows the human's thought, understanding it completely and instantly.
3. God adds his own models and constraints about "reality" to accommodate the human thought, including his models of any physiological limits of sensation or control that the human has. He also accounts for other "natural" processes and other humans' thoughts and intentions.
4. God combines all these inputs into his resulting changes to the adjusted "reality" model; the complete set of modified mental states for all involved.
5. God sends the resulting relevant reality attributes as perceptions, back to each human mind accordingly, as thoughts (that is, perceptions, impressions, sensations). He adjusts the perceptions for each perceiving mind's (human or otherwise) particulars.
6. the human mind then perceives what "happened" in that event from his own mental perspective, having received the mental feedback from God.
7. then the clock ticks onto the next set of unsynchronized thoughts and mental states, looping forever to maintain the experience (and illusion) of reality!
This step-wise process of idealist causation seems grossly unparsimonious and hugely inefficient: all actions and perceptions occur indirectly through God, in the background, and unknown to us. What is the purpose of this complex, distorted, indirect, and delusional imaginary material world? If mental substance is everything, why not simply have a mental world, with direct mental interaction among participants, divine, human or otherwise? Other doubts and questions arise; for instance, how finely divided must be this control loop to support the ongoing illusion of humans acting together in a real material world: every second, millisecond, or Planck time steps?
Notice that, in this idealist scheme God does ALL the nitty-gritty work according to our every thought and intent, to synchronize the phenomenal reality we experience with his model and our every non-material perception and action. That seems to put God at our beck and call, making God our puppet, thereby inverting our roles! Moreover, God's ongoing reality adjustments directly enact ALL the sin, harm, damage and degradation in the world! He becomes the true author, directly responsible for all natural disasters, sickness, accidents, violence, murders and other evils! And of course, it definitely seems as if God is deluding us, as in The Matrix movies; the world we experience is not real, just a complex detailed mental illusion!
Does God really control every quantum interaction in the Universe, while carefully maintaining the statistical, probabilistic nature of their wavefunction collapses? Controlling every hydrogen atom in space and every fusion event in every star! Is that part of his plan and role? It all seems boring and pointless to me. How is the idealist model better than a dualist model of a real, existing, material world having multiple autonomous actors (some immaterial), true physical causes and effects, and with God elevated to his proper director and supervisory role, befitting his ultimate power? Just asking!
Regarding the neurological, it is well known that human physiology limits, constrains and distorts our senses. We cannot see infrared, ultraviolet, in the dark, or behind us. Our hearing is non-linear and of limited frequency range. In addition, our muscles have limited strength and range of motion. Why should the non-material phenomenological experiences imposed on us by God apply such constraints and inabilities? Why provide human minds with distorted, incomplete, faulty interfaces in a mental-only reality? Again, why this elaborate delusion for human minds?
Getting back to quantum theory and the double-slit and quantum-eraser experiments, there is another seeming contradiction. If the wavefunction only collapses when observed, while God is observing everything, why doesn't the wavefunction collapse when God sees it, even if we don't? How can both be true? If God knows and sees everything, how can quantum superposition and coherence happen at all in a lab experiment? It feels like Gordon is pulling the quantum wool over our eyes to draw us into his thesis, which seems unreasonable and surreal to me.
Finally, I have problems with Gordon's dismissal of dualism, and his doubtful arguments against it. Genesis 1 says, "and God said let there be ... and there was ...": to BE is to exist, to become real! A material reality came into existence at God's word! So an immaterial God can and did create matter. Gordon's argument from parsimony -- one real substance instead of two (matter and spirit) -- is quite unconvincing given the convoluted unparsimonious model required to operate his illusory immaterial idealist universe.
Clearly I do not buy into idealism. However, I am not entirely against Gordon's perspective. He makes good arguments against materialism for instance, and some of his related explanations are helpful. However, in my opinion material reality exists whether it is being watched by us or not! But then I am also biased: I remain a dualist! And now I feel the need for another post defending dualism! Stay tuned.
