Materialism as a practical fact of life

What does it mean that humans no longer need supernatural explanations for things we do not understand?

It means that for most of us materialism is not a dogma, but simply a daily experience. We live in a world that has been transformed by our increasingly profound understanding of the material universe. Our scientists have identified many of the forces, particles, and relationships that comprise atomic and subatomic elements and events, and also form the underlying fabric of energy from which space and time seemingly emerge. The macro relationships between matter and energy have been mapped out and calculated in ways that enable us to build massive destructive devices that change the course of our history. We use our scientific understanding of the physical world to create tools and toys that amaze and befuddle the entire race of humans. And we are barely beginning.

None of these things rely on supernatural forces, but on our knowledge of the particles, forces, relationships, and quantum mechanics that make up the universe.

Are intangible things comprised of tangible elements? Can material things explain who we are?

Material things are part of what some scientists describe as objective reality, i.e., things that exist independently of our perception of them. Much of what we have learned about the universe focuses on our understanding of that objective reality.[1]

But we humans also live in a world of subjective reality created by our perceptions. Constantly aware of our own consciousness and thoughts and feelings, we live in a universe comprised of more than the objective reality of physics.

Cognitive scientists, psychologists, and philosophers are working to increase our understanding of subjective reality just as physicists are increasing our understanding of objective reality. Yet there is still much to learn about the intangible aspects of the universe, about how brains and perceptions work, about the biology and evolution of consciousness, about what our existence means in the universe.

Do we need the ghost in the machine or some kind of mind/body dualism to explain our existence?

How long must we wait for a scientific theory of the subjective world that adequately comprehends the deep intellectuality and even spirituality of human existence, much less the existence of the universe itself? Can materialist theories of reality ever truly explain the intangible world that exists in our perceptions and intellectual life?

If not, do we need after all some kind of supernatural explanation of these intangible things? Do we need to posit the existence of a non-material mind that inhabits our bodies and brings us to life? Or even inhabits the entire physical world? Do we need God?

Alternatively, should we conclude that intangible things are not real, but merely incorrect perceptions of the world? Can we assume that they do not require explanation because they are temporary illusions and not objective reality?[2]

There is a simpler explanation

In science and most other pursuits of life, the simplest explanation is often the best and most correct.

Fear, hunger, passion, and pain are all intangible things that can be experienced in the physical world, as can even more intangible things such as thoughts, concepts, ideas, even imagined things. All of these can be experienced and are real in that sense.

It is unnecessarily complex to assume that these things are entirely different from material things and excluded from the material foundations of the universe. It is simpler and just as logical to conclude that buried inside the components and fabric of the physical world are the components and fabric of whatever is real. If intangible things exist and can be experienced, they are composed of the same components and fabric of energy that make up all that exists. The all can be composed only of the elements of the all. So even if we do not yet understand how intangible things are constructed from tangible elements, clearly they are constructed or they would not exist in the tangible universe at all.

The tangible universe includes the components of all that is real

What is required is a comprehensive view of what is real in the physical world around us—an acceptance that the components of what we perceive as intangible things exist in the components and fabric of the tangible universe. If the elements of the universe are particles, forces, and quantum relationships, then inherent in those particles, forces, and relationships are all the elements necessary to form the natural world that surrounds us and the intellectual world in which we live. An intellectual world could not exist or be experienced if the particles, forces, and quantum relationships that make up the universe did not include elements that comprise and enable the intellectual world.

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[1] Quantum theory has explicated “objective reality” to such an extent that it undermines its very existence. The standard interpretation of quantum mechanics maintains that some aspects of “reality” do not exist prior to being observed in some way, i.e., that the act of observation determines the material reality.

[2] Or as some philosophers and neuroscientists have argued, should we turn the paradigm on its head and assume that subjective reality is the only reality and that “objective reality” is an illusion?