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Course 19 · Lesson 7.1

Consciousness and the limits of materialism

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 19 outline

Module 1: The Secular Age: Humanism and Naturalism

  1. What secular, secularism and secularization mean
  2. Secular humanism: its claims and its moral vision
  3. Philosophical naturalism and its alternatives
  4. Christian responses to naturalism and humanism

Module 2: Science, Evolution and Faith

  1. Models of science and religion: conflict, independence, dialogue, integration
  2. What the theory of evolution claims and what it does not
  3. Christian positions on creation and evolution
  4. The history of the conflict story and its critics

Module 3: Criticism of the Bible

  1. The rise of historical and literary criticism
  2. What critics claim about authorship, sources and development
  3. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant responses to criticism

Module 4: Truth, Relativism and Postmodernism

  1. What postmodernism is, and why the term is hard to define
  2. Truth, language and interpretation
  3. Moral relativism: descriptive, cultural and philosophical forms
  4. Christian responses to relativism and postmodern thought

Module 5: The Masters of Suspicion

  1. Marx on religion, ideology and economic life
  2. Nietzsche on Christianity, morality and the death of God
  3. Freud on religion as illusion
  4. The genetic fallacy, and when explaining the origin of a belief matters

Module 6: Power, Corruption and Morality

  1. Church, state and political power in history
  2. Institutional failure and abuse
  3. Critiques of Christian morality and how Christians reply
  4. Judging a faith by its failures: what follows and what does not

Module 7: Mind, Meaning and Nihilism

  1. Consciousness and the limits of materialism
  2. Meaning and purpose in secular and Christian thought
  3. Nihilism, despair and Christian hope

Module 8: Writing a Response

  1. Stating a challenge in its strongest form
  2. Building a structured response
  3. Conceding what is true in the critic’s case

All courses

Program / Course 19: Modern Challenges / Lesson 7.1

What you will learn

  • Define consciousness and the hard problem, as the philosopher David Chalmers put it.
  • State the materialist position and its main strategies for explaining the mind.
  • Describe the arguments that materialism leaves something out, and the replies to them.
  • Explain how Christian views of the soul relate to the debate, and how Christians disagree.

The big idea

Consciousness is the fact that there is something it is like to be you: to see red, feel pain, or think about tomorrow. Materialists hold that this fact is entirely produced by physical processes in the brain. Critics reply that no one has explained how physical processes give rise to experience, and that this gap, called the hard problem, may show the limits of a purely physical account. The question is unsettled in philosophy and science. It touches Christian belief about the soul, but it does not decide it.

Key terms

Consciousness
The having of experience, such as sensations, feelings and thoughts as they are lived from the inside.
Qualia
The felt qualities of experience, such as the redness of red or the taste of coffee.
Hard problem of consciousness
Chalmers’ name (1995) for the problem of explaining why and how physical processes are accompanied by experience at all.
Physicalism (or materialism)
The view that everything, including the mind, is physical or fully determined by the physical.
Substance dualism
The view that mind (or soul) and body are two distinct kinds of thing. Descartes defended it.
Property dualism
The view that there is one kind of substance but that mental properties are not reducible to physical ones.
Emergence
The idea that new properties arise when parts are organized in complex ways, so that the whole has features the parts lack.
Hylomorphism
Aristotle’s and Aquinas’s view that a living thing is a unity of matter and form, with the soul as the form of the body.

Background

Reflection on mind and body is ancient. Plato taught that the soul is immortal and distinct from the body. Aristotle taught that the soul is the form of the living body. Descartes in the seventeenth century argued that mind and matter are separate substances, and the problem of how they interact has troubled philosophers since. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, neuroscience showed close links between brain states and mental states.

Most philosophers and scientists today hold some form of physicalism, though surveys show that a minority hold dualism or other views. Neuroscientists have made great progress in finding the brain activity linked with perception, memory and attention. What they have not done, according to many scientists and philosophers, is to explain why any of it is accompanied by felt experience. The debate involves believers and non-believers on all sides.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The materialist case

Materialists point to the dependence of mind on brain. Anesthetics switch off awareness. Strokes remove abilities. Drugs alter mood. Brain scans correlate with thoughts. The simplest explanation, they say, is that the mind is what the brain does. They add that science has explained life without a special life force, and that consciousness will in time be explained too.

Some materialists, such as Daniel Dennett, argue that consciousness is less mysterious than it seems, and that the sense of a private inner theatre is a misleading construction by the brain. Others, such as Patricia and Paul Churchland, expect that talk of beliefs and sensations will be replaced by a neuroscience vocabulary.

Step 2: The hard problem and other objections

Chalmers distinguished the easy problems, such as how the brain processes information, from the hard problem of why this is accompanied by experience. Even a complete account of brain function, he argued, would leave open why there is something it is like. Thomas Nagel argued in a famous 1974 essay that no description of a bat’s sonar from the outside could tell anyone what it is like to be a bat. Frank Jackson’s thought experiment of Mary, who knows all the physical facts about color but has never seen it, suggests that learning what red looks like is learning something new.

Other arguments appeal to intentionality, the way thoughts are about things, and to the unity of the self, and to free will. Nagel, an atheist, has argued in Mind and Cosmos that materialism is almost certainly false as a complete account of nature, a view that many fellow naturalists reject.

Step 3: Replies and options

Materialists reply that the argument from ignorance is not an argument: that a thing cannot yet be explained does not show that it cannot be explained. They also say that Mary would learn nothing new in fact, or only a new way of knowing the same facts. Others take up positions between materialism and dualism, such as panpsychism, which holds that consciousness is a basic feature of matter, a view that has gained serious attention.

There is also an important point about what the arguments show. Even if they succeed against materialism, they do not by themselves establish a soul, or God. They show a limit in the physical picture. Many Christian thinkers use them as a part of a cumulative case, while others warn against filling a gap with God, which has failed before.

Step 4: Christian views of the soul

Christian tradition has said that human beings are body and soul, and that death does not end the person. It has not settled the philosophy. Many have followed Plato in a form of dualism, as Augustine and Descartes did in different ways. Aquinas, following Aristotle, taught that the soul is the form of the body but can survive death. In the twentieth century, some Christian philosophers, such as Nancey Murphy, argued for nonreductive physicalism, in which humans are wholly physical but not reducible to physics, with the resurrection of the body as the hope.

The creeds speak of the resurrection of the body, and not only of the soul’s survival. The scriptural witness uses language that scholars read in different ways. The topic is a live debate within the churches.

  1. Is this explanation about how the brain works or about why there is experience?
  2. Does the argument rely on what science cannot yet explain?
  3. What would count as an explanation of consciousness?
  4. If the argument works, how far does it go: against materialism, or for a soul, or for God?
  5. What does my tradition require me to believe about the soul, and what does it leave open?
  6. How do I treat a person with brain damage in light of my view?

Examples

The bat

A scientist can describe everything a bat does when it uses sonar, from the sound waves to the brain activity. A philosopher asks whether the scientist then knows what it is like for the bat. The question shows the difference between describing a process and knowing an experience. (A constructed example based on Nagel’s argument.)

Two readers of the same scan

A neurologist and a priest look at a brain scan of a woman in prayer. The neurologist sees activity in certain regions. The priest sees someone praying. Both are right about what they report, and they disagree over whether the first description is complete. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Materialist and naturalist views

Materialists hold that the history of science favors them, and that a complete theory of the brain will explain experience. Some expect that the question will dissolve when the brain is better understood. They hold that the gaps in present knowledge are not evidence of a soul.

Catholic

Catholic teaching holds that each human soul is directly created by God and is the form of the body, following Aquinas. The Catechism teaches that the soul is immortal and will be reunited to the body at the resurrection. This leaves room for debate among Catholic philosophers about the exact relation of soul and brain, and the Church does not endorse any one theory.

Orthodox

Orthodox theology teaches that the human person is a unity of body and soul made in the image of God, and it hopes in the resurrection of the body. Orthodox writers such as David Bentley Hart argue that consciousness is a mystery that materialism cannot explain, and see in it a trace of the ground of being. Others are reserved about using philosophical arguments in this way.

Protestant

Protestants have held both dualist and physicalist views. Many evangelicals hold a form of dualism, and some, such as J. P. Moreland, argue for it strongly. Others, such as Joel Green and Nancey Murphy, argue that the biblical view of the person is holistic and compatible with nonreductive physicalism. Reformed and Lutheran confessions speak of body and soul but do not define the philosophy.

Why it matters

The question of mind sits behind many other issues: human dignity, free will, life after death and the meaning of personal identity. A student should be able to see which arguments are strong, which are weak, and which conclusions follow, so as to avoid both overclaiming and dismissing the question.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Neuroscience has shown that the soul does not exist.

Correction: Neuroscience shows close links between brain and mind. Whether this means that the mind is nothing but the brain is a philosophical question, and the science does not decide it.

Misunderstanding: The hard problem proves that God exists.

Correction: It is an argument that a purely physical account is incomplete. Even if sound, it does not by itself establish a soul or God.

Misunderstanding: Christians must hold Cartesian dualism.

Correction: Christian thinkers hold several views, including hylomorphism and nonreductive physicalism. The creeds speak of resurrection of the body.

Misunderstanding: Everyone who doubts materialism is religious.

Correction: Thomas Nagel, an atheist, has argued that materialism cannot be the whole truth.

Knowledge check

What is the hard problem of consciousness?

It is the problem, named by David Chalmers, of explaining why and how physical processes in the brain are accompanied by subjective experience. Explaining how the brain processes information is called an easy problem. Even a full account of brain function might leave open why there is something it is like to have it.

State one materialist reply to the arguments that materialism leaves out experience.

A common reply is that not yet explaining something does not show that it cannot be explained, as with life, once thought to need a special force. Another is that the sense of inner experience is partly an illusion produced by the brain, as Dennett argues. Others deny that Mary learns new facts when she sees color.

Name three Christian views of the relation of soul and body.

Substance dualism holds that soul and body are distinct things, as Descartes taught. Hylomorphism, taught by Aquinas, holds that the soul is the form of the body but can survive death. Nonreductive physicalism holds that humans are wholly physical but not reducible to physics, with hope in bodily resurrection. All affirm that death is not the end of the person.

Why is it unwise to use consciousness as a proof of God?

Because arguments from what science cannot yet explain have failed before, and because even a successful argument against materialism does not reach the Christian God. It may fit as one element in a cumulative case. Used alone, it risks tying faith to a gap that research might fill, and critics will say so.

Think it through

  1. What is it like to be you, and can you imagine describing it fully in physical terms?
  2. Does it matter for faith whether the soul is a separate thing or the form of the body?
  3. How does your view of mind affect how you think about the dying and the disabled?
  4. What would persuade you to change your mind on this question?

Independent assignment

Mary’s room

In your notebook, write 300 words setting out Jackson’s story of Mary the color scientist as clearly as you can. Then write 300 words on the materialist reply and 300 words on the best response to that reply. State at the end whether you find the argument decisive. Do not send it.

Further study