So, I've been thinking about materialism and determinism a lot; specifically I've been thinking about it since hearing a piece podcast by NPR's Radiolab wherein Robert Krulwich interviewed Brian Greene from Columbia University concerning multiple universes. Mr. Greene vehemently insists that the data which comes to theoretical physicists points directly to the conclusion (from varying angles, I might add) to his multiple universe conclusions. He also admits to at least two fundamental assumptions: one, that the universe is infinite; two: that the entirety of existence in the universe can be defined mechanically.
It's the latter assumption that had me thinking. Mr. Krulwich pushed Mr. Greene in the interview gently on this assumption, but it wasn't especially cogent to the purposes of their discussion. However, the nudging did lead Mr. Greene to assert that there is not any compelling evidence that the universe contains anything that we couldn't, theoretically, represent via physics -- in fact going so far as to say that physics is all there is, and that free will is an apparent illusion.
I'm not sure I buy that on the grounds that he is asserting it. I mean, it seems like any sort of evidence which Mr. Greene and other physicists would deem worthy already contains within it the assumption that materialism is true, while all at the same time making that assertion through the lense of his/her own consciousness, which appears to be an immeasurable and disingenuous practice. Doesn't that count for something? I mean, while it's fine and dandy to account for brain states of various stimuli and the like to explain emotional responses, does it stand to reason that the existence of such a correspondence accounts entirely for consciousness and other human experiences without including first the premise that those experiences are non-existent? Do those brain states account for the experience or feeling of the emotion? Do those experiences exist in any meaningful way? If those experiences DO exist in any meaningful way (and I see no reason why they shouldn't), then certainly mapping brain states doesn't make for concluding that radical materialism is true.
What about something like Sartre's version of consciousness, wherein we are always radically free to choose? Can it not be the case that while our subconscious (and presumably the determined world) merely influence the way we might perceive the viability of potential candidates for choice, but leave the ultimate decision to act a sort of radical consciousness? If this is the case, then clockwork determinism, at least in the company of agents, cannot account for the whole of being.
Basically, I don't see that so long as we are living in such a way as that all of our experience, all of our feelings, and all of the contents of our consciousness generate the contents of our perception (accurate/real/existent/whatever or not and inside of which even the assertion that those contents might be illegitimate) how we can conclude that materialism is definitely or even reasonably accurate as a holistic program without first including the premise that materialism and what defines it must be the only "stuff" that counts.
Radiolab interview with Brian Greene via Youtube:
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