Tag: Idealism

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The Ultimate Mystery

By Jim Spiegel

A recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, featuring a conversation with Rizwan Virk, deals with the possibility (or likelihood) that we are living in something like a computer generated reality. Of course, what this really points to is the age-old notion that the world is the product of some ultimate consciousness, that is, God. Rogan, like all of us, understands the significance of this, which explains why he is uncharacteristically silent through much of the conversation. We are talking about the ultimate question here.

There are really just two fundamental worldviews: Either all comes from Mind or all comes from matter. There are many versions of each, but these are ultimately the two options. It’s really that simple. Those who take the latter view are materialists (or naturalists or physicalists, depending on one’s preferred nomenclature). They are also empiricists and typically regard science as the most reliable or perhaps only way to secure knowledge. Materialists believe in minds and consciousness, of course. They just believe that it is reducible to, or an epiphenomon of, physical reality

Those who take the Mind-most-real view reject strong empiricism, affirming that reason or mystical-religious experiences provide evidence for the reality of a supernatural realm. They do not deny the reality of the physical world but simply deny that it is the ultimate reality. They maintain that this material realm is in some way the product of the workings of an ultimate consciousness. Those among them who maintain that this Mind at the bottom of things is personal are generally called theists. For many such theists, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, among others, theirs is a purely philosophical conviction. Most others subscribe to a theological tradition, such as Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.

Whichever view one takes, the conviction tends to be held very firmly, often dogmatically. This is despite the fact that whichever view one holds there are serious metaphysical problems and ultimate mysteries that defy ready explanation. This, I suppose, is symptomatic of human arrogance or insecurity or both. Plaguing both views is the ultimate metaphysical question: How did all of this get here? And even more basic is Heidegger’s famous question, Why is there something rather than nothing? (Ways of addressing this question are boundless. For a recent sampling, check out these, most of which miss the point or involve a confusion of some kind.)

Then there are the problems unique to each perspective. For the materialist, the most fundamental problem pertains to how consciousness could emerge from inert matter. The options here are numerous, including philosophical behaviorism, strict identity theory, functionalism, and property dualism. But they all face serious problems, such as that of 1) explaining the particulars of consciousness, including phenomenal qualia, subjectivity, and enduring selfhood, 2) accounting for human freedom, 3) accounting for moral truth, and 4) accounting for rationality—non-natural things like reasons, logic, and evidence influencing the world. Then there are the perennial problems of cosmology (explaining the origin of the universe and cosmic fine-tuning) as well as all sorts of empirical data pointing to the supernatural (e.g., mystical experiences, NDEs, OBEs, etc.).

Materialists may balk and minimize these problems all they want. It’s simple denial. Any self-respecting materialist will at least admit that these are genuinely significant problems with their perspective. It is no wonder that, after a half century of concerted atheism Antony Flew flipped from a materialist view to a Mind-most-real view (see his There is a God) and that the inveterate materialist Thomas Nagel has admitted that materialism is bankrupt and in serious need of overhaul, if not outright rejection (see his Mind and Cosmos).

But Mind-most-real proponents have no grounds to be cocky. They also face serious metaphysical problems. In addition to the ultimate metaphysical question—why is there something rather than nothing?—there are many other thorny questions: How could the ultimate Mind create something so radically different as physical matter? What is the substance of this Mind? How does this being causally act on the world? How much of the cosmos does the Mind control? Does this Mind have a moral nature? If so, then why evil—and why so much evil? Has the Mind communicated to humans? If so, which, if any, of the purported supernatural revelations is genuine? If one of them is, how do we resolve the countless interpretive problems?

As a Mind-most-real advocate, I am happy to be relieved of the problems plaguing the materialist view. But I naturally am interested in many of these other problems. However, as a Berkeleyan immaterialist, I think many of these admit of ready solutions. For on the Berkeleyan idealist view (which the great American theologian Jonathan Edwards essentially affirmed as well), the physical world just is ideas. And since minds naturally traffic in ideas, God’s production and causal influence on the world is not mysterious at all. (For in-depth scholarly discussions of a wide range of issues pertaining to idealism and Christianity, look here and here. And here is a London Lyceum interview with me on topic.)

But there is one particular problem unique to the Mind-Most-Real view that is especially deep and intractable: How does a Mind make another mind? In the theistic traditions, we learn that the primordial Mind (God) created all things. In the Christian tradition, at least since Augustine, we affirm that God created ex nihilo. So how did this ultimate center of consciousness—God—bring into existence minds like yours and mine ex nihilo? How does a subjective consciousness endow another thing/substance with subjectivity? And what exactly is the substance of each of our minds? How are our minds like and unlike the ultimate Mind?

One plausible philosophical answer is theologically problematic, at least from the perspective of Christian orthodoxy: The Mind did not create other minds ex nihilo but rather finite minds are aspects of the primordial Mind. This solution isn’t necessarily pantheistic, but it is panentheistic. (For an interesting discussion of this possibility, see Jordan Wessling’s chapter in this aforementioned book.)

As a convinced theist who believes that Christianity is the most reasonable version of theism, the question of ultimate reality is settled: Mind is most real. The likes of Antony Flew, Thomas Nagel, and Joe Rogan have recently been waking up to this fact, even if they aren’t ready to call themselves theists (or even, in the case of Nagel, a non-materialist). For me, then, the remaining ultimate mystery is just this: How does the Mind make other minds? This will be one of the first questions I ask that Mind when I get to the other side.

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Berkeleyan Idealism and Christian Philosophy: My Overview in Philosophy Compass

By Jim Spiegel

Last year saw the publication of the two-volume Bloomsbury series on Idealism and Christianity, for which I was chief editor. My co-editors (Steve Cowan, Joshua Farris and Mark Hamilton) on the two volumes happily discovered that there is no shortage of Christian scholars today who espouse the idealist perspective, whichcoveraffirms that the physical world is entirely dependent on a conscious Mind (also known as “God”) or, otherwise put, consciousness is most real and the physical world is essentially divine ideas made public (i.e., perceivable by finite minds).

So far, our volumes have created just the sorts of conversations we intended to stimulate. In fact, one of our colleagues—Chad Meister, Philosophy professor at Bethel University—recently informed us that he has “converted” to Berkeleyan idealism. And many others are intrigued and attracted to idealism for a variety of reasons.

So these are exciting days for idealism (also known as “immaterialism”). So much so that I was commissioned to write an article for Philosophy Compass on idealism and Christian philosophy. Last week the article was published, and you can access it here. As I note in the abstract, my essay “provides an overview of some of the ways Christian philosophers have deployed immaterialism to solve problems and generate insights in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, and philosophical theology.” Indeed, the explanatory power of idealism is formidable and is its most convincing feature. That is, at least in my judgment. Perhaps my article will be of some help to you as you look into it yourself.

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Hoffman’s Conscious Realism

By Jim Spiegel

Recently I learned of this excellent article in a recent issue of the Atlantic. It is an interview with cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman, who endorses an idealist view of reality—the notion that all that exist are conscious minds and their thoughts. He dubs the view “conscious realism,” but that is just his own terminology for what any philosopher will immediately recognize as something akin to Berkeleyan idealism, the thesis that esse est percipi aut percipere (to be is to be perceived or to be a perceiver).

The author of piece, Amanda Gefter, prefaces the interview with a nice summation of how two different scientific fields are converging on the idealist conclusion:

Getting at questions about the nature of reality, and disentangling the observer from the observed, is an endeavor that straddles the boundaries of neuroscience and fundamental physics. On one side you’ll find researchers scratching their chins raw trying to understand how a three-pound lump of gray matter obeying nothing more than the ordinary laws of physics can give rise to first-person conscious experience . . ..

On the other side are quantum physicists, marveling at the strange fact that quantum systems don’t seem to be definite objects localized in space until we come along to observe them. Experiment after experiment has shown—defying common sense—that if we assume that the particles that make up ordinary objects have an objective, observer-independent existence, we get the wrong answers. The central lesson of quantum physics is clear: There are no public objects sitting out there in some preexisting space. As the physicist John Wheeler put it, “Useful as it is under ordinary circumstances to say that the world exists ‘out there’ independent of us, that view can no longer be upheld.”

So Gefter concludes, “while neuroscientists struggle to understand how there can be such a thing as a first-person reality, quantum physicists have to grapple with the mystery of how there can be anything but a first-person reality. In short, all roads lead back to the observer.”

Indeed, this is precisely Hoffman’s view, as he explains in the interview. “As a conscious realist,” he says, “I am postulating conscious experiences as ontological primitives, the most basic ingredients of the world.” But, of

from Psychology Today
from Psychology Today

course, he cannot stop there. For consciousness—first-person subjectivity, awareness, perception, etc.—is not so much a thing as an event or phenomenon that must be had by a thing. Awareness and other forms of thought cannot exist on their own (as Descartes rightly observed). There must be someone who is aware, a mental substrate that is the ontological ground of the conscious events. So it won’t do to stop at conscious experience as an “ontological primitive.” A personal who must lie behind the consciousness what.

Hoffman recognizes this, granting that “objective reality is just conscious agents.” Gefter worries that this emphasis on first-person subjectivity might be a threat to science. Hoffman rightly dismisses this worry, mainly because the best science points in this direction. Others might worry that as a scientist it is not Hoffman’s place to make inferences to such a metaphysical notion as personal agency. But it would be disingenuous to suggest that scientists can avoid making metaphysical claims and assumptions. The real question is when certain scientific discoveries warrant our making particular metaphysical inferences. In this case, it seems to me that such inferences are clearly warranted.

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Idealism and Christianity Book Series

By Jim Spiegel

I am happy to announce the release of a two-volume book series entitled Idealism and Christianity, which I edited with the help of my colleagues Steve Cowan, Joshua Farris, and Mark Hamilton. The books are published by Bloomsbury Press and constitute what we hope will be the start of a renaissance of scholarly interest in metaphysical idealism. This is the thesis that mind is most real, and that the 9781628924022entire physical world essentially constitutes the thoughts of that wise and almighty mind—God.

The first volume in the series, entitled Idealism and Christian Theology, explores a variety of issues in theology, including Christology, the resurrection of Jesus, the doctrine of creation, and the knowledge of God. Contributors include Oliver Crisp, William Wainwright, and Keith Yandell. The second volume, Idealism and Christian Philosophy, features essays treating such issues as time, truth, perception, science, miracles, and the mind-body problem. Contributors include Doug Blount, Howard Robinson, Charles Taliaferro, and Keith Ward.

The heroes of the volumes are two 18th century thinkers: George Berkeley and Jonathan Edwards. Both of these 9781628924060great scholars regarded Idealism as amenable to a Christian perspective because it constitutes the most biblical and philosophically plausible way of conceptualizing the world. Idealism effectively addresses skeptical challenges to theism and it provides helpful resources for dealing with all sorts of knotty problems that have plagued philosophers and theologians for centuries.

In addition to the scholarly benefits of Idealism, this perspective also has tremendous personal benefits and is a powerful boon to faith. This was the constant refrain of Bishop Berkeley who concluded his classic defense of Idealism by confessing that his purpose in writing was to “inspire my readers with a pious sense of the presence of God and . . . the better dispose them to reverence and embrace the salutary truths of the Gospel, which to know and to practice is the highest perfection of human nature.” Amen to that, good Bishop!