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Copyright by Paul Hamilton Smith 2009 The Dissertation Committee for Paul Hamilton Smith certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: IS PHYSICALISM “REALLY” TRUE? An Empirical Argument Against the Universal Construal of Physicalism Committee: ___________________________________ Daniel Bonevac, Supervisor ___________________________________ Cory Juhl ___________________________________ Robert Kane ___________________________________ Harold E. Puthoff ___________________________________ David Sosa ___________________________________ Jessica Utts IS PHYSICALISM “REALLY” TRUE? An Empirical Argument Against the Universal Construal of Physicalism By Paul Hamilton Smith, BA, MS Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2009 DEDICATION To the men and women who in the face of unrelenting criticism (and often thinly- veiled disdain) from the mainstream have nonetheless dared to pursue the science that supports my conclusions. Without their efforts, my argument could never have even gotten off the ground. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The successful completion of this project owes much to many. At the top of the list is my long-suffering wife, Daryl Gibson, who only occasionally punctuated her patient waiting with doubts about me being able to stuff these ten pounds of work into the five-pound bag I had been allotted. I have truly been blessed with a talented and many- virtued spouse, whose professional editing skills are evident in the last eight chapters – which now read much better than they might otherwise have. I also appreciate the contributions and input from Ed May and Dean Radin, who responded quickly to my inquiries and provided much useful information. My friend Dallan Taylor has been of help for logistical matters on a number of occasions, and I am also grateful to my next-door neighbors, Bruce and Irene Bateman, for allowing me free access to their house during the day for a quiet place to work, and to the McNeil Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for not complaining about the many times I set up with my computer and books in classroom 8 for the same reason. Without those two calm refuges I might still not be finished. I should also thank my many friends and relatives for encouraging me to finish – including my parents, Fred C. and Jean T. Smith; my mother- and father-in-law, Beth and Bill Gibson; and certainly not least of all my children – Mary Elizabeth, James, Christopher, and William (adults and near-adults though all of them now are) for their support. My friends Lt. Col. Kent Johnson, USAF (ret.), and Dr. Bill Stroud were also a source of much encouragement over the years. I owe a much older debt of gratitude to v my high school English teacher through four years of English Forum, Mabel Mitchell who, along with her husband, Andrew (my former elementary school principle) – both now in their nineties and still lively – have been not only a source of encouragement, but an inspiration for me nearly from as early as I can remember. My dissertation committee, too, deserves much praise for spending the energy in seeing me through this endeavor. Of particular note I want to thank Cory Juhl, for giving me many insights and much direction; Dan Bonevac for chairing and guiding my work; and Jessica Utts for being willing on short notice to read a voluminous work, much of it outside her field, and then come half way across the continent for a 12-hour turn-around to sit on the committee during my oral defense. That was truly beyond the call of duty, and I appreciate it. Finally, my hat is off to the US taxpayers for the generous gift of the GI Bill – which has (and I hope will continue) to benefit millions -- both the veterans who thereby gain their education, and the even larger number of citizens who benefit from what those veterans have learned. vi IS PHYSICALISM “REALLY” TRUE? An Empirical Argument Against the Universal Construal of Physicalism Paul Hamilton Smith, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2009 Supervisor: Daniel Bonevac Physicalism as universally construed is the thesis that everything in the world is either physical or a consequence of physical facts. Certain consequences of physicalism for free will, religion, and so on make it unpalatable to some. Physicalism should not be dismissed merely on its unpalatability. Nonetheless, we should be very sure it is true before accepting it uncritically (as much of science and philosophy now do). Physicalism is a contingent thesis, taken as true on the basis of strong inductive evidence and an inference-to-the-best-explanation that specifies it as the best theory over any of its competitors to provide an ontological account of the universe. So long as there is no contrary evidence to the claims of physicalism, then it stands relatively uncontested. I argue that there is a body of well-attested empirical evidence that falsifies universally-construed physicalism by violating an essential assumption of the theory – vii causal closure of the physical domain. I present a detailed account of this closure- violating evidence. So that those who are unfamiliar with the body of evidence on offer may judge its validity, I include brief summations of experimental designs, findings, and analyses, plus some controversies pertaining to the data and their resolutions. I then argue why this body of empirical evidence should count against universal physicalism, argue for the evidence’s scientific legitimacy, and discuss criticisms which have been lodged against it, then explain why these criticisms lack force. I conclude that the evidence I present is sufficient to falsify the universal construal of physicalism as supported by today’s and by foreseeable future understandings of the physical world. I acknowledge, though, that nothing can be guaranteed against an indefinite “wait-and-see” argument for some implausible “fully- realized” physics that may be able to reconcile the evidence I propose with such a fully- completed formulation of physicalism. I suggest that if this is the best physicalists can come up with, then their position is weak and the inference-to-the-best-explanation that until now supported universal physicalism should be turned around to tell against the theory. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Physicalism – True or False?........................................................................1 Chapter 2: The Case for Physicalism............................................................................16 Chapter 3: Failing to Prove Physicalism False..............................................................49 Chapter 4: How to Prove Physicalism False.................................................................73 Chapter 5: Counterexample to Physicalism..................................................................93 Chapter 6: Further Evidence: Staring and DMILS.....................................................127 Chapter 7: Counterexample to Physicalism: Remote Viewing....................................170 Chapter 8: Remote Viewing (continued)....................................................................202 Chapter 9: Evaluating the Evidence – Precognition/Reverse Causation......................231 Chapter 10: Evaluating the Evidence – Perception at a Distance..................................275 Chapter 11: Arguments Against the Evidence..............................................................319 Chapter 12: Conclusion: Reversing the ITBE..............................................................353 References (Compiled).................................................................................................374 References By Subject Area.........................................................................................400 Vita..............................................................................................................................427 ix Chapter 1: Physicalism – True or False? One of the thorniest problems remaining to the philosophy of mind is how to reconcile phenomenal and other features of human mentality with the rest of nature, given the truth of physicalism. By physicalism I mean the general assertion that all causality is strictly physical and all events are physical events; that all entities are either literally physical, physically realized, or a consequence of only physical facts or states of affairs.1 For decades now there has been an ongoing argument between physicalists and anti-physicalists as to whether physics really is ontologically privileged to provide the one true explanatory framework for the universe. Though the contest seems to be going in favor of the physicalists, it is by no means yet settled. In this project I aim to discover what it would take to prove physicalism false. My first goal is to explore what it would take to show physicalism to be true, on the way to finding out what it would take to prove it false. I will argue that the former is much harder to do than the latter. It is uncontroversial that science research programmes2 must be embedded in broader theoretical contexts. Such contexts provide a framework for any new research results that are produced, within which these can interpreted and integrated. When once 1I will have more to say about the definition of physicalism later in this chapter. 2I use this term in the sense proposed by philosopher