Argument Against Physicalism

If one ought anything, one ought not to be a Physicalist.

It is irrelevant whether the definitions below are labeled perfectly accurate. The arguments only concern the definitional content as stated below. I am open to adjusting the lables as they really are nothing more than variable names:

Knowledge

Justified true belief in any proposition or statement $p$ such that:

1. One believes $p$ to be true.
2. Belief $p$ is actually true.
3. Belief $p$ is epistemologically justified.

Epistemological Realism

Justifying a true belief (knowledge) is possible.

Epistemological Skepticism

Justifying a true belief (knowledge) is not possible.

Relativism

There is/are no universal truth(s) and there are no universally true statements.

Fundamentalism

Adhering to fundemental beliefs for which there are no underlying justification.

Morality

Knowledge (see definition above) of universally true normative statements.

Moral Realism

There are true universal normative statements such that:

• One ought to $x$
• One ought not to $y$

Moral Degeneracy

There are no universally true normative statements.

Physicalism

• Effects of physics are neither true or false, they just are or occur.
• All effects are effects of physics.

Arguments

All arguments made below are deductive arguments. Premises are displayed normally and conclusions are displayed as oblique for ease of navigation.

Deductive arguments uncover absolutely true conclusions if the premises actually leads to the conclusion and the premises are true. To reject the conclusion of a deductive argument, you would have to:

• Deny one of the argument’s premises.
• Demonstrate that the argument suffers from a logical fallacy.
• Demonstrate that the structure of the argument itself is invalid.

When the whole line of reasoning has been laid out, some anticipated objections will be covered. This is to make the arguments a lot shorter as in not having to cover every edge-case right away (readability and comprehensibility purposes).

Outline

The following line of reasoning is presented here as high level claims that will be justified by arguments later in the document. The arguments assume that theoretical adherents of the presented positions would have followed conclusions and hidden implications of their worldviews consistently (which is not necessarily the case in practice). There will first be a deconstructive section dismantling super-classes of many common worldviews (see definitions), then a constructive section arguing positively for the tagline below the document title.

Deconstructive Outline

1. Physicalism leads to Epistemological Scepticism.
2. Epistemological Scepticism leads to Moral Degeneracy (via Relativism).
3. Moral Degeneracy and Moral Realism are mutually exclusive.
4. If Moral Realism is the case, Physicalism is not:

Constructive Outline

(in order for Moral Realism to be the case)

1. Epistemological Realism has to be the case because:
   1. Knowledge is necessary for the possibility of morality.
2. Physicalism cannot be the case because:
   1. A mechanism to distinguish true from false is required for the possibility of knowledge.
   2. True and false collapses into effect in Physicalism.

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True and False Collapses into Effect in Physicalism

This particular example argument revolves around mental evaluation, but could easily be replaced for something else. This is just a example of one way one might attempt to distinguish true from false in a Physicalist worldview. This would have had to be a purely physical affair (given our premises above). The following argument shows why this would be problematic (and later lead to absurdity).

Premises:

1. Mental evaluation is an effect of brain activity.
2. All effects are physical effects.

Conclusion:

Mental evaluation is a physical effect

Premises:

1. Mental Evaluation is a physical effect.
2. All conclusions are effects of mental evaluation.
3. All effects are effects of physics.

Conclusion:

All conclusions are physical effects.

Premises:

1. All conclusions are physical effects.
2. No physical effect is either true or false, it just is.

Conclusion:

No conclusion is either true or false, it just is.

The categories true and false simply disappear as there are no true or false effects. That is off course unless you argue all effects of physics are “true”, but that would also mean that nothing is ever “false”. Conversely if one argues all effects of physics are “false”, nothing would ever be “true”.

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Knowledge Falls Once Truth Falls

In order to have knowledge that any proposition $p$ is true it is necessary that:

1. One believes $p$ to be true.
2. Belief $p$ is actually true.
3. Belief $p$ is epistemologically justified.

Granted 1 and 2, we can expand upon 3:

1. Any justification for the truth or falsity of p requires mental evaluation.
2. Mental evaluations are neither true or false in Physicalism.

Conclusion:

No proposition $p$ is justifiably true or false in Physicalism.

This would mean that Physicalism destroys the possibility of having knowledge, which in-turn destroys morality:

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A Collapse of Knowledge leads to A Collapse of Morality

Premises:

1. Morality is:
   1. Knowledge that one ought to $x$.
   2. Knowledge that one ought not to $y$.
2. Having knowledge is impossible in Physicalism.

Conclusion:

Having morality is impossible in Physicalism.

In other words, consistent Physicalism would lead to Moral Degeneracy. The only way and degree to which a physicalist can be moral, is by comparison to a true non-relativist worldview where morality is real and we know what it constitutes.

But on the other hand, Moral Degeneracy is only bad if Moral Realism is the actual case in reality. Therefore:

If one ought anything, one ought not to be a Physicalist.

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Collected Objections

Objections both anticipated and received.
(feel free to send me your’s if you have any)

Objection:

What’s The Problem? isn’t Everything Relative Anyways?

Answer:

Let’s consider our definition of Relativism:

There is/are no universal truth(s) and there are no universally true statements.

Upon a closer investigation of Relativism, you will discover that it is self-refuting. The only thing that needs to be asked is whether the sentence is true or false.

If the sentence is true, it cannot be universally true, as it is itself a conditionless (or in other words) universal truth claim. Meaning it must have at least one exception and is thus self-contradictory unless (ad-hoc and arbitrarily) rephrased:

There is/are no universal truth(s) and there are no universally true statements except for this one.

If however the sentence is false, it’s simply an affirmation that there really exists universal truth and universally true statements. But as true and false is reduced to effect in Physicalism, true and false don’t really exist as distinct categories. The sentence then is neither true or false and simply is.

Objection:

Moral statements aren’t always universally true or false. Oftentimes they depend on the context.

Answer:

The definitions are intentionally very short and very broad to make them easy to read. There’s nothing in the definitions that excludes you from including context in $x$, $y$ or whatever. Plug in whatever your want. The arguments concern more the posibility of normativity rather than example statements.

Objection:

There is a third option: I don’t know whether knowledge is possible or impossible.

Answer:

Do you know that?

Let’s explore the three options. One can begin with asking whether uttering the sentence:

“I don’t know whether knowledge is possible or impossible”

means you have knowledge that you don’t know or not. This is different from asking are you sure? because the question is whether you know the proposition is true or false.

In the case you know that you don’t know, you have knowledge that you don’t know. In the case you don’t know whether you don’t know, you would have to ask again in order to escape having knowledge that you don’t know that you don’t know. Both of them necessitate the possibility of having knowledge.

It is also logically impossible to know that knowledge is impossible. However, the other way is (strictly logically) not contradictory. Consider the following statements:

I know that it is impossible to have knowledge

I know that it is possible to have knowledge

If you know that knowledge is impossible, you do in-fact have knowledge and the sentence is self-refuting. So not only is the possibility of knowledge logically possible, but inescapable (as shown earlier). This is why any worldview that fails to account for the possibility of knowledge is a false one (Physicalism).

Objection:

You’re making a mistake; mental evaluations are just physical phenomena, but their conclusions can be true or false.

Answer:

If all effects are effects of physics, then effects of physical effects are also just effects of physics. If the physical effect mental evaluation causes conclusion, then conclusion is simply an effect of physics as well. If all physical effects are neither true or false, then like gravity, so are the phenomena mental evaluation and conclusion:

When water flows, it culminates in pool of water.
When human mentally evaluates, it culminates in conclusion.
Both pool of water and conclusion are neither true or false, they just are.

You would have to reject “All effects are effects of physics” if you don’t like this conclusion or send me an email.

Objection:

Mental evaluations are just as “predetermined” as physics itself. Have you heard about Quantum Mechanics? Many things seem to suggest that physics is not as deterministic as we like to think.

Answer:

Whether physics is deterministic or not only changes the nature of the process your mental evaluations are determined by.

It is still a physical process that determines the outcome (deterministically or not). There is no you to freely evaluate. That is an emergent illusion in Physicalism. There are only physical effects however you would like to define them (like matter in motion).

Objection:

Computer programs are completely deterministic, can distinguish true from false by a simple if-statement, even evaluate natural language, understand concepts and evaluate arguments (as seen in modern AI).

Answer:

Computers do at their lower levels consist of transistors and other components (with complex arrangement) that do little more than turn on or off based on input signals. Turing complete machines are however very flexible and can model highly abstract and useful patterns such as intelligence.

To say that a computer understands anything would be the same as saying a lightbulb understands that it needs to turn on when it’s light switch is being flicked. There is no knowledge or intelligence here, only energy flowing in a precisely controlled (programmed) manner, causing a particular physical effect that together with a complex set of other effects models something else.

Even the training of artificial “intelligencences” is a type of programming, though it is not as controllable or predictable as traditional programming since it is based on statistics and probability.

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Implications and Further Thought

The reason Physicalism leads to Moral Degeneracy, is because it removes the possibility of distinguishing between true and false, which is necessary for distinguishing between right and wrong. There are two extreme ways attempting to “solve” this problem by ignorance.

One is the nihilistic approach of open relativism where one attempts to socially abolish universal truth as a concept. As the very definition of relativism itself showed us, this is logically impossible.

Though it really is a type of relativism, the other extreme is Fundementalism. In fundementalism, one builds a worldview upon fundamental beliefs considered absolutely true that remain questioned though they are nothing more than strong opinions.

In practice, the approaches are two sides of the same coin: Relativism leaves everything to opinion, Fundamentalism scopes this to a arbitrary subset of all opinions and provides an illusion of knowledge based upon them. Anything in-between would still fail to distinguish true from false because we really havent left the relativistic paradigm yet.

Necessary Preconditions for Distinguishing True From False

(Needs a lot of work this section, not done at all)

The reason Physicalism makes it impossible to distinguish true from false, is because it makes the result of any mental evaluation determined (illusory) by physics. This means that for it to be possible for one to distinguish true from false, the mind can not be bound by any higher principle that forces it’s mental evaluations to be determined by anyone other than itself (such as Physics).

It has to be affected and present in what happens around it, yet not mathematically determined by it.

If all that is physical is determined by physics, the mind would have to be non-physical in order for it to not be under it’s governance. Yet the non-physical mind can seemingly make the physical body move and obey the will that is seemingly free. The mind must in this case be a truly free secondary cause to the first cause that moves matter and instigates what seems to be a causal chain (the physical world). This means the physical and the non-physical seems to share in one reality that is both visible and invisible.

Insert more stuff and make the reasoning undeniable.

Acknowledgements

The physicalist argument (here adapted into a moral argument) is drawn from Made by JimBob on youtube.

Insights regarding the possibility of knowledge draws from a line of thought in Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age by Fr. Seraphim Rose