Is there a shred of evidence for atheistic physicalism?

[Polymath257]

This thread has suffered from an ambiguity problem that a few posters have tried to disambiguate to no avail. The ambiguity is the result of referring to "physicalism" rather than "philosophical physicalism," or to have a clear concept of what the philosophical physicalists assert is true.

As a result of this failure to clarify terms, methodological physicalism has been the subject of several of the posts, an idea that needs no defense. Even the supernaturalists accept that idea, which says basically that science can only study the physical.

The position of the philosophical physicalist is that nothing exists except the physical, which generally means energy, matter, force, space and time - an unsupportable claim even if correct. Something can be a true belief, but until confirmed, is not knowledge.

I tend to define 'physical' as anything that interacts with something previously known to be physical. Then, start with something like a chair that all agree is physical.

The problem is that the definition of 'matter' is, at best, tricky. Is a photon matter? How about a gluon? A Higg's particle? And, more importantly, why would they be?

One can suspect that only the physical exists, and argue effectively that there is no evidence to the contrary, but neither of those is the same as asserting positively that nothing but the physical exists. The latter is a claim of knowledge that the claimant cannot possibly possess.

And here we get to the question of what it means to exist. To exist is to interact. To interact with the physical is to *be* physical. So what else *can* exist?

As for the evidence requested to support that claim, I wouldn't know what such evidence would look like. Evidence of the physical doesn't help. I would need evidence that nothing else exists.

But I'd go farther. I have no idea what evidence for something other than physical would look like. if it is detectable, it is almost by definition physical.

Also, my guess is that there are no philosophical physicalists posting on this thread. I don't recall anybody making that claim or trying to defend that position.

I'm as close as you are likely to get. I think that once we know everything physical, we know everything.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Also, my guess is that there are no philosophical physicalists posting on this thread. I don't recall anybody making that claim or trying to defend that position.

Here I am. I haven't posted to this thread before because I actually don't have an answer to the OP question - but proving that "nothing else exists" is entirely beside the point for physicalism. Anyway, here's my defense of philosophical physicalism - 1. Track record: everything in the world that we have so far found an explanation for has been satisfactorily explained by physicalism (properly understood).

OK, but I'm still not sure that you fit the description of the philosophical physicalist according to the definition I indicated I was using, which I believe is standard. Are you claiming to know that everything that exists is physical (accessible to scientific inquiry)? I doubt it.

I am claiming to know that everything we can reasonably hope to know of the existence of is physical.

I want to be a physicalist but the rules of physicalism make it impossible to rule out the independent existence of the non-physical entirely. So whilst I am, for all intents and purposes, adopting a physicalist philosophy I don't suppose I can honestly claim to be a "philosophical physicalist" in the sense that you used the term

OK.

The OP challenged the thread to provide evidence for "atheistic physicalism." Many posters commented on the superfluous addition of the modifier "atheistic." Then, a few commented on the ambiguity caused by not distinguishing between philosophical and methodological physicalism, which, as you note, is a distinction between what exists (an ontological position) and what can be known to exist (an epistemological position).

Your position, like mine, is the latter. Neither of us is willing to take the philosophical physicalist position. We both recognize that we would be claiming to have knowledge about what does not or cannot exist that all readers should recognize that we can't possibly have.

I mentioned that philosophical physicalism was one of four logically possible ways of thinking about the fundamental nature and substance (or substances) of reality, the one that says that all of existence is fundamentally physical (energy, matter, force, space,and time), and that all other phenomena supervene from the physical.

Another, idealism, says that mind is fundamental and the phenomena of the physical world derive from this fundamental mental substance.

A third says that the physical and mental both derive from a single prior substance, and the fourth suggests that the mental and physical are separate and unrelated substances.

Then I suggested that since none of these positions can be ruled in or out, one cannot justifiably assert any of them as true even if he has preferences or intuitions, and that one reason that no evidence was forthcoming in support of that position is that there is no more evidence for it than for any of the alternatives. I asked what such evidence would look like.

Some have said that there is evidence for philosophical physicalism. What they are calling evidence appears to be the lack of evidence in support of alternative candidate hypotheses, and the failure to find anything not physical.

I suppose that we can consider that "a shred of evidence" for philosophical physicalism, but only in a weak sense. Absence of evidence isn't really evidence of absence except where evidence is expected. By definition, we don't expect evidence of the undetectable, which is what we are speculating about.

I offered the poster that started this thread a second reason for not getting what he wanted: Perhaps nobody here held that position. That's where the series of quotes above begin and where you came in. You identified yourself as a philosophical physicalist.

Your final comment above suggests that you may have amended that claim. Your position is the same as mine and most if not all other skeptics posting here - the epistemological one, which is methodological physicalism - what is knowable to our senses and instruments - not the ontological one, which a claim about the fundamental nature of reality.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I tend to define 'physical' as anything that interacts with something previously known to be physical.

That's a reasonable definition.

Does that make the biblical god physical? If it can perform enter and exit our presence and both answer prayer and perform miracles from heaven, it would have to be by this understanding. I believe @siti also just broached this matter.

There doesn't seem to be any need for the term "supernatural," a concept that has had a net harmful effect.

If something exists, it is real and part of nature if by nature we mean everything that exists including any gods or multiverses.

The problem is that the definition of 'matter' is, at best, tricky. Is a photon matter? How about a gluon? A Higg's particle? And, more importantly, why would they be?

I would be content to define matter as fermions and fermion aggregates.

But we don't need to concern ourselves with that distinction in a discussion of whether more than the physical and the non-physical epiphenomena emerging from the physical exist, which is what life and mind would be in such a conceptualization.

And here we get to the question of what it means to exist. To exist is to interact. To interact with the physical is to *be* physical. So what else *can* exist?

I generally define "exist" as persisting through a duration.

What can exist but not interact with the physical? It's a fine point, but since it's logically possible, we can consider it. We can conceive of a separate reality causally disconnected from our reality and therefore undetectable even in principle.

But since such a reality would be indistinguishable from the nonexistent to us, we are free to treat such entities as irrelevant whether they "exist" or not. Anything else would be both existent and causally connected to our world, and therefore be physical - back to your definition.

Wouldn't this be the state that the Christian god must be - causally disconnected from our reality - to be inaccessible to our investigations as we are told it is? That's not compatible with it being able to modify our world, which requires that connection.

I think a lot of people find discussions like these pointless. I find it a useful exercise to try to be as precise and clear about what one believes and what one is saying when using certain words.

 

[igno remos]

Theist please with all due respect let us just agree on the subject. Most theists believed and worship deity/deities. An atheist on the other hand rejects that belief and so demand proof from theist to substantiate the alleged claim. The burden of proof must rest on the claimant of deity/deities to present evidences or arguments to demonstrate such claim. Why is the issue about atheist physicalism an issue? The issue has nothing to do with the subject of discussion. The subject is independent of the issue of physicalism because the burden of proof is not on the atheist to demonstrate his disbelief regarding theist belief of deist/deists. The atheist is simply rejecting theist assertions and beliefs claims of deity/deities. When theist could not produce evidence to such claims then it can be equally dismissed without proof by atheists. So theist please show or demonstrate that the deity/deities you worship exist. Shalom.

 

[ChristineM]

I'm well aware not all atheists are physicalist, materialist, naturalist, etc, but I'm specifically talking to this common subcategory of atheists. I want to know if there's any solid support/evidence or reasoning for your position. Literally anything at all. Usually there are only two responses. First is a "lack of evidence," which itself isn't evidence at all. People also tend to confuse "I'm unconvinced" with "that's not evidence," but even "I'm not convinced" is a simply a subjective feeling, an appeal to your own emotion. The other is simply "prove otherwise," but physicalism is not a default position, and it's specifically physicalism being put forth, the asker is not making some claim.

So beside a subjective appeal (unconvinced) and dodging the question (prove otherwise), is there any evidence or reasoning to support a purely "physical" universe without any gods currently posited, knowingly to you, by human beings?

E=MC2