Topic: The Misery and Arrogance of Physicalism, e.g. this Fig-article.

Thanks, Felix Bölter and here's my reaction. Unfortunately, I can't post a comment there because it's only for paid subscribers... How I hate that. Btw, if I haven't overlooked anything, you haven't yet defended either the moral realist + naturalist thing, nor Sam Harris's denial of free will in the determinism debate. Is that still coming, or are you passively admitting defeat? ;)

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It seems your friends at the party were remarkably wise, and your irritation stems from a rather arrogant—and ultimately flawed—defense of a crumbling paradigm. You claim that physicalism isn’t the "lazy default, but rather the position best supported by evidence and most consistent with scientific methodology." However, right out of the gate, your argument conflates two entirely different domains: methodology and ontology. Scientific methodology is a highly effective tool that is freely combinable with almost any metaphysical position. Physicalism, on the other hand, is an ontological position (not just a "notion," as analytical pedantry would rightly point out). Assuming that a methodological decision to quantify the world automatically proves a physicalist ontology is not science; it is ideology.

Furthermore, true physicalism regarding the mind must ultimately be eliminativist. If consciousness and the mind actually exist as we experience them, they are fundamentally irreducible to pure physics.

The "Evidences" that Aren't

You present five lines of evidence for physicalism. Let us look at them closely:

1. Neural correlates of consciousness.

2. The pharmacological effects of psychedelics.

3. Evolutionary continuity.

4. The developmental and deteriorating trajectories of the brain.

Points 1 through 4 are undeniably true. They are also philosophically irrelevant in this debate. Why? Because every single serious alternative you criticize (Dualism, Panpsychism, Idealism) fully accepts and integrates these facts. They are evidence of a tight correlation between mind and matter, which nobody denies. They do not, however, prove an ontological identity.

Your 5th point—the causal closure of physics—would indeed be the silver bullet, if it were actually evidence. But it is not. It is a dogmatic axiom. Stating that physicalism must be true because physics dictates causal closure is a textbook circular argument.

The Vitalism Fallacy and the "Hard Problem"

You argue that we should distinguish between an explanatory gap and an ontological gap, using the defeat of Vitalism as your historical analogy. But this analogy fails exactly where it matters most.

Urea is a material substance. Vitalism supposed that there was a special kind of material stuff that could only be produced by living organisms. That proved to be empirically false. But consciousness is not material stuff. Even if it were entirely dependent on matter (which is highly debatable), it still wouldn't be material stuff. The Hard Problem is hard precisely because it is an ontological gap, not merely an explanatory one.

Moreover, your historical framing is a bit skewed. Science didn't simply dismantle vitalism purely through objective breakthroughs; the mainstream shift away from it was heavily driven by the ideological rise of reductionist materialism.

Strawmanning the Alternatives

When dealing with the alternatives, you rely on caricatures:

• Substance Dualism: You wrongly attribute this to Plato and imply it is the natural stance of a Christian. Historically and philosophically, Christianity is deeply rooted in the bodily reality of both Christ and the human (hence the theological emphasis on bodily resurrection). Furthermore, the famous "interaction problem" of dualism is only fatal if one accepts strict causal closure. If one rejects that axiom, interaction can easily be hypothesized through chaotic or quantum effects in brain chemistry—a field (quantum biology) that is gaining serious traction.

• Property Dualism & Occam’s Razor: You claim these properties do no explanatory work and violate Occam's Razor. But they do explanatory work: they account for Qualia. The fact that they are not physically detectable in a quantitative way is the entire point, not a defect. As for Occam’s Razor: it is a notoriously subjective heuristic. Let us not forget that William of Ockham originally formulated his razor to argue for the existence and simplicity of God. What one culture or paradigm views as "the simplest explanation" is highly subjective.

• Panpsychism: You define it as the idea that consciousness is a "property of matter." Panpsychism actually posits that everything that is, is fundamentally psychical. You mention the "combination problem" as the ultimate nail in the coffin. But why is this a hard problem exclusively for Panpsychism? The exact same binding problem exists for physicalism: How do unconscious atoms combine to create unified consciousness?

• Idealism: You dismiss it as an "unfalsifiable notion." Metaphysical worldviews generally are—including physicalism. We can only judge them based on their plausibility, elegance, and logical coherence.

The Ultimate Irony: Wolfgang Pauli

Perhaps the most glaring misstep in your essay is quoting physicist Wolfgang Pauli ("not even wrong") to dismiss Idealism. Wolfgang Pauli was not a physicalist. In fact, he was in excellent company: Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, and Niels Bohr all explicitly rejected physicalism.

Pauli himself wrote: "My personal view is that in a future science, reality will be neither 'psychical' nor 'physical', but somehow both and somehow neither." (My personal view is that in a future science, reality will be neither 'psychical' nor 'physical', but somehow both and somehow neither). Pauli’s thinking was closely aligned with quantum mechanics and Absolute Idealism (reminiscent of Charles Sanders Peirce). Using Pauli as a champion for reductionist physicalism is historically tone-deaf.

Conclusion

You conclude that the proposed alternatives "don’t actually solve anything, let alone the hard problem." That is a far-fetched conclusion. The alternatives solve considerably more than physicalism does, precisely by relocating things ontologically and experientially in a highly productive manner.

To acknowledge this, however, one would have to actually read and engage with the relevant literature—think Alfred North Whitehead, Iain McGilchrist, or Galen Strawson—rather than fighting strawmen at a cocktail party.