 We have to start from scratch because we're biased. Entertain the idea that all your beliefs about the world are wrong. You've been dreaming your whole life and you've just awoken in the real world. You don't know how anything works. You don't know what types of things exist. All you know is that you're having sensory experiences. You feel things. This is, in effect, a newborn's mindset. Intrenched concepts have not yet been formed about anything. There's just an awareness. A kind of structureless stream of feeling devoid of any theoretical understanding of what's going on and for what reason. Then the process of understanding begins. We've developed theories. X exists and it's separate from Y and it seems to cause Z. Or, I see something and when I touch it I get this experience of pain. Let's call the thing a stove. The location of my pain, my hand. Sometimes touching the stove doesn't hurt my hand so the pain must only come when it emits this warm feeling. Thus a conceptual connection is formed between a stove, heat, hands, and pain. This is one way to illustrate the following essential point. We develop theories to best explain the phenomena that we experience. This point cannot be overemphasized. Our theories are constructed for the purpose of sensibly explaining our experiences. This process continues as we keep learning. We gain conceptual tools about the world, ourselves, objects, feelings, people, animals, etc. Our default intellectual position cannot presuppose a set of conclusions about the world. We can't be physicalists or idealists, atheists or theists by default. The only theoretical knowledge we can universally presuppose is logically necessary truths. Everything else is open for doubt. I say this because in the West the presupposition of physicalism is almost universal. The concept that everything that exists is essentially within space-time. It seeps into our theories by default. But we mustn't let it. We have to be aware of our own concepts. The existence of physical space-time is a theory which is constructed to best explain the phenomena that we experience. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the physical world is only a concept. I'm saying our conception of the physical world as an explanation for the phenomena that we experience may or may not accurately depict reality. Now I have a positive strong belief in the existence of the physical world because the theory best explains the phenomena that I experience. The idea is extraordinarily powerful and persuasive. But I won't treat the concept as true by default. It's logically possible that the physical world doesn't exist. So that being said, I don't believe that the existence of a physical universe is sufficient to explain all the phenomena that I experience. I'd say it's epistemologically insufficient and the desire to be fully sufficient forces me to expand my theory. Of course we need to lay out some definitions. First, an unsatisfactory definition of physicalism. It is the theory that ultimately everything is physical. And well, what do we mean by physical? This is a difficult question to answer and I don't think a precise definition exists. So here's one attempt. Physical means fundamentally constituted by particular states of the four-dimensional universe. Now, there are different types of physicalism but in this article I will focus on so-called reductive physicalism meaning that every phenomena is fully explained by and reducible to the fundamental truths of physics. So we have to be careful. It might be tempting to say everything is fundamentally reducible to bits of matter matter being understood as extended substance but that definition wouldn't leave room for nonparticular phenomena like gravity and it also wouldn't explain the fabric of space-time itself. Empty three-dimensional space is still physically existent but it's not made up of bits of matter. We use certain conceptual terms to reference physical phenomena mass, shape, motion, charge, force, momentum, etc. And according to the theory, all other phenomena that humans perceive whether biological, mental, spiritual, psychological, etc. these are all reducible to the basic laws of physics. Just like we perceive objects as independent things, as I've said before, like chairs they're ultimately explained by their constituent particles. Explaining the phenomena of a chair is identical to explaining the phenomena of all the individual particles constituting the chair. So consider how we might construct, apply, and expand our theories within the physicalist framework. Let's say you look up at the sky every night. What do you see? There's little points of light moving ever so slightly overhead. And without knowledge of modern ideas, a non-physicalist might say something like the lights overhead are from the gods. They oversee and guide the action of humans. Depending on the arrangements of the lights in the sky it will affect how your life is experienced. Of course, this would be an astrologist. And the physicalist might say, ah, no such nonsense. The lights appear to be spheres of light, either lodged in the firmament above or extremely far away from us. There's no reason to add anything mystical or divine to them. Then to explain the movement of the stars, the physicalist might track their paths in the sky and create a model to predict their future movement. A likely result would be something like Ptolemy's system which made remarkably precise predictions about the motion of planets in the sky except it assumed that the Earth was stationary and at the center of the solar system. This is not a grave error, however, when you think about the reason that we construct theories. What experience did Ptolemy have to think otherwise? He didn't experience the motion of the Earth spinning and hurtling through space. It felt stationary to him. Only until other astronomers came around and gained more experience did the theory need to change. Only upon the experience of a phenomenon not compatible with the Ptolemaic theory did we get heliocentricism and knowledge of elliptical orbits. So given the conceptual toolbox of Ptolemy, you cannot satisfactorily explain what Galileo observed in the early 17th century, the changing phases of Venus. His conceptual toolbox, if you will, needed to expand to be able to explain what would otherwise be unexplainable. However, no great error lies with Ptolemy or early geocentrists who merely held a wrong belief. It lies with people who clung to geocentricism after experiencing phenomena that are incompatible with their theory. The dogmatists who refused to change their concepts about how the world worked. The point of this example is not to talk about astronomy. It's to show the relationship between our theories, our experiences, our concepts, and the appropriate justification for expanding our toolbox. So how does all this relate to physicalism? Well, it's simple. The conceptual tools of physicalism do not fully explain all the phenomena that we experience. Specifically, the phenomena of conscious, subjective awareness of qualia in the philosophic jargon. Regardless of how precise our physical theories, it appears that conscious awareness cannot be fully explained by the concepts of physicalism. Our toolbox has to expand. Take this example. Consider the humble stove. Imagine a pot of water is boiling on top of it. We can fully explain this phenomena that we're experiencing. We simply needed all the laws of physics. There's no information loss, meaning that our experiences are completely explained by the categories and concepts that we're using. If you had a perfect understanding of all the positions of every atom, including all the relevant physical forces, you would have a complete explanation of what's happening on top of the stove. Now imagine instead of a pot of water, you placed your hand on the stove. The heat transfers to your hand, the pain shoots up your arm, and electrical signals fire throughout your brain. Imagine you had a complete physical explanation of the phenomena, just like the boiling water. Would you have any information loss? Would anything remain unexplained? I think so. How the pain feels to you in your subjective awareness. The awareness or feeling of experience itself is a phenomenon that is left unexplained by physicalist terminology. We can imagine an identical scene with a robot placing his hand on the hot stove. The heat transfers, the electrical signals fire, and it seems at least plausible to imagine the mental awareness not existing, which would imply that physical and mental are two separate categories, just like a camera snaps pictures without any experience of seeing the picture. So let's get down to the real core of the issue, the brain. Everybody at least acknowledges the extremely close correlation between physical brain states and mental mind states. If physicalism is true, then it necessarily implies the following. There is no difference between physical states and mental states. They are 100% identical. Descriptions of physical states fully communicate all the information present in any particular phenomena. So here's a concrete example. We've discovered in neuroscience that the experience of pain is correlated with the firing of group C nerve fibers in the brain. The physicalist says that the firing of group C nerve fibers is the same thing as the experience of pain. They are identical. There is literally no other phenomena taking place and no more information to be communicated. If the experience of pain is not 100% identical with the firing of group C nerve fibers, if there's any information that's not captured by this explanation, then we must admit some kind of non-physicalism, as referencing the experience of pain would not be referencing any physical state. Let's contrast this again with a boiling water on a stove. Say that you had perfect knowledge of each atom's location and state. You knew all the physical laws and all the particular magnitudes present in the scenario. Would there be any information lost? I don't think so. Knowledge of the physical state gives you perfect theoretical knowledge with nothing missing. We don't need any other conceptual tools than the physicalist provides. But think for a moment about the peculiarity of the phenomena of consciousness. We acknowledge that the universe is composed of a bunch of inanimate stuff, matter, energy, forces, etc. None of these constituent particles are conscious. It doesn't feel like anything to be a particle or a wave according to a physicalist. Yet, in this one specific location in space, we get an entirely unique phenomenon, a first-person experience, a subjective perspective, a point of awareness about something. So to be clear, when you assemble unconscious, third-person, life-less matter, just right, out pops an absurd phenomenon. We go from bits and forces moving around to somebody being aware of something. And the question naturally arises, why should third-person phenomena ever be coupled with a first-person experience? Or as the philosopher David Chalmers puts it, it is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis. But we have no good explanation of why and how it's so it rises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does. Chalmers also concludes that there must be a metaphysical category difference between subjective and objective, between mind and matter, first-person and third-person, conscious and non-conscious. Or as he says, consciousness is fundamental. Even if you knew the position of every atom in the universe in every possible physical detail, a perfect description of third-person phenomena will never give you all the theoretical information about a first-person experience. There's going to be information loss, or so it seems. Though I admit things would be a lot easier if humans were simply unaware robots or unfeeling clumps of matter if we didn't have to deal with our consciousness or apparently being inside the universe, whatever that means, then we wouldn't need to expand our vocabulary. But that isn't the case. Just like the geocentrists, we have to expand our theories if presented with phenomena that we cannot fully explain. I'll give you a couple more examples, highlighting the apparent difference between physical and mental. Consider a chess game. What's going on? You have two people, a wooden board, some pieces, tables, a chair. When I reference a chess game, what am I talking about? So imagine we took a strictly physicalist approach. The entirety of a chess game is explained by the motion of wooden pieces on a wooden board. If you knew the location of all the bits of matter on the board and all the neural activity in the brains of the participants, you would have a full explanation of what a chess game is. There would be zero information loss. This explanation, I think, this is the entire game of chess. Chess is not something physical. It isn't something to be scientifically understood by examining space-time. It's a mental phenomenon. It has to do with a relationship between rules, concepts, and logic. The rules aren't physical. The concepts aren't physical. The logic isn't physical. In fact, monks have played games of chess without a board or pieces. Entirely in their minds. When explaining their neural activity really give you a full explanation of the phenomena that they're experiencing, it seems doubtful. The most satisfactory explanation includes both the physical and the mental. Yes, there are physical correlates in a chess game, usually a board, pieces, hands, etc. And certainly there's lots of neural activity in the participant's brains. But the real meat of chess is mental. You cannot possibly think that you understand the phenomena of chess only through empirical physical examination. Further strengthening the case for non-physicalism, we can use this new metaphysical category to place all kinds of other peculiar phenomena. Awareness is not the only inhabitant of the mental world. Concepts, too, have a real existence, but they're not spatial. The number three, for example, is a concept, I'd say, but it doesn't weigh anything and it isn't located in space-time. Persons, or beings, too, seem to occupy the mental world. We, persons, we're not fully reducible to our constituent physical bodies. Now, where the boundary is, if any, for a person is an article for another time. Consider another methodological problem. What tools does the physicalist bring to the table to examine the phenomena he experiences? Naturally, he brings his physical senses. The objects of his scrutiny will be, by precept position, physical. So what does the physicalist conclude when viewing a chess match? Simple. The same thing he concludes when seeing pool balls be broken on a table. There's nothing to see, nothing to explain except for the physical phenomena that you can examine. And I think this is a methodological flaw. By presupposing that all existent things are essentially physical, it closes the door to any proof otherwise. It's like a colorblind scientist who keeps hearing people talk about the amazingness of different colors, but because he can't see them, he concludes that there's nothing going on but nonsense and superstition. If you keep your methodology open and don't presuppose physicalism from the start, then what evidence might you accumulate to strengthen the case for non-physicalism? Well, I think it's all around us. Internal experiences are essential to being a human being. We need only to introspect to become aware of them. If you don't assume that pool balls and humans are fundamentally constituted in the same way, then there's a mountain of evidence supporting the idea that conscious living things occupy a different metaphysical category than unconscious matter and energy. But as I said in the beginning, our biases run deep. We're used to looking for external evidence. Testing, measuring, feeling, sensing, etc. But internal phenomenon can never be discovered this way. They aren't spatial. They will appear non-existent from the outside, just like a physicalist only sees a chess game as wooden pieces moving on a board. The physicalist might respond, okay, what Steve, so you're giving some special existence to humans and animals? Come on, we should assume that everything in the universe works the same way, not some special pleading case for our corner of the cosmos. And to which I would respond, yes, of course that's what I'm doing. Keep an open methodology, observe conscious things, and you might do the same. Awareness is the most absurd phenomena in the universe by a mile. Consider one last thought experiment. Imagine that you were born blind, deaf, and quadriplegic. Your entire life had consisted of minimum sensory experience, perhaps even all of them being hallucinatory. Let's say your visual sensory input is just an amorphous blob changing color. Now your job is to create theories to best explain the phenomena that you experience. Conceptually, would you even posit the existence of a physical world at all? Could you even come up with a coherent concept of what three-dimensional space is like? It seems plausible to imagine somebody's worldview not including a theory of space-time. However, it is impossible for somebody's theory not to include the presupposition of internal awareness. In other words, as it relates to our theories about the universe, the concept of three-dimensional space is in extreme circumstances optional, while the concept of conscious awareness is not optional. It's necessary. This is the degree of skepticism we should have about our foundational presuppositions. If it's possible to doubt the existence of the external world, then we must not treat the concept as necessary. It's natural to ask the question, well, what's the alternative to physicalism? Don't alternative theories have their own problems? And the question is important, but crucially, it's a secondary question. We should be able to recognize a theory as not true without needing to commit ourselves to any particular alternative. But that being said, I'll just share a few basic alternatives to physicalism without making the case for or against them. Number one, idealism. Idealism is the opposite of physicalism. Instead of saying everything is fundamentally physical, it says everything is fundamentally mental. This idea is especially popular in Eastern philosophy, which roughly thinks that our minds construct the world around us. Number two, dualism. Dualism takes the middle ground by saying physical phenomena exist and mental phenomena exist, but neither is reducible to the other. And right now, I am most persuaded by this option, though, of course, it comes with its own set of problems like how do categorically different phenomena interact with each other. But in a later article, I'll make the case for dualism, specifically why I call myself a reluctant dualist. Number three, panpsychism. The panpsychist position is easy to dismiss, but it actually holds remarkable explanatory power. It says that all physical states also contain mental states within them. So in other words, they might actually disagree with the idea that there's no such thing as feeling like an electron. To the contrary, they might say that the recipe for consciousness is present throughout every bit of matter in the universe. You might say this was the philosophy of Pocahontas. Number four, neutral monism. This is a theory I'm becoming more persuaded by. It simply says that yes, physical phenomena exist, and yes, mental phenomena exist, and neither is reducible to the other, but neither is fundamental. There's a kind of third substance which contains both the properties of mental and physical in addition to some way of unifying them. So the purpose of this piece was not to make the case for any alternative to physicalism. It is quite simply to say physicalism does not contain all the tools necessary to explain the phenomena we experience. Our theoretical toolbox must expand. Just how much we need to expand the toolbox? I don't know, but I'm open to suggestions. If you like the sound of these ideas, if they resonate with you, then make sure to subscribe. And if you want to help create more content like this, then check out Patreon.com slash Steve Patterson, and you can help support the creation of a more rational world view. To read this article or to learn about my books, check out Steve-Patterson.com.