The Mary Chronicles
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was well known—just as consciousness is to us—but no explanation for it was
available in terms of the accepted paradigms. Newton himself searched for an
explanation consistent with accepted physical principles—even once proposing invisible skyhooks holding planets in orbit. It is worth quoting Newton
on the matter of force relayed without physical contact:
[T]hat one body may act upon another at a distance thru’ a Vacuum, without the
Mediation of anything else by and through which their Action and Force may
be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an Absurdity that I believe
no Man who has in philosophical Matters a competent Faculty of thinking can
ever fall into it. [Isaac Newton, Letters to Bentley, 1692]
The matter was not clarified until the Nineteenth Century when James
Maxwell introduced the notion of fields of force, which are able to unite the
phenomena of gravitation, electricity and magnetism into one system. This
new paradigm was so powerful that it was immediately accepted by scientists,
who learned to incorporate its ideas into their framework of common sense.
This historical episode is very much comparable with the present-day refusal
to admit sentience as something consistent with physical law. Almost echoing
Newton, there are people today who say that having sensations and feelings
without the mediation of a physical mechanism is an Absurdity.
Meanwhile, look at how far physics has come in the last hundred years: It is
universally accepted that space and time interpenetrate, they can be bent and
deformed, and are not continuous but granular. Particles are not bits of matter,
but abstractions that achieve physical existence only at the instants when they
interact with other particles.
The mystery is that in an age when physics has carried us into such a
fantastic and unimaginable reality, we still balk at the idea that there are mental
phenomena which do not follow the rules of classical physics. Why is it so
hard to accept that in a universe in which space-time bends and curves, where
particles of matter weave in and out of existence, and space itself is particulate—
why would it be strange to accept that the mind of living animals is something
complex whose laws are not the same ones that have been familiar to us for
centuries?
The Heart of Physicalism
The physicalist way of thinking has a tight grip on Western science and philosophy, and possesses the distinctive spirit which sets European civilization apart
from the high cultures which have flourished in Asia. The basic intuitions,
111
was well known—just as consciousness is to us—but no explanation for it was
available in terms of the accepted paradigms. Newton himself searched for an
explanation consistent with accepted physical principles—even once proposing invisible skyhooks holding planets in orbit. It is worth quoting Newton
on the matter of force relayed without physical contact:
[T]hat one body may act upon another at a distance thru’ a Vacuum, without the
Mediation of anything else by and through which their Action and Force may
be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an Absurdity that I believe
no Man who has in philosophical Matters a competent Faculty of thinking can
ever fall into it. [Isaac Newton, Letters to Bentley, 1692]
The matter was not clarified until the Nineteenth Century when James
Maxwell introduced the notion of fields of force, which are able to unite the
phenomena of gravitation, electricity and magnetism into one system. This
new paradigm was so powerful that it was immediately accepted by scientists,
who learned to incorporate its ideas into their framework of common sense.
This historical episode is very much comparable with the present-day refusal
to admit sentience as something consistent with physical law. Almost echoing
Newton, there are people today who say that having sensations and feelings
without the mediation of a physical mechanism is an Absurdity.
Meanwhile, look at how far physics has come in the last hundred years: It is
universally accepted that space and time interpenetrate, they can be bent and
deformed, and are not continuous but granular. Particles are not bits of matter,
but abstractions that achieve physical existence only at the instants when they
interact with other particles.
The mystery is that in an age when physics has carried us into such a
fantastic and unimaginable reality, we still balk at the idea that there are mental
phenomena which do not follow the rules of classical physics. Why is it so
hard to accept that in a universe in which space-time bends and curves, where
particles of matter weave in and out of existence, and space itself is particulate—
why would it be strange to accept that the mind of living animals is something
complex whose laws are not the same ones that have been familiar to us for
centuries?
The Heart of Physicalism
The physicalist way of thinking has a tight grip on Western science and philosophy, and possesses the distinctive spirit which sets European civilization apart
from the high cultures which have flourished in Asia. The basic intuitions,