A Quantum of Hubris

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A Quantum of Hubris

how know-it-all materialists block scientific progress

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

November 25, 2023

In a recent tweet, I made what I took to be an obvious claim: namely that the disdain for human consciousness that is implicit in the myopic materialist approach to mind has its correlate in sciences other than neurology and psychiatry. Physicists like Stephen Hawking, for instance, have gone to great lengths to explain the non-intuitive outcome of the double-slit experiment without reference to consciousness. Hawking viewed the inclusion of consciousness in physics as such a non-starter that he has proposed the existence of endless universes to render such consciousness superfluous.

This grasping for materialist straws takes place in life science as well, resulting in equally extravagant hypotheses, like the doctrine of Panspermia by Francis Crick, according to which the extreme improbability of life being created by random accident on Earth is explained by an appeal to the interposition of extraterrestrials. We're told that highly advanced aliens seeded the Earth with the necessary chemicals to begin the cascade of "endless forms most beautiful" that we see about us today. No conscious creation was called for - at least not on Terra Firma. (Presumably, the aliens lived on a planet wherein biochemical conditions were "just right" for the transformist doctrine of Lamarck to hold sway without violating any laws of staggering improbability in so doing.)

Theories like these may sound like long shots. (You might even say that they make a mockery of the principle of Occam's Razor.) But not to worry. If they turn out to be false, then Neil De Grasse Tyson has a theory that will settle all questions once and for all in favor of consciousness-scorning materialists. For the Harvard-trained astrophysicist assures us that we could very well be living in a Matrix-like simulation, in which case all our concerns about consciousness and aliens is absolutely meaningless. Only our eternally unknowable overlords can have access to the true state of affairs - provided, of course, that those overlords are not themselves being duped into thinking that they are calling the shots by a yet higher (and yet smugger) intelligence.

Surely these viewpoints would be considered laughable by scientists did they not help account for the seeming anthropic nature of the universe, which in the absence of such speculation, might have to be referred to purpose and meaning.

But materialists tell me there's no problem here: materialism ¹ is proven, they say -- even if this proof has been accomplished with the help of a variety of totally incompatible theories!

So I should not have been surprised when an indignant materialist shot me a prompt reply to the above-mentioned tweet about quantum physics. He begged to assure me that there was no disagreement about the interpretation of quantum physics whatsoever, thank me very much, and that science has, indeed, conquered all - or at least was on track to do so.

I replied as follows: "We will have to agree to disagree because I am not going to even attempt to debate the niceties of quantum physics on Twitter." In retrospect, however, I consider that response to have been "too diplomatic by half" (as the Brits might say). Is not Richard Feynman himself on record as saying: "Anyone who claims to understand quantum theory is either lying or crazy"?

Of course, I am not a physicist and I claim no special knowledge on this subject. However, the extravagant claims of consciousness-scorning materialists do not depend on scientific evidence but rather on philosophical assumptions.

Take for instance this 2023 comment by physicist Martin Rees in "The Conversation":

Our universe is suspiciously unlikely to exist—unless it is one of many.

That's obviously true, right?

Wrong. This statement is true only if we assume the philosophy of naturalism, which tells us that all explanations must be physical explanations, that we can never talk about purpose or meaning in nature if we want to be scientific.

So let's not mince words. Here is what Rees is really saying, given modern scientific assumptions:

Our universe is suspiciously improbable, given that (as we all know, wink-wink) things just happen in life randomly and without purpose, although according to causal laws.

To which I respond:

Hey, Martin: the existence of our universe would not be half so suspicious if, in some sense, our universe was actually meant to be. But then talking about meaning in life is a good way to get yourself slandered as a flat-earther in today's scientific community.

The same naturalist scorn for consciousness that informs physics is also at work in the fields of pharmacology, psychiatry and neuroscience. This is why drug researchers are deaf to anecdotal accounts of positive drug experiences, whether in the past or present. Consciousness is not a reliable scientific subject, after all. Researchers want feedback that can be added to PowerPoint presentations and Excel Sheets. When I tell them that laughing gas ² would help me as a chronic depressive, both because it makes me laugh and it gives me the anticipation of laughter which naturally boosts my mood, they will shrug uncomprehendingly. Like Sergeant Friday of Dragnet, they want just the facts, ma'am, which in science these days means "the measurements." It's as if researchers believe that they must channel Dr. Spock from Star Trek in order to be a REAL scientist. This is behaviorism with a vengeance.

My point here is that the reigning scientific ideology of materialism informs all the sciences these days, and in so doing renders scientists blind to the obvious. In terms of the Drug War, it deafens them to reports about godsend medicines. In terms of the life sciences, it blinds them to all signs of teleology, i.e. purposeful causation.

It was in response to that latter blindness that American philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote "Mind and Cosmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false." In that 2012 challenge to reductive materialists, Nagel chided the latter for their intolerance toward proponents of purpose in nature, referring to their scornful treatment of two Intelligent Design theorists (Michael Behe and Stephen Meyer) as "manifestly unfair."

This is another reason why I did not want to argue online with the naysaying Twitter critic mentioned above. I have learned (to my cost) that most materialists have nothing but scorn and ad hominem attacks for those who believe that there may be purpose in life. The discovery for me came close to ruining a family gathering in 2020.

Such self-avowed "objective scientists" fail to see that the non-materialist is not challenging the science of the materialist, but rather their interpretation of that science.

For materialism has its own very specific dreary beliefs about the meaning of life, namely that there is no meaning whatsoever.

As molecular biologist Francis Crick puts it in his 1994 book "The Astonishing Hypothesis":

"You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."

To which I respond:

"Why should I take your word for this, Francis, given that you yourself are just a vast assembly of nerve cells and molecules?"

If this essay seems a trifle disjointed, it's probably because I've never been challenged before on the topic of scientific limitations (that plus the fact that I'm not exactly Hieronymus P. Shakespeare, of course ). But I think it's always hard to write about something that one feels is obvious to any sane mind. If you point at a cat and say, "That's a cat," what do you say if a seemingly intelligent person disagrees with you? You could attempt to describe the generic appearance of cats, talk about the Platonic form of cats, the absence of canine characteristics, etc. But you'd be scouring the word closet for second-best declarations after your usual go-to statement had failed to establish the intended identity.

It all comes down to belief. I freely admit that I believe there is a purpose in life.

If they were honest and fair, materialists would counter that they believe in meaninglessness.

Then we could both agree to disagree.

The problem is, materialists are blind to the philosophical assumptions that underlie their theories, and so they do not merely say that they believe in meaninglessness, which would be honest and admirable. Instead they say that the world is meaningless and that science has proven this to be the case.

It's ironic therefore that such materialists tend to badmouth philosophy, for their theories about the world only make sense in light of their own commitment to an unspoken philosophy, namely that of reductive materialism.

Author's Follow-up: November 27, 2023

follow-up on essay by the Drug War Philosopher

If you want to understand the materialist myopia of modern science in the west, read Alfred North Whitehead. He exposes the western world's schizophrenia on the subject of reality. We see the world of invisible electrons as the real world and consider sense perception to be mere secondary qualities -- whereas the lived life sees the world the other way around. This is the fundamental origin of the psychiatric trope that you have to treat the "real" problem, and not just make the "patient" feel good. According to this theory, who cares if the depressed laugh while using nitrous oxide -- that's just a "crutch." No, the real problem can only be solved with microscopes and MRI scans. This is ultimately why, in the west, we would rather see a depressed person commit suicide ³ than to allow them to use drugs that "merely" make them want to live.

January 1, 2025

In other words, behaviorism rules, so tough luck for common sense psychology.

Materialism

Notes:

1: How materialists lend a veneer of science to the lies of the drug warriors DWP (up)
2: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
3: Why Americans Prefer Suicide to Drug Use DWP (up)

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I could tell my psychiatrist EXACTLY what would "cure" my depression, even without getting addicted, but everything involved is illegal. It has to be. Otherwise I would have no need of the psychiatrist.

First we outlaw all drugs that could help; then we complain that some people have 'TREATMENT-RESISTANT DEPRESSION'. What? No. What they really "have" is an inability to thrive because of our idiotic drug laws.

There are plenty of "prima facie" reasons for believing that we could eliminate most problems with drug and alcohol withdrawal by chemically aided sleep cures combined with using "drugs" to fight "drugs." But drug warriors don't want a fix, they WANT drug use to be a problem.

If Fentanyl kills, then alcohol massacres. The problem is drug prohibition, not drugs.

Typical materialist protocol. Take all the "wonder" out of the drug and sell it as a one-size-fits all "reductionist" cure for anxiety. Notice that they refer to hallucinations and euphoria as "adverse effects." What next? Communion wine with the religion taken out of it?

Opium is a godsend, as folks like Galen, Avicenna and Paracelsus knew. The drug war has facilitated a nightmare by outlawing peaceable use at home and making safe use almost impossible.

Here's one problem that supporters of the psychiatric pill mill never address: the fact that Big Pharma antidepressants demoralize users by turning them into patients for life.

This is the "Oprah fallacy," which has led to so much suffering. She told women they were fools if they accepted a drink from a man. That's crazy. If we are terrified by such a statistically improbable event, we should be absolutely horrified by horses and skateboards.

Many psychedelic fans are still drug warriors at heart. They just think that a nice big exception should be carved out for the drugs that they're suddenly finding useful.

"There has been so much delirious nonsense written about drugs that sane men may well despair of seeing the light." -- Aleister Crowley, from "Essays on Intoxication"

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Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.

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(up)

A Quantum of Hubris

how know-it-all materialists block scientific progress

Author's Follow-up: November 27, 2023

January 1, 2025

Materialism

Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US

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