The End of Illusion

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One of my goals in my pursuits of thought, and indeed one of the goals of philosophy itself, is to pierce through all the misconceptions and arbitrary knowledge we have built up through experience and culture and find a place of raw truth, the sandbox within which all knowledge is constructed.

Now, after building up a toolbelt of knowledge and contemplating the nature of reality, the Bayesian network model of knowledge, the is-ought gap between fact and morality, the concept of narratives, and the effects of language, I believe I have finally found a place free of all illusions. It is this: what happens happens, and all else is interpretation.

It is very hard to talk about this idea using language. After all, by describing it, I am, well, describing it. That in itself adds a layer of interpretation to something which is supposed to be beneath interpretations. Yet, as we discussed last week, it is possible to use words to describe things beyond words, so I will attempt to do so.

Consider how the squirrel sees the world. The squirrel has no language, knows no words. Yet still it perceives the world. Though it has no word for “cloud,” it notices differences in patches of the sky. Though it has no word for “tree,” it knows there are cylindrical surfaces with lots of footholds to grab onto.

There was a time before language, when all things saw the world as the squirrel does. There was a time before perception, and a time before life. Yet the universe existed back then, just as much as it exists now. And it behaved according to its inherent nature, just as it does now.

This is reality beyond illusion. That which is, independent of perception or belief. It does what it does, and all concepts, narratives, and models, from philosophy to religion to science, are merely interpretations.

Facts about Morality – How Small can We Make the Is-Ought Gap?

Some time ago, we talked about the is-ought gap, the idea that there will always be an unbridgeable logical gap between facts and moral duties. This is true, but that doesn’t stop us from turning the lens of fact onto morality, and seeing how close we can get.

To begin with, let’s step back to get a look at what morality is from an impersonal, objective point of view. Out of all the different views of morality there are, they have one thing in common: the idea that some things are better than others, that there are potential ways things should be and actions people should take, and there are potential ways things should not be and actions people should not take.

What determines what is judged to be good and what is judged to be bad? It starts with stimulus reaction and anticipation. Some things cause pain, and some things cause pleasure. We naturally recoil from pain and seek out pleasure. This is the beginnings of morality.

It is not the whole story, of course. We often abstain from pleasure or allow ourselves to suffer pain in the service of higher values. We might value order, justice, honor, or a clean mind, and make sacrifices in the realm of pleasure and pain to serve these values. The weight we give to each of our values determines our morality. In fact, we can think of the instincts surrounding pleasure and pain as values, and describe morality as the process of making choices and choosing rules for life based on our values. Values can be fluid; we might occasionally be able to choose our values, but most of the time they are influenced unconsciously, either by nature or by socialization.

It is not just our own circumstances that influence our values, but our capacity for empathy and compassion, to imagine what it is like to be in others’ shoes, and to want good things for them as well as for ourselves. There is a part of us that wants to do what is good for everyone, to make the world better, not just our own lives and actions. This is a double-edged sword, because although it can motivate us to help others, it can also make us think we know what is good for them better than they do, and to try to control their values and the choices they make.

On top of our values, we craft narratives. These can come in the forms of myths and stories, ideologies, philosophies, and religions. Narratives shape our values and help us remember them when the pleasure and pain stimuli become strong enough to make it hard to think. Compelling narratives for values different from ours can influence us to adjust our values in their direction.

The space of moralities is vast and varied. But despite all the variety of this moral landscape, the goal of all moral systems can be summed up in one statement: to make things good.

This is intentionally vague, because “good” means a lot of different things. Some say it’s happiness, others fulfillment, wellbeing, absence of misery, eudaimonia, or any number of similar concepts. In fact, as the philosopher G. E. Moore pointed out over a hundred years ago, it is impossible to define “good” as any specific thing. But in this context, we observe that any time a person looks at themself and the way things are and the way things will be, and says, “this is good,” they all share the same core idea: to be satisfied with one’s life and the world.

Despite “good” meaning different things to different people, it is the goal of all morality. Thus, we can take all conceptions of goodness and all measures according to all people, and indeed all conscious creatures, and add them together to make a “total goodness.” For any event, action, circumstance, etc., there is an objective level of total goodness, determined by the aggregate of its subjective, individual goodness to every person and conscious creature. This is messy and complex and always changing, but it does, in fact, exist.

And here lies the question. Can we say it is an objective, factual moral imperative that we ought to aim to increase total goodness? Well . . . No. Because we run into the is-ought gap. Even though the total goodness of something is an objective fact, that does not mean it is a fact that we ought to work toward increasing the total goodness. There is still an unbridgeable gap in the logic.

Any passage between is and ought requires a leap of faith. But the more descriptive facts about morality we take into consideration, the smaller the leap required. To me, the leap from the fact that there is such a thing as total good to the opinion that we ought to work toward increasing the total good, is small. Not even a leap, really, just a step. I am willing to take that step, and I invite you to take it with me. Let’s make this world a better place.

Our Damaging Narratives of Suffering and Purpose

Life comes with many struggles. One of the most powerful methods of coping with struggles we can do nothing about is to tell ourselves a narrative: that this struggle, and the suffering it causes, gives our lives meaning in a way that we may not understand, but is precious and we would not want to live without. This narrative can be powerful enough to keep us hopeful and grateful, even in circumstances which by all logic should drive us to despair.

But there is a danger to it; when a narrative gives us purpose, we tend to cling to it, even when the circumstances that give birth to it no longer apply. When we lived in hunter-gatherer tribes, everyone had to contribute to the survival of the tribe. This was a struggle against nature, an unchangeable fact of the human condition. By working together as a community, we survived, and that gave us purpose. And so the narrative that the struggle to survive is what gives us purpose was born.

However, over the course of history, things have changed. Industry has made food, comforts, and luxuries abundant. Many people struggle much less than ever before. We are coming closer to—and some would argue we have already arrived at—a place where it would be possible to construct an economy so that people do not need to struggle for survival.

Yet many of us still cling to the narrative that without a struggle for survival, there can be no purpose in life. This is, of course, false. When we are not struggling for survival there are plenty of things we can do that give us purpose, like training ourselves in athletic activities, pursuing scientific research, contemplating philosophy, traveling the world, creating art, competing in games, and striving to further improve the world. Being free from the struggle for survival gives us new opportunities for fulfillment and purpose, albeit of a different flavor from the struggle, but without the downsides of the suffering the struggle imposes upon us.

And that is where the problem lies. We could be so much, and have such fulfilling lives by eliminating the struggle for survival. But the narrative that there would be no purpose to life if the struggle did not exist holds us back. People who cling to this narrative not only don’t help, but sometimes they actively sabotage those who work to mitigate the struggle, by spreading the narrative with their voices, or by voting for those who would impose the struggle upon us.

It is one thing when life is hard because there is no other choice. But if we feel that the struggle is unnecessary and is being imposed upon us by others, all purpose that would have been found in it vanishes.

Another narrative we tell ourselves of the meaning in suffering regards the inevitability of death. For our entire history, death by old age has been one of the most significant limitations of the human condition. We have many myths of the fruitlessness of chasing immortality, and have come to terms with it by telling ourselves that without the ticking clock in our lives, we would not be able to enjoy the time we have, because we would never be motivated to do anything.

However, with modern science, we may soon have the ability to reverse aging . . . if the right research gets funded. And something which has always been with us, the briefness of life, may no longer be an unchangeable fact of existence. And thus, the narrative that death gives life meaning, which once gave us solace and helped us accept the inevitable, turns on us and holds us back from reaching for a greater existence.

There are legitimate concerns regarding anti-aging research, such as how would we feed everyone, and worries about exacerbating inequality by creating a new class of rich immortals while everyone else is stuck working for subsistence. But the narrative that the briefness of life is an essential ingredient for meaning in life is not one of them.

In this era of increasing technology and understanding, we must not cling to narratives of purpose in suffering. When there is nothing we can do about it, these narratives can help us cope and find meaning in life. However, we must set aside a corner of our minds for the knowledge that we are empowered to find meaning despite our suffering, not because of it. Then, if it becomes possible to eliminate that suffering, through technology or the economy, we will not be held back from working toward it by narratives of acceptance that we no longer need.

It's Time for Stories of Redemption and Reconciliation

In the past five years, we’ve had stories of old former heroes who want to live peaceful quiet lives, but are called back into present-day battles resulting from what they have done in the past. Luke Skywalker and Captain Picard are two examples.

The YouTube channel Wisecrack did an analysis on this post-hero trope. They looked at it through the lens of storytelling as a mirror of society, and proposed that it signified the groaning of the modern world as the deteriorative effects of our modern social narratives begin to show in the daylight.

Right now, it’s become pretty hard not to notice the things that are going bad in society. In addition to climate change, which has been creeping up on us for decades, there has been a pandemic going around for half a year, an economic crisis, and increasing social unrest. And it looks like it’s going to keep getting worse for some time before it starts to get better.

So I think it’s time to start talking about hope, and aiming toward the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s time for redemption and reconciliation stories.

Last year, a fantasy novel came out called Shadow of the Conqueror. The main character is Daylen, an old man who was once an evil dictator who took over the world. He was a despot, a mass-murderer, and a rapist. Through a twist of fate, he finds himself young once again. With deep regret and sorrow for the life he led, he sets out with his curse of youth to do as much good as he can, struggling with the demons of his past life all the while. The implicit question is, can someone who is so evil be redeemed? The book leaves the answer up to the reader, a pivotal choice by the author.

Stories have many interpretive lenses, and Shadow of the Conqueror is no exception. One interpretation of Daylen is a stand-in for Western imperialism. The powers of Europe and its offshoots did a lot of conquering back in the day, a lot of oppression. Daylen reborn represents the white social majority of today, after most of the institutional sources of that oppression have been amended or dismantled, but its systemic aftershocks are still strong.

Daylen is the same person before and after his transformation, whereas white people today are, of course, different people from the conquerors of the past. But in this comparison, Daylen stands for the collective force of imperialism and its legacy, not individual people.

The definition of social majorities and minorities is that injustices happen more often to minorities than majorities. This should not be confused with numerical majorities and minorities, which are a measure of numbers, and which are unrelated. As a social majority citizen, it can be easy to believe that the modern social narratives work and are fair, since we are not the recipients of injustice in most cases.

Many of us have faith in modern social narratives, some willingly, some because we were brought up not knowing any differently. This is compounded for those of us who grew up in the Cold War era, when the fervor for American narratives and paranoia of alternatives was exceptionally high. When we hear of patterns of injustice upon members of groups inside our own society, poking holes in these narratives, we often react in confusion, fear, or in the worst case hostility. Zealous proponents of social justice interpret these reactions as signs of prejudice, which exacerbates the discomfort.

It’s time for a change.

The question of whether Daylen can be redeemed or not is never resolved. However, something far more important happens: he commits to wrestling with the consequences of his past actions, and doing what he can to clean it up. The question we should be asking about our own society is not whether the collective legacy of white imperialism should be blamed or forgiven, but how we can face the scars and open wounds handed down to us, and work together to heal them and find a way forward.

We need more characters like Daylen. We need more characters who go through transformations and pick up the hard task of making amends. They can’t simply be stories of forgiveness; that would put the burden of responsibility on those who have been wronged. These characters must contend with the consequences of their actions, and through sincere struggle come to a mutual respect with those whose lives were negatively impacted by their actions.

If you are reading this, and you are confused or frightened about the way current social and political trends are going, I don’t judge or blame you. Instead, I hold out my hand to you. I hold out my hand to those who are victims of indoctrination and propaganda. And even more than that, I hold out my hand to the good people of the future. I hold out my hand to future former racists, and future former imperialists. You are welcome in the making of a better, fairer society for all.

The Subjectivity of Objects

Objects are everywhere. Houses, trees, windows, computers, people. Our language revolves around objects. We conceptualize the world in terms of objects. And today, I’m going to go full-on philosopher, and ask, “What are objects?”

Platonic Forms

In Ancient Greece, Plato described objects in terms of the theory of Forms. It was said that, for every type of object—house, door, cat, human—there is a perfect version of it, its Form. The Forms were said to exist non-physically and timelessly. Thus, reality was thought to be made of objects attempting to mimic their corresponding perfect Forms.

The theory of Forms may be useful in some contexts, but it doesn’t do well at describing physical reality. In the relatively static ancient world, it made sense, but in modern times with historically rapid technological and scientific progress, not as much. Has there always been a Form of a spaceship? A cell phone? The internet? What about the way some languages have words for objects that others don’t? It seems much more likely that Forms only exist as concepts within our minds, not in external objective reality.

Reductionism and Holism

In the era of science, another theory has arisen: reductionism. We observed that things are made out of parts, and those parts are made out of smaller parts, and the chain continues quite awhile. Finding the fundamental building blocks of the universe became a goal of modern physics, and some came to the belief that these building blocks are the true reality, and everything emergent from them is just our perception, less real or not real at all. This view is called reductionism.

Counter to reductionism, there is holism, the view that any system that functions as a whole and has properties that are different from the properties of its parts is a real object. Some stronger versions of holism even claim that certain higher-level emergent objects are more real than the parts they are made of.

Reductionism and holism are both perspectives and metaphysical theories. As perspectives, whether they are valid or not depends on the context. Today, we are examining them as metaphysical theories.

Associative Equivalence

Which is true, reductionism or holism? Are higher-level objects real, or are only the smallest, most reducible parts they are made from? To explore this question, let’s take a detour into math. Consider the following expressions:

3

1 + 2

2 + 1

(1 + 1) + 1

1 + (1 + 1)

1/2 + 2 + 1/2

What is the difference in the ideas each of these expressions represent? The answer: nothing! They all represent the number three, divided into arbitrary pieces.

Let’s take this analogy to physical reality. If we cut a sandwich into four pieces, does it become four sandwiches? If we put four full-sized sandwiches together at the corners, do we get one big sandwich? The answer is not a question of metaphysics, it is a question of semantics. It only depends on how we decide to define the words.

Just like how the number of numbers we divide a math expression into does not change what it represents, neither does reductionism describe a different reality than holism. Holism is merely putting the parentheses in different places (and, as we will see in next week’s quantum physics discussion, reductionism ends up doing that too). As metaphysical theories, neither reductionism nor holism measure up. They are both equally valid descriptions of the same reality!

Thus, we come to a profound realization: the universe is not inherently made out of objects; objects are human constructions. The universe is one thing, and it is infinitely many things. There is no difference. It’s all up to how we look at it.


For me, to see a door as a door, and as wood, and as wood cells, and as organic molecules, and as atoms, and as subatomic particles, and as interacting quantum fields, and to know that all of these are equally true, and none is more or less true than any other, is awe-inspiringly profound. To see myself as one person, and as two halves of a brain, and as a trillion cells, and as a part of the universe where the boundary between me and everything else is just a mental construction; that is nothing short of spiritual.


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Free Will – What it Means and Why it Matters

Free will: do we have the ability to make our own choices, or are we merely acting out the course that was set for us in advance? This question may seem straightforward, but it has a whole bunch of unspoken assumptions and associations packed into it. When we ask about free will, we are not simply curious about a bit of scientific knowledge, like how birds fly or why planets are round. We feel deeply that the difference between having and not having free will has a huge impact on how we perceive ourselves and live our lives. In order to explore the question thoroughly and satisfactorily, we have to chip away at all of its layers until we find what we really care about.

Surreal Rings of Mystery, by PhoenixArisen on Deviantart

To start, let’s talk about determinism. Suppose there were a being who knew all the physical details of all the particles in the universe with infinite precision. If the universe is deterministic, that being could accurately deduce the past back to the big bang, and predict the future all the way until the end of time. This being is called Laplace’s Demon, because credit always goes to famous people.

Most people would say, if our actions are governed by determinism, then we do not have free will. If we take free will in its literal sense, it would mean the ability to defy the motions of the particles in our brains, and make new threads of causation spring into existence. This version of free will is called libertarian free will (not to be confused with the political orientation).

For most of the history of science, we thought the universe was deterministic. It was all particles and fields bouncing around, exchanging energy and momentum and stuff like that. However, a hundred years ago, the discovery of quantum physics opened the door to probabilism, the idea that the actions of subatomic particles are governed by probabilities, not pre-determined outcomes. We can set up an experiment where there is a 10% chance of one possibility, and a 90% chance of another, and there is no possible way to know for certain what the outcome will be ahead of time, even for Laplace’s Demon.

We might think probabilism would open the door for free will, by letting us influence the probabilities of the neurons firing in our brains. However, that is not the case, because of the law of large numbers. Although it is impossible to know whether individual probabilistic events will turn out to be this or that, the more events that happen, the closer the total results will match the probabilities. This is how the probabilistic world of quantum physics gives rise to the essentially deterministic world of classical physics.

The double-slit experiment, done with thousands of individual photons. As you can see, each photon seems to hit the screen randomly, but once enough of them do, the pattern emerges.

If libertarian free will were true, if we could influence the probabilities of quantum physics, it would create systematic deviations, meaning the results of the experiments would not fit the probabilities as well as they should. This may sound familiar, as it is the experiment we proposed in order to test dualism, the idea that the mind/soul/spirit is a substance different from everything else in physical reality. If neither determinism nor probabilism allows for libertarian free will, does dualism?

At first, it may seem so. After all, if the soul causes new interactions with the brain through choices, then that’s free will, right? Not so fast. By what process does the soul make its choices? What laws of physics—or laws of psychics, if you will—describe the mechanics of soul stuff? If soul stuff behaves deterministically or probabilistically, then dualism does not change anything.

So what would allow for libertarian free will? The only way I can think of is if the mind is an inherent mystery. Not simply that we do not understand it with our knowledge today, but that it cannot be understood, because it does not have an answer. If the mind is a black box, then when we peek into the box, we don’t see anything, because it is mysteries all the way down. This is a view I call quasi-realism, the idea that there are some parts of reality where the answers are inherently fuzzy, and cannot be understood because there is no explanation. I have previously argued against quasi-realism in the nature of reality series, particularly The Nature of Natures, claiming a thing cannot exist without a well-defined way-that-it-is, a nature, and thus, it can be understood. Therefore, the mind, whether dual or physical, has a well-defined, comprehensible nature, and does not supply a loophole for libertarian free will.

But is libertarian free will really what we are interested in? I don’t think so. To see why, let’s take a deeper look at these things we call “choices.” There are two types, at least that I can think of:

1. The exertion of effort. There are times throughout every day when we want to do something, and exert effort to do it; or we know we are on track to do something, and exert effort to avoid doing it.

2. Envisioning possible futures. We don’t know what we are going to do, so we imagine the benefits and downsides of each possibility, and the results play a part in determining what we do.

These definitions do not contain the words “choose,” “option,” “decision,” or anything like that. In fact, these definitions are compatible with determinism and probabilism. Some would say these aren’t really choices, because they are completely determined by the physical processes in our brains, which are determined by a large number of things, like our senses, our knowledge, our skill at accurately predicting outcomes, our self-control, our moment-to-moment body chemistry, the values we learned as children, our habits, our genes, and our cultural influences, which were in turn determined by other things, and so on back to the big bang. Others say, who cares? These definitions accurately describe choices, and that’s good enough to say we have free will. This view, that free will is compatible with deterministic definitions of choices, is called compatibilism.

In situations like this, we are forced to do one thing or another. However, it still feels like a choice is being made.

Is that it? Does the question of free will ultimately come down to semantics? Surely something that feels so profound and significant for our lives must have more to it.

To go further, we need to realize that we are not interested in metaphysics, not really. Determinism, probabilism, dualism, none of that is relevant. What we really care about when talking about free will is the following moral questions:

• Does considering our actions and their consequences matter, or should we just give up and stop caring?
• Is it reasonable to treat people as responsible for their actions or give them credit for their creations and good deeds?
• What is the responsibility of governments and institutions to people who are poor?
• Do we have control over our own actions, or are we being controlled by the manipulations of others or by some kind of Fate?
• Should the criminal justice system focus on punishing people for their actions, or on rehabilitating them?
• Do manipulative agents, such as governments and advertisers, have the right to treat people as means to further their own goals, rather than with respect?

The deep reason people argue for or against free will is because they have a stance on one or more of these questions, or are afraid people who argue against them on free will hold the opposite view on the questions. For instance, some people (like myself) argue free will exists, because they desperately need to believe their efforts make a difference. Others argue that free will does not exist, because they are sick of politicians using free will as an excuse not to help the poor. After all, the rationalization goes, if poor people are poor because of their own bad choices, then the government shouldn’t be responsible to help them.

Rather than arguing at the abstract level of free will, it would be more productive to discuss these issues directly. They are all much more complicated than a simple yes or no, and they are not connected to one another nearly well enough to be put under the umbrella term of “free will.” It is perfectly reasonable, for instance, to believe both that our efforts are tremendously significant, and also that the government should provide a strong safety net; two beliefs traditionally placed on opposite sides of free will.

Based on what we have said today, libertarian free will, the idea that we exist outside the processes of the universe and create new threads of causation, does not exist. Compatibilist free will, the idea that our thoughts and efforts play a role from within the deterministic or probabilistic processes of the universe, does. But at the end of the day, what matters is not the metaphysics, but the moral questions of responsibility and how we should live.

Idealism – What if Consciousness is All there Is?

Consciousness:
The Hard Problem
Dualism
Physicalism
Idealism
Identifying Consciousness

Vast Minds

Identity, Self, and Other

The Question of Meaning

We began our exploration of the metaphysics of consciousness by discussing the Hard Problem and the philosophical zombie. We then explored the two routes we could take from there: Dualism, which says consciousness is a substance different from the rest of physical reality; and Physicalism, which says consciousness is part of physical reality, either at the fundamental level or emergent. But these paths both make an assumption: physical reality exists, a stance called Realism. Today, we’re going to question that assumption.

Suppose there is a universe where no life exists. No one and nothing is able to observe it. Does it make sense to say that universe exists? A Realist would say, “Of course, what does observability have to do with existence?” But to some people, the very idea of something existing without being observed seems incoherent, because to imagine it requires imagining oneself observing it. This theory, that nothing exists unless it is being observed, is called Idealism.

Idealism states that without consciousness, nothing exists. Or in other words, reality is a projection of consciousness. Our bodies, the Earth, houses, cars, trees, computers, all these things exist because we collectively expect them to, either consciously or unconsciously. If something is not being observed by a conscious being, then, it doesn’t exist.

The distinction between Realism and Idealism can be seen by considering the old question, if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? According to Realism, it does. The impact of the wood on the dirt causes pressure waves in the air, which are sound. On the other hand, the Idealist would say it does not. In fact, the tree would not even fall in the first place, it would simply manifest into existence as a fallen log the next time someone walked by!

This raises a big problem for Idealism. If nothing exists if it is not being observed, then why do things manifest as if stuff has happened when nobody is looking? Why do trees fall? Why do clocks show the right time? If nothing exists when it is not being observed, shouldn’t there be random inexplicable changes whenever we look away from something and then look back?

An Idealist would say these things happen because we expect them to. When we look at a clock, we know it is supposed to accurately tell us what time it is, so it does.

But what about when things don’t happen as expected? If reality is a projection of our minds and behaves as we expect it to, we should never find ourselves surprised. Not only in our everyday lives, but at the frontier of scientific knowledge as well, such as when Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter, or when astronomers discovered the universe is speeding up as it expands. Furthermore, science and technology work for people who don’t know how they work or what they are supposed to do. How can this be so in an Ideal universe?

Various Idealists come back with two possible answers. The first is to invoke a personal God as the all-seeing observer, who keeps the universe from disintegrating into nonexistence by constantly observing every atom. This interpretation is popular with some theologians, because it gives us a universe that is mostly indistinguishable from a Real universe, but provides a mechanism by which God and other supernatural beings can intervene.

The second answer is to say reality is projected from our collective expectations, not our individual minds. In this case, things happen the way they do because most people believe it. Or rather, because most of the available power of belief is aimed toward it. It could be that minds have different strengths, and so the belief of a powerful mind might influence reality more than the belief of a weaker mind. We talked last week about how narratives spread as memetic complexes. If this brand of Idealism is true, then these narratives are not just competing for propagation, but for influence over the nature of reality itself.

This brand of Idealism would also allow for wizards and magic and all kinds of supernatural things. Minds without bodies, super-powerful minds, influential minds; these could obtain some amount of control over the local fabric of reality. Different kinds of powerful minds would bend it in different ways. A strong mind could bend reality to their will, a powerful but weak-willed mind would bend it uncontrollably, and an instinctual animal mind or an ignorant mind would shape it unconsciously around their view of the world. In fact, much of the magic of fantasy and superhero stories becomes accessible under the metaphysics of Idealism.

On the extreme end of Idealism, we find Solipsism, the belief that, not only is reality a projection of your mind, but so are other people. You are the only person who exists. Everyone and everything else is no more than a dream.

By Clarissa Blackburn on Flickr

Of course, the only evidence in support of Solipsism is that we can’t prove absolutely that it’s not true. Any argument in favor of the existence of things other than oneself can be countered with, “but how do I know?” The same can be said of Idealism. A Realist must postulate a quality called “existence,” which is independent of knowledge, perception, and belief, but the Idealist can immediately counter with, “How can you know about something that is independent of knowledge? You can’t!”

The answer to which of these theories is correct, Realism, Idealism, or Solipsism, is by no means trivial. We each might feel strongly toward one of them, but arguing in its favor is a difficult task. My strategy is to use the Anthropic Principle: which of the three theories is most likely to produce the world we find ourselves in?

Let’s start with Realism. Assuming things exist, they obey non-contradiction, acting according to the “way they exist,” their natures. Because of this, we expect absolute coherence. Clocks tell the right time because they work even when no one is looking at them. When they tell the wrong time, it is because they don’t run at a perfect rate, or they are set wrong, or they are broken, or they undergo relativistic time dilation.

In order to understand how things work, we play detective to figure out what they have been doing while no one was watching. This works for things on Earth, in the solar system, in the galaxy, and all throughout the entire universe, every atom and subatomic particle doing its thing, adding up in enormous numbers to yield what we see through our telescopes and microscopes and all or our biological and mechanical senses. It makes sense, because it exhibits the same kinds of behavior while we are observing it and while we are not.

Quantum physics is an exception; particles and quantum systems behave differently if they are being observed than if they are left alone. However, this is because in order to observe systems on the scale of atoms and subatomic particles, we have to disturb them with other particles, like photons. Any photon capable of observing an atom is going to knock the atom around, changing the state of the system. According to Realism, the reason quantum systems behave differently when they are being observed is because of the tools necessary to take measurements, not because of anything special about awareness.

I also want to dispel a myth about quantum physics; it’s not inherently mysterious. A famous physicist once said, “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.” This is catchy and comes with a flavor of authority, but it is a lie. Quantum physics is consistent and understandable, it’s just different from what we’re used to. Thus, it is perfectly compatible with Realism as defined three paragraphs above.

In Idealism, there is no hard principle keeping everything consistent. Hypothetically, you could turn around to see an apple floating in midair, or a million dollars manifested in a pile on the floor. We can think of this in terms of entropy: the number of incoherent ways we might find the universe to be vastly outnumbers the number of coherent ways. Therefore, if Idealism were true, we would expect to find lots of messiness and inconsistency all over the place, not this ordered world that behaves so consistently according to physical laws.

Of course, Idealism has a counter-argument: to suggest there are inconsistencies, like miracles and haunted houses and other supernatural stuff. The reason they are rare enough that people can live their whole lives without believing they exist is because the narrative of Realism is so powerful; if more people believed in magic and mysticism, such inexplicable things would be more commonplace.

Solipsism does not have this defense, since if it were true, then the only mind with beliefs would be a Solipsist, giving the narrative of Realism no power. Sorry Solipsism, the only argument in your favor is the teenage favorite, “You can’t prove I’m wrong.”

When we look out into the universe, we see billions of stars in the galaxy, each with its own set of planets. Out in the vast reaches of space, we see billions of galaxies, each with its own billions or trillions of stars. To me, it feels extremely self-aggrandizing to suppose we imagined all that into existence within the past hundred years. It has long been our nature to put ourselves at the center of existence, to seek power over nature and reality. To that end, we may find it convenient to believe that if we just believe hard enough, anything imaginable can happen. We also tend to look for rationalizations to continue believing what we already believe, be it ideological, religious, superstitious, or scientific. Thus, we can keep looking for rationalizations to explain how an Ideal universe might come to look exactly how we would expect a Real universe to be. Or, we can acquiesce to Occam’s Razor, and accept the universe as Real.

Interestingly, there are circumstances where things like Idealism and Solipsism can exist within a larger framework of Reality. We’ll explore those in later posts when we get to the Simulation Hypothesis and Boltzmann Brains.

The Theseus Dilemma – A Short Story

Hello, dear readers. Last week, my writing group wrote and swapped short stories, and from that came this sci-fi nugget. I hope you like it.

The Theseus Dilemma

by Christian Horst

The doctors didn’t wear white.

That was Olander Brice’s first thought as his wheelchair drove him into the Turing Society’s operating room. Funny. Here he was, about to have his soul travel through a wire from his body into a virtual reality on a supercomputer, and what stuck out to him the most was the way the surgeons were dressed. Button-up shirts, a man in blue, a woman in brown. Not white, like the advertisements always showed.

“Hi, Mr. Brice,” the woman said. “I’m Dr. Sutter, and this is Dr. Lars.”

Olander made a series of eye movements, the only motion his body allowed him. From a speaker on his headband, his voice said, “It’s nice to meet you.”

The room was small and cozy, like most doctors’ offices he had been to. A padded operating table lay in the middle, and one side of the room had a counter where various tools and papers rested in a well-organized manner. On the other side stood a large machine with various knobs and bits protruding from it. The walls were lined with posters explaining the science of the brain and consciousness. One of them caught his eye. Substrate-Independence, it was titled.

Consciousness can exist anywhere that can store and evolve its patterns of information. Brains and computers can host consciousness, as can any other substrate that can store memories and process information via neural networks.

Beside the text were two diagrams. The first was a side view of the inside of a human head, and the second was a computer chip. Over top of both of them were two identical patterns of blue lightning, symbolizing the ability of a human soul to exist in either body.

“Okay, Mr. Brice,” Dr. Sutter said, “we’re going to lay you down. Is that all right?”

Olander blinked rapidly three times, and his speaker said, “Yes.”

Four hands lifted him out of his wheelchair and placed him onto the table. As his body settled and relaxed, a deep happiness came over him. After years of paralysis, his life was finally about to change.

“Take a look over there,” Dr. Lars said, his hand gently tilting Olander’s head. “See that camera? That’s where you’ll be viewing the room from in just a little while.” On the desk stood a camera on a short stand, its two adjustable lenses set apart by the same distance as Olander’s eyes, so that when he looked through it he would see in 3D.

Olander felt a dampness on the inside of his forearm as Dr. Sutter swabbed it with rubbing alcohol. “We’re going to give you a full-body pain blocker,” she said. “We can’t give you anesthetic, because that would prevent the procedure from working.”

Olander knew this. The company had made it very clear that the doctors had to connect the mind transfer cable directly to the frontal lobe of the brain, and had him sign several forms consenting to letting them drill a quarter-inch hole in his skull while he was conscious. Though it was a little discomforting, he was reassured by the testimonies of those who had undergone the procedure before him and ended up happily in the simulated world of the Turing Society. Besides, the alternative was to stay trapped in this useless body of his.

“We sometimes administer a paralyzing agent,” Dr. Sutter said, “to keep our patients from moving, but in cases like yours, it is unnecessary.”

Dr. Lars put his hands gently on Olander’s head, fingers resting on his headset. “We’re going to have to take this off. Is there anything you would like to say first?”

Olander thought for a few moments. Once they removed his headset, he would not be able to talk until the operation was finished. He moved his eyes. “I would like some water, please.” That was one of his saved speed-messages. The next sentence took a little time to construct. “To taste it one last time.”

“Certainly.” Dr. Lars walked out of Olander’s field of view, and the hiss of a sink faucet met his ears. The two doctors worked together to prop him up, and Dr. Lars’ hand tipped a small paper cup to Olander’s lips. He felt the cool liquid enter his mouth and slide down his throat, and he savored the sensation. After today, he could drink virtual water, but it would never be the same. Though it was scientifically proven to be an identical experience, many people reported that just the knowledge it was an illusion rather than material caused it to lose something.

“I’m ready to remove my headset.” Olander said.

The doctors laid him down again, and he felt the set’s pressure release, feeling its echo as the cool openness of the air took its place. He marveled at the strangeness of the feeling, as if the headset had been a part of his head, and removing it altered his body away from its natural state.

“Okay, let’s start with the shaving,” Dr. Lars said. There was a click, and a buzz, and Olander felt the tingling of a trimmer as the hair on the front of his scalp fell away.

“We’re going to administer the pain blocker now,” Dr. Sutter said.

Olander closed his eyes and tried to relax. He was excited and frightened. If everything went smoothly, he would be walking around and talking inside a computer within an hour. The sting of the IV needle made him wince, but then it was in and over. He assured himself that the rest of the procedure would go more or less the same.

“Okay, Mr. Brice,” Dr. Lars said, “Your pain sensations should be blocked now. I’m going to test it by pinching you. You should feel a tug, but no pain. If it hurts, blink rapidly.”

Olander felt the doctor’s fingers press on the skin of his other arm. It felt a little tight, but that was all.

“No pain?”

Olander slowly opened his eyes and looked at the doctor, then closed them again just as slowly.

“Okay, it looks like we’re ready to start drilling.”

The newly-shaved part of his head was dabbed with rubbing alcohol. Then, there was a shift in the air pressure, a few clicks and whirs, and the touch of something small and cool.

“Drill in place,” Dr Lars said. He shifted to a softer tone. “Remember, if you feel any pain, let us know. Are you ready?”

Olander opened and closed his eyes, feeling almost as if it were someone else’s body on the table saying yes, not him. He had no choice; there was no turning back. Yes, I am ready.

The sound of the drill began, echoing inside his head. His skull felt tight all over. Then, just like that, it was done.

“Inserting the cable,” Dr. Lars said.

Olander steeled himself for the feeling of something poking around inside his brain. He knew it was perfectly harmless, perfectly normal procedure, but the thought still made his skin crawl. However, when the connector was inserted, he found it wasn’t nearly as bad as he imagined, instead feeling as if the cable had attached itself to the outside of his head. Maybe it was because of the pain blocker, or maybe brains couldn’t feel things directly. Either way, he was relieved.

“Beginning transference.”

What happened next did not follow any pattern of order or cohesion. He experienced a jumble of fragments of the doctors’ speech, a view of the room from outside his body, the feeling of the cable on his forehead, the perception of his body extending to enormous size and complexity, and the redness of the insides of his eyelids.

The sound of Dr. Sutter asking if he could see her brought him back to full consciousness. The two doctors stood looking at him at eye-level. Behind them lay his own body, a green wire plugged into his head, held up by a protrusion from the operating machine. With a swell of elation, he let out a cry. “Yes! Yes, I can see you!”

“How do you feel?” Dr. Lars said.

He felt as if he were floating in a warm emptiness. No, that wasn’t quite right. Thousands of unfamiliar sensations tickled him in ways he couldn’t make sense of. Did he have a face, hands, and legs? It felt like it. That must be the ghost-body sensation he had been told about, his mind not letting go of his body’s shape after decades of learning its nervous system. “Great!” The sound of his own voice, issuing forth with naught but a mental command, filled him with joy. If he’d still had eyes, he was sure he would be crying.

“Can you switch between cameras within the office?” Dr. Sutter asked.

Olander thought about it, and noticed what could only be described as knobs at the edges of his awareness. When he tugged on one of them, his view changed to a view of the reception room, showing a worker on the phone behind the counter, and a few patients waiting in chairs for their appointments. He tugged on the operating room camera knob, which was conveniently easy to find. “Yes, I can. It’s wonderful.”

The doctors smiled. “It looks like the operation was a success,” Sutter said. “Congratulations. If you look behind you, you will find a doorway to the Turing Society virtual world.” An autonomous stretcher wheeled itself into the room. “As you requested in your documentation, we will donate your blood and organs to the National Health Reserve.”

Behind them, on the operating table, Olander’s eyes snapped open.

“W-what’s that,” Olander said.

“What’s what?”

“My body, it’s still alive!”

The doctors looked at Olander’s body, which was now moving its eyes erratically. “That’s nothing to worry about,” Sutter said. “Just a residual effect from the mind transfer. Technically speaking, the body isn’t dead, it just doesn’t have you inside it anymore.”

“He’s talking,” Olander said. “Can’t you see?”

“Olander,” Sutter said, “you’re overthinking things. You’re inside the computer, not your body.”

“But my body is still alive! There’s still a version of me in there! Look at my eyes. They’re saying the same thing over and over: Help me!”

“You’re in post-operational shock. If you go into the virtual reality and regain the experience of having a body—”

“I’m telling you, I’m still alive in my body! Put my headset back on and listen!”

Sutter leaned toward Lars and spoke quietly. Lars nodded, and pulled the cable out of Olander’s head and plugged the hole with what looked like some kind of adhesive. Then the two of them lifted his body onto the stretcher. Olander continued to cry out, but the doctors accompanied the robot platform out the door without giving him another glance.

Olander floated helplessly in the digital aether. They were going to kill his past self, or his duplicate, or—he didn’t have time to be pedantic about the situation. He had to do something. But what? He tried feeling out the hundreds of pathways of his strange new body. Somewhere, a coffee maker started pouring water onto an empty tray. Someone’s PC account was denied access due to an incorrect password. The lights went out in an empty hall. Then . . .

Aha! He gained control of the robot stretcher. With two swift motions, he slammed it forward, then backward, knocking both of the doctors to the ground. Before they could recover their wits, he wheeled the platform back down the hallway, around a corner, and into the reception room, making some of the people waiting jump to their feet. Olander identified his driver, and exclaimed, “Morgan, help!” through the reception room speaker. “It’s a fraud!”

The well-dressed man stood up from one of the waiting chairs. “What is going on here?” he demanded in a booming, authoritative voice.

Sutter emerged from the hallway, followed by Lars. “This man is trying to steal his former body, which he voluntarily signed over to the company when agreeing to the terms and conditions of the transference.”

“And why,” the man said, turning to face Olander—or rather, the room’s camera—“are you doing that?”

“Because he’s—I’m—still alive.”

“That’s just a precaution,” Sutter said. “We have to keep the body’s mental operations intact until we’ve confirmed that the transference is a success. But now that it is, it’s no longer important.”

“So you knew,” Olander said. “You knew all along.”

“It’s only standard procedure—”

“You murderers!” Olander cried.

“As we explained,” Sutter said, her voice patronizingly calm, “it’s just an echo. You, Olander Brice, have successfully been transfered into the computer network. This body is not you anymore.”

The man spoke again. “Are you saying, Mr. Brice, that you believe you were not transfered, but instead copied?”

Sutter lifted her chin. “Who are you to be sticking your nose in company affairs?”

The man looked contemptuously at her. “I am Morgan Stanton, Mr. Brice’s close friend, and a representative of League Neuroelectrics, a significant partner of the Turing Society.” Sutter’s mouth worked soundlessly, and Stanton took the advantage to turn to Olander’s body. “If you would, please blink.”

Olander’s body’s eyes blinked.

“Look to the left.”

He turned his eyes to the left.

“What is five plus two?”

He blinked seven times.

Sutter interjected. “I know what you’re trying to pull. Of course it is going to respond. It is still a living human body, after all.”

“So you admit it!” Olander cried.

“Not at all. It’s a p-zombie, a living body that acts and responds indistinguishably from a human, but has no consciousness.”

Stanton glowered at her. “That’s the kind of thing slave owners and animal abusers say to justify their cruelty.”

“That was hurtful and highly inappropriate,” Sutter said. “You can’t compare us to monsters. That’s immature slander.”

“If you don’t want to be compared to monsters,” Stanton said, “then don’t act like them.” Sutter snarled, ready to retort, but Stanton cut her off. “I have connections with lawyers. Good ones. We will conduct an investigation into this company’s practices, starting with the testimonies of these two instances of Mr. Brice.” He pulled out his phone.

An hour later, the two Olanders sat in Stanton’s car side-by-side, one in the flesh, the other in a robot body. The mood was glum, as if invisible water had filled up the streets around them. Neither of them spoke, but they thought. What would they do now? Who would be married to his wife? Who would own his house, his money? He felt, in his heart and soul, that he was the real Olander Brice. But he couldn’t help but think the man sitting next to him might feel the same way, ruminating about the same questions. What was the soul? Was it something that was unique, or could it be copied so that there really were two of the same person? And if he and his counterpart were two, yet one, what did that mean for the nature of consciousness itself?

Something seemed to nag at the back of his mind, but then it was lost. The questions were so confusing he hardly knew how to think about them, much less what their implications might be. One thing was for sure: from here on out, his life—their lives—were going to be difficult. All he could do was hang on and hope something made sense at the other end.


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The Is-Ought Gap

Some time ago, I wrote a series on morality. My approach was to go through a bunch of different views people have on morality, and give my opinions on each one, pointing out contradictions where I saw them, and picking out my favorites. Now, we’ll revisit the topic from a perspective outside the narratives, which in philosophical terms is called meta-ethics. We’ll be less concerned with which ideas are better than which, and focus on descriptions of moral behavior and ideas, and objective frameworks from which to think about it. To kick things off, we’ll talk about the is-ought gap.

The is-ought gap came from an observation by the philosopher David Hume, who noticed that every time a moral philosopher tried argue for a moral system, they would make a bunch of is-statements about the world, and somewhere along the line take a magical leap to ought-statements. For instance, “The result of evolution by natural selection is to pass on genetic information to the next generation. Therefore, we ought to live in the way that maximizes the chance of our genetic information surviving into the future.” Most of us are not satisfied with this conclusion. What about being kind to strangers? What about lifting people on the other side of the world out of poverty? That’s not the point, though. The problem is that the argument sets up an is-statement, which seems to be leading somewhere, but then jumps to an ought-statement, which does not automatically follow from it.

Another example is the nature of conscious experience. “It is the case that we all have some conscious experiences we would rather have than others. For example, most of us want to avoid pain if there’s no reward from it. Therefore, we ought to take actions that reduce pain in ourselves and others, and to help each other reach the high points of the human experience.” Although this resonates more strongly with most of us than the previous example, it is still a non-sequitur; the premises are not sufficient to prove the conclusion.

You may wonder if maybe we just haven’t found the answer, that someone will come along with a solution and bridge the gap. In fact, many, including myself, have tried. But it is impossible, because it commits a category error. Is-statements are descriptive, whereas ought-statements are normative. Given a number of descriptive statements, you can derive more descriptive statements. Given a number of normative statements, you can derive more normative statements. However, it is impossible, using statements from just one category, to make conclusions that lie within the other. If you ever hear anyone claim to have solved the “is-ought problem,” all they have done is show they don’t understand it.

If we look at what is, we see all kinds of moral systems arising, competing, dying out, thriving above, or beneath, or to the side of others. From rule of the strongest to compassion for all to following the words of the hero or prophet or god or priesthood. It’s clear that moral systems exist, and people follow them passionately, and clearly have a way of determining what they should and should not do within their moral framework. It is also clear that what is true, or what they believe is true, plays a factor in it.

This shows us a sort-of exception to the is-ought gap; if we take some ought-statements as a given, then we have a goal. Once we have a goal, is-statements can show us how we ought to act in order to move toward that goal. This is true for goals that are finished once they are accomplished, as well as for the goals of acting in certain ways over periods of time. In this way, we can use is-statements together with ought-statements to derive more ought-statements. For instance, if we don’t want to be inside a burning building, then we ought to light a fire in the fireplace only if it is safe; and if the fire alarm goes off or the room starts to fill with smoke, we ought to leave the building. If we want to avoid the pain and consequences of a car crash, then if the training programs are good, we ought to receive driver training; if the rules of the road are safe, we ought to adhere to them; if insurance is worth more than the risk of a crash, we ought to have insurance; and all kinds of stuff like that. Given goals, facts about the world can help us know what we ought to do to move toward those goals.

We haven’t bridged the is-ought gap—there is still the implication that we want to be safe and avoid unnecessary suffering—but we have figured out how to use is-statements together with ought-statements to help us reach toward the things we value. There may be no way to prove with absolute certainty what we ought to do, and even if we could, it’s not reasonable to expect everyone to be experts on moral philosophy, but we can get by well enough if we inject a little common sense into the discussion and choose to work toward what we believe to be right. We’ll go more into that in the next entry of the Meta-Ethics series.

An Atheist's Best Argument For the Existence of God

When searching for truth, we often find that smart people are divided on the answers to any particular question. Truth, it turns out, is not always obvious, and finding it requires careful consideration of all reasonable possibilities. That’s why I’ve decided to start writing discussions about the best arguments against my points of view. We will start today with the existence of God.

I’ve written before about God the fictional archetype and God the principle of existence. The God I don’t believe in is God the real person, so that is what we will be talking about today.

There are many arguments in favor of God’s existence, some ancient, some modern. Very few, however, are persuasive to anyone who does not already believe God exists, and they are almost no one’s personal reason for their belief; rather, they are almost always used as rationalizations under the guise of “apologetics.” You can read some of them here if you would like.

Before we get to the argument I find most persuasive, let’s look at one often pointed to by other atheists, the argument from apparent design, also known as the Teleological Argument. I do not find it persuasive at all, and I will explain why. The best version of it goes like this:

A. Within the laws of physics, there are a number of parameters that sit on a razor’s edge. Just a small nudge upward or downward, and life could not exist.

Note: There are probably many configurations that would allow life of some kind, but they are vastly outnumbered by those that would not.

B. The probability that these parameters randomly landed on values that permit life is so low as to be nonexistent. It couldn’t have been coincidence.

C. Therefore, our universe was intentionally designed for life to exist.

The premises A and B are true. The universe is finely tuned for life to exist, and it couldn’t have been coincidence. But the conclusion that God made the universe does not follow from the premises. Just because it is a possible explanation doesn’t mean it is the true explanation. We also have to consider other possible explanations, and the more we find, the less likely God is to be the answer.

First, the laws of physics and the shape of our universe as we currently understand them suggest that there are at least four possible types of multiverses, each of which might have variations in the physical parameters. Perhaps even five or six, depending on how quantum gravity behaves in black holes and in higher dimensions. If even a single one of these exists, we have another possible explanation. If the chances of life existing in a given universe are 10 to the power of a big number, but the number of universes that exist are 10 to the power of a much bigger number, then there is no surprise that we exist. So if we allow the four most plausible types of multiverses as possible answers, then what the Teleological Argument really says is that there is a 1/5 chance of the universe being intentionally designed.

I want to pause for a moment and deconstruct a myth often heard from religious apologists: “Scientists posit multiverses as an excuse not to believe in God.” This is baseless slander. Multiverses are predicted results of physics theories—some of them quite well-established—or philosophical deliberations that are not related to the question of God. Physicists who want there to be only one universe have to add extra fluff to the theories in order to force the multiverses to go away; a practice that is scientifically sketchy. Furthermore, there are many scientists and other people who believe in the existence of both God and a multiverse.

Back to the argument, Multverses are not the only possible answers. If we’re going to consider intentional design as a possibility, we have to consider other supernatural explanations as well. For instance, the universe might have been unconsciously created by a sleeping God. Or, it might be impossible for conscious observers not to exist, so the universe was required by necessity to have parameters such that conscious observers would come to exist.

These possibilities mean that the real results of the Teleological Argument at best give intentional design a 1/7 chance of being the answer. That’s less than 15%. And it doesn’t factor in all of the billions of different kinds of gods and supernatural creatures which could have intentionally created the universe. It also runs into the problem of deduction: even if we could definitively rule out all of the possibilities we have thought of except for God, we could never rule out the possibility that there are more we have not thought of yet. This is why I do not find the Teleological Argument the least bit persuasive.

If the argument most people point to as the most persuasive is not persuasive at all, then what is? Well, there is one thing that keeps me questioning every once in a while. It is the same reason most believers really believe: a feeling that God is talking to me. Sometimes, I have intuitions that I should or should not do something. I don’t know why, I just know it is true. When I ignore it, I suffer. When I listen to it, things go well. These intuitions have a natural explanation: our senses take in much more information than we can consciously process, so our unconscious takes over and feeds our conscious minds its results in the form of feelings. There is also no reason to believe they are from any particular god over any other. Yet the feeling, when trained upon itself, feels like it is the voice of God. Others may not find this convincing, and it may not be rational, but to me, this is the most compelling argument for the existence of God.

Mind-Body Dualism

Consciousness:
The Hard Problem
Dualism
Physicalism
Idealism
Identifying Consciousness

Vast Minds

Identity, Self, and Other

The Question of Meaning

When asking what consciousness is, the first thing we tend to jump to is dualism, the idea that a person’s consciousness is something separate from their body, a soul or a spirit. Sometimes the soul is thought of as an indivisible object, unique for each person, hosting their personality, rationality, perceptions, memories, will, continuing self, and moral worth. Sometimes a soul is thought to be made of a fluid-like substance, which I like to call “soul stuff.” Either way, the soul is thought to be something fundamentally different from the other materials in the universe.

Do souls or soul stuff exist? To explore this, we first have to ask why so many people believe they do. There are two main reasons. The first is because they have been told it is true, by their parents, or religious leaders, or community folk knowledge. The second is because they feel like they are distinct from their body, which can be strengthened if they have had an out-of-body experience. I have had such experiences myself, the most recent of which was only a few months ago. Just as I was waking up one morning, I lifted my hand to scratch my nose, but I didn’t see it. I waved my hand in front of my face, but all I saw was the ceiling above me.

I could have jumped to the conclusion that my soul was moving around outside of my body. But a subjective experience is only evidence that the experience can be had. It is not evidence of anything mystical or metaphysical. Even while I was in the midst of my out-of-body experience, I remembered that the motor cortex in the brain is disconnected from the nervous system during dreams, and what I felt could be explained by the visual part of my brain waking up before my motor cortex, giving me the illusion that I was moving my arm when I was really not.

Of course, my answer is just a hypothesis based on stuff I’ve heard here and there, which is not sufficient evidence to rule out the possibility that I really was waving a spirit arm. So what would be sufficient evidence, either way? Some people believe the existence of a soul is a matter of faith, and it is not testable by scientific means. But does this claim make any sense? It is said that the soul is what makes decisions, controlling the body through the will. If this is the case, then it must exchange energy and momentum with the brain. Even if we grant the possibility that the soul itself is not detectable by any instrument we build, we would still be able to pick up on the bits of energy and momentum spontaneously appearing and disappearing as it exerts its control. Mind-body dualism can, in fact, be tested with the scientific method.

This brings us to a problem I have with the terminology. “Physicalism,” which we will discuss another time, implies consciousness is physical. “Dualism” implies consciousness is separate from physical reality. But if souls or soul stuff exist, and we detect them indirectly as I just mentioned, then scientists will expand the definition of “physical” to include it. The distinction between them is whether consciousness can be explained by what we already know about the universe or something else we haven’t detected yet, not whether it is physical.

There is one way that a soul might affect the brain without messing with its energy or momentum, and that is if we bring in quantum physics. I’ll put the usual disclaimer here: there are a lot of myths about quantum physics and consciousness, and all of them are false. Quantum physics is the study of things the size of atoms and smaller, nothing more. Nevertheless, I am going to talk about a possible way quantum physics and consciousness might be related.

At the size scale where quantum physics is relevant, particles behave probabilistically. Every possible interaction between particles comes with a specific probability, and conserves energy and momentum. We have no evidence to believe the workings of the brain involve quantum physics, but if they do, the soul may be able to exert willpower on the brain by changing the probabilities. Thus, it could control the body without having to worry about physical conservation laws.

This too, however, would be detectable. It would take more advanced technology, but in theory it could be done. If the brain uses quantum physics, we can run simulations to calculate the probabilities of events happening within it. Then, we measure what actually happens. If there is a significant deviation from the probabilities calculated, it is evidence a soul is interfering with them.

If neither of these pan out, there is one final option, which is truly impossible to detect by scientific means. That is if the soul is epiphenomenal, not affecting the brain at all, but just holding a copy of the brain’s perception and memory information. Because an epiphenomenal soul cannot affect the brain, it cannot house one’s personality, rationality, or will. These must instead be completely in the domain of the brain. However, this creates a big problem: if the soul cannot affect the brain, our brains should have no knowledge of it at all, and we shouldn’t be able to have this conversation! The fact that we can think and talk about consciousness suggests that whatever consciousness is, it does indeed affect the brain.

I do not claim to answer whether souls do or do not exist, at least not based on what we have talked about today. Rather, I claim that if souls exist and interact with the brain, then that interaction must be detectable by the scientific method. So much mental effort is expended by philosophers and theologians to hide the soul behind the veil of unfalsifiability, while at the same time insisting it must exist. Let’s stop with this magical thinking and open our minds to the possibility of using experimentation to determine the truth, whichever way it turns out to be.