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Science Set Free by Rupert Sheldrake - Excerpt
Science Set Free by Rupert Sheldrake - Excerpt
Science Set Free by Rupert Sheldrake - Excerpt
dozens of genomes have been sequenced, and brain scans are ever
more precise. But there is still no proof that life and minds can be
explained by physics and chemistry alone (see Chapters 1, 4 and 8).
The f undamental p roposition o f materialism is t hat matter is
the only reality. Therefore consciousness is nothing but brain ac-
tivity. It is ei ther lik e a shado w, a n “epiphenomenon,” t hat do es
nothing, or it is j ust another way of talking about brain activity.
However, among contemporary researchers in neur oscience and
consciousness studies t here is no co nsensus about t he nature of
minds. Leading journals such as Behavioural and Brain Sciences
and the Journal of Consciousness Studies publish many articles that
reveal deep problems with the materialist doctrine. The philoso-
pher David Chalmers has called t he very existence of subjective
experience the “hard problem.” It is hard because it defies explana-
tion in terms of mechanisms. Even if we understand how eyes and
brains respond t o red lig ht, t he experience o f r edness is no t ac-
counted for.
In biology and psychology the credibility rating of materialism
is falling. Can physics ride to the rescue? Some materialists prefer
to call t hemselves physicalists, to emphasize that their hopes de-
pend on modern physics, not nineteenth-century theories of mat-
ter. But physicalism’s own credibility rating has b een reduced by
physics itself, for four reasons.
First, some physicists insist that quantum mechanics cannot be
formulated without taking into account the minds o f observers.
They argue that minds cannot be reduced to physics because phys-
ics presupposes the minds of physicists.2
Second, the most ambitious unified theories of physical reality,
string a nd M-t heories, wi th t en a nd ele ven dimen sions r espec-
tively, take science into completely new territory. Strangely, as Ste-
phen Hawking tells us in his b ook The Grand Design (2010), “No
one seems to know what the ‘M’ stands for, but it may be ‘master’,
‘miracle’ or ‘mystery.’ ” According to what Hawking calls “model-
dependent realism,” different theories may have to be applied in
different situations. “Each theory may have its own version of re-
ality, but according to model-dependent realism, that is accepta-
Horgan is sur ely r ight t hat o nce s omething has b een dis cov-
ered—like the structure of DNA—it cannot go on being discov-
ered. But he t ook it for granted that the tenets of conventional
science are true. He assumed that the most fundamental answers
are already known. They are not, and every one of them can be
replaced by more interesting and fruitful questions, as I show in
this book.
Atheist beliefs
The materialist philosophy achieved its dominance within institu-
tional s cience in t he s econd half o f t he nineteenth century, and
was closely linked to the rise of atheism in Europe. Twenty-first-
century a theists, lik e t heir p redecessors, t ake t he do ctrines o f
materialism to be established scientific facts, not just assumptions.
When it was co mbined with t he ide a t hat t he entire universe
was like a machine running out of steam, according to the second
law of thermodynamics, materialism led t o the cheerless world-
view expressed by the philosopher Bertrand Russell:
All over the world, scientists know that the doctrines of material-
ism a re t he r ules o f t he ga me d uring w orking ho urs. F ew p ro-
fessional s cientists c hallenge t hem o penly, a t le ast b efore t hey
retire o r g et a N obel P rize. And in def erence t o t he p restige o f
science, most educated people are prepared to go along with the
orthodox creed in public, whatever their private opinions.
However, some scientists and intellectuals are deeply commit-
ted atheists, and the materialist philosophy is central to their be-
lief system. A minority become missionaries, filled with evangelical
zeal. They s ee themselves as o ld-style cr usaders fighting for s ci-
ence a nd r eason aga inst t he f orces o f su perstition, r eligion a nd
credulity. S everal b ooks p utting f orward t his st ark o pposition
were bestsellers in t he 2000s, including Sam Harris’s The End of
Faith: Re ligion, Terror, a nd t he F uture o f Re ason (2004), D aniel
Dennett’s Breaking the Spell (2006), Christopher Hitchens’s God Is
Not G reat: How Re ligion Poisons Everything (2007) a nd Ric hard
Dawkins’s The God D elusion (2006), which by 2010 had s old two
million copies in English, and was translated into thirty-four other
languages.25 Until he retired in 2008, Dawkins was Professor of the
Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.
But few atheists believe in materialism alone. Most are also sec-
ular humanists, for whom a fa ith in G od has b een replaced by a
faith in h umanity. H umans a pproach a g odlike o mniscience
through science. God does not affect the course of human history.
Instead, h umans ha ve t aken c harge t hemselves, b ringing a bout
progress through reason, science, technology, education and so-
cial reform.
Mechanistic s cience in i tself gi ves no r eason t o su ppose t hat
there is any point in life, or purpose in humanity, or that progress
is inevitable. Instead it asserts that the universe is ultimately pur-
poseless, and s o is h uman life. A co nsistent atheism str ipped of
the h umanist fa ith pa ints a b leak p icture wi th li ttle gr ound f or
very little about science itself. They are, as it were, devotees of the
Church o f S cience, o r o f s cientism, o f w hich s cientists a re t he
priests. This is ho w a p rominent atheist layman, Ric ky G ervais,
expressed t hese a ttitudes in t he Wall Str eet J ournal in 2010, t he
same year that he was on the Time magazine list o f the 100 most
influential p eople in t he w orld. G ervais is a n en tertainer, no t a
scientist or an original t hinker, but he b orrows t he authority of
science to support his atheism:
Science seeks the truth. And it does not discriminate. For better
or worse it finds things out. Science is humble. It knows what it
knows and it knows what it doesn’t know. It bases its conclusions
and b eliefs o n ha rd e vidence—evidence t hat is co nstantly
updated and upgraded. It do esn’t get offended w hen ne w fac ts
come along. It embraces the body of knowledge. It doesn’t hold
onto medieval practices because they are tradition.30