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Does physicalism enjoy the simplest ontology among all worldviews?

Are there alternative conceivable views of reality with a simpler ontology than physicalism's that can explain the same data? For example, what about idealistic worldviews, metaphysical solipsism, or some creative versions of brain in a vat scenarios where only one's mind exists accompanied by a deceiver that projects illusions on one's mind? Would something like that be simpler than positing an entire universe (or multiverse) with quarks, gluons, neutrinos, spacetime, laws of physics, other minds, etc.?

Can anything simpler than physicalism be conceived with equal or greater explanatory power?

Mark
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  • The measurement of simplicity could possibly apply to religions. In philosophy, finding simplicity in materialistic vs idealistic views would probably be fruitless. – TheMatrix Equation-balance Mar 27 '24 at 02:52
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    Considering that "simpler" and "simplest" do not mean anything non-opinion-based, this question is off-topic for SE as is. You'll have to specify your version of "simplicity" at least. "Among all worldviews" is too broad to be meaningful. Parmenides's One "ungenerated and deathless, whole and uniform, still and perfect" and its Oriental equivalents, like Tao, answer to different concerns and are oranges to apples. Physicalism's apple-to-apple competitors, like property dualism, are few in number and compete on a range of criteria that make any "simplicity" rather moot. – Conifold Mar 27 '24 at 04:48
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    As I pointed out here the "physical" in physicalism is (at least on wikipedia) so loosely defined that physicalism, "a form of ontological monism", can't even be distinguished from traditional forms of ontological dualism. – g s Mar 27 '24 at 05:42
  • Physicalism is extremely simple if not the simplest since it's just a kind of monism ontically... – Double Knot Mar 27 '24 at 05:50
  • In the DIKW hierarchy, there are more K's and fewer D's. The opposite is also true. K and D increase and decrease proportionally. – fkybrd Mar 27 '24 at 07:56
  • Is "simplicity" in this question related to Okham's razor? – armand Mar 27 '24 at 07:58
  • @armand I think so, yeah. – Mark Mar 27 '24 at 11:19
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    @Conifold By your logic, we can’t say that a single atom is simpler than the entire universe because it is subjective. Every judgment in philosophy is opinion based – Baby_philosopher Mar 27 '24 at 14:47
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    @Baby_philosopher in this context, it looks like simplicity is being used to describe explanatory models or objects as elements thereof, not objects in isolation: "this is the reason" vs "that is the reason". It does become impossible to say (without a very narrow definition excluding most of the common use) whether an explanation based on an object with much fewer elements is simpler than an explanation with many more elements. [...] – g s Mar 27 '24 at 16:06
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    [...]For instance, suppose I take a photograph of a tiny part of the night sky and the film negative shows one little black spot. I can explain the little black spot with a spontaneous atomic decay local to that tiny spot of the film involving only a few thousand atoms, or with a distant star involving 10^57 atoms. Neither gets to be "simpler" until "simpler" gets defined much more narrowly than common use, and depending on the definition, "simpler" may correspond with the much less likely answer (decay), or may indicate the much more likely answer (star) for a bad reason. – g s Mar 27 '24 at 16:12
  • After the post on Occam's razor it should be clear that notions of simplicity can differ. – Nikos M. Mar 27 '24 at 16:50
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    Again, notions of anything can differ. Every single word has multiple definitions and every single concept in philosophy has differing views. But some notions are more obvious than others, such as an atom being simpler than the entire universe. Keep missing the point – Baby_philosopher Mar 27 '24 at 16:54
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    @Baby_philosopher I am simply agreeing with Conifold that this question is primarily opinion based. Something that the OP has in a sense accepted through the other post. – Nikos M. Mar 27 '24 at 17:28
  • @NikosM. Both you and Conifold make a moot point. Simplicity like many other epistemic values are opinion based. It doesn’t mean it’s useless. Without judgment calls, philosophy would be useless. Every single belief you have due to some preferred epistemic value likely has a person who opposes that belief and thinks that the value you find in that belief is mistaken. – Baby_philosopher Mar 27 '24 at 21:00
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    @Baby_philosopher you tend to present our objection as trivial in the sense that some (your?) notion of simplicity is obviously natural while others are extraordinary. As already pointed out in the Occam razor question the issue is far from trivial in this sense. – Nikos M. Mar 27 '24 at 21:07
  • @NikosM You’re still missing the point. My argument is that every single epistemic value in philosophy can be debated. For example, I think that seeing my mother today is good evidence that my mother is real. Now, you can debate that. You can debate whether or not literally seeing someone is good evidence of their existence. To solipsists, this is not “immediately obvious.” But by your and Conifold’s logic, this is now a matter of opinion due to disagreement. – Baby_philosopher Mar 27 '24 at 21:18

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Its important to distinguish "explanatory" — which subdivides into "narrative" and "descriptive". And "predictive".

Clearly and trivially the more idealistic philosophies explain more parsimoniously. Apart from classic idealists like Berkeley, in our times Bernardo Karstrup in Materialism is Baloney and elsewhere makes a trenchant case for idealism

See also the spectrum from subject-oriented to object-oriented

Describe ←→ Narrate ←→ Predict ←→ Control

The problem is that we dont only want description. We also want narrative power.

[I am using the standard terms for literature where "descriptive" paints a scene and "narrative" tells a story ie. time is involved]

The limit of narration is prediction — story into the future. And ultimately control ie. technology. Here idealism fails utterly. If you go with your pathological reports to a doctor you dont just want explanations of what the numbers mean. You want predictions: if I let the problem be, X will happen; if I intervene — medicine, surgery etc — Y will happen. And so the expedient choice is Z.

Medicine is the most obvious example where we want "physical doctors" not idealists! But its really everywhere: We drive cars, live in buildings, use equipment — all these need to be designed ie. their creators need to display prediction and have and confer control. For this the idealistic side is utterly useless.

OTOH the impotence of idealism for prediction and control is mirrored by the uselessness of the physicalist outlook for addressing the most pressing and unanswerable life questions:

  • Why do I suffer? Or fear? Or rage?
  • What is the point of it all?
  • Who/what is God?
  • Where will I go when I die?

In short all of us are willy-nilly dualists. The only choice is one can consent to it with open eyes. Or else kicking and screaming.

Rushi
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    "Why do I suffer? Or fear? Or rage?" - on a biological level, emotion is the result of brain processes and evolved since it provided a survival benefit to be drawn to or averse to certain situations. On a practical level, what happens to us and what we do affects our emotions. "What is the point of it all?" - "it all" doesn't have a point, but people certainly find their own meaning and purpose in life. "Who/what is God?" - an imagined entity. "Where will I go when I die?" - probably in the ground, maybe a furnace. Your consciousness will cease. There you go. The "unanswerable", answered. – NotThatGuy Mar 27 '24 at 07:07
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    @NotThatGuy What you call answers I call "physical corelates of self" When you go to a doctor with a tummy-ache, its not satisfactory if they say: Ah! From your reports I see your appendix is swollen. It will burst in a few hours. Then you will die. Though that may well be part of the answer. The full answer needs a completion of the form ... and so I suggest an immediate operation... inspite of these risks/downsides etc. And yes, "answer" is deeply inherently polysemic — it can range from the examples you give to profoundly life-changing «spiritual happenings» —various shades between – Rushi Mar 27 '24 at 07:13
  • @NotThatGuy Here is a simple experiment for you to try to see whether you actually agree with me that your rendering is possible but insufficient. Somewhere in your youth, perhaps between ages of 5 and 13, you had some questions like this. You asked this to Mum/Dad or whoever it was. The kind of answers you give (now), may well have been part of the answer-package you received then. Was it the full and final answer? For you? At that point? – Rushi Mar 27 '24 at 07:21
  • You are not a physical being with a spiritual soul; you are a spiritual being that happens to have a body right now I saw this somewhere, probably one of the new age gurus. While I dont push it as a truth, I do recommend it as something to play with – Rushi Mar 27 '24 at 07:25
  • I'm not really following your analogy or the point of your experiment. Sometimes doctors give you medication or operate to fix a problem, other times they just say there's nothing they can do. Sometimes exploring those questions you mention leads you to practical advice (e.g. you can do things to avoid emotions you dislike, you can go try to find meaning, or you can make the best of this one life you have), other times maybe you can't do much (e.g. you can't change the fact that your consciousness will one day cease). And my parents probably would've answered something about heaven. – NotThatGuy Mar 27 '24 at 07:29
  • @NotThatGuy And my parents probably would've answered something about heaven. V V good! You evidently asked a real question. (I need not know what it was) You (v likely) got an unsatisfactory answer. Thats also good. All that I will wish for you is that you dont let that question lapse with your "past-tense-childhood". And "My consciousness will one day cease" is self-contradictory. Just as is the statement: "I am dead". But this cannot be grokked unless you tolerate some idealistic components in your outlook – Rushi Mar 27 '24 at 07:35
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    If a computer generates the text "I am not performing computation", that would be self-contradictory / false, yet if you turn it off, the computation ceases. A computer would be quite correct to say "My computation will one day cease". Of course, that's a physicalist analogy. And I was way past childhood when I figured out what I currently consider to be the "right" answers to these questions, and I'm at least theoretically open to having my mind changed about those things... but that would require a compelling case to be made in favour of some other conclusion. – NotThatGuy Mar 27 '24 at 08:57
  • @NotThatGuy Every day when you sleep, and if we consider the deep sleep (no dream) state, people events happenings happy sad all vanish space and time themselves end. But you dont. As evidenced by the sense I had a refreshing sleep Ofc this is an after-the-fact datum. How much weight you put on it is your call of course. I will only say this much: From an idealist pov sleep and death are very similar. The only difference is that for the one the THOUGHT This is IT. This is THE END. I am OVER NOW causes pain fear. For other there is no such thought and so its welcomed. OFc this idealist pov – Rushi Mar 27 '24 at 09:31
  • "Beings are at first unmanifested, they manifest, then become unmanifested again. What is there to lament in this?' - the Bhagavad Gita - I guess it depends on whether Manifested = Exist and the contrary. – Scott Rowe Mar 29 '24 at 16:58
  • @ScottRowe Yes! Fear of death is the ultimate fear. All other fears are just that in modified and processed form. And as best as we know few ( v few!) do comprehensively get over it. Socrates didnt have it — He called his solution "philosophy". Jesus didnt have it — He called his solution "My Father". We need respect the fact that these guys didnt have the fear. But also to hesitate to use their language cavalierly as long as we still have the fear – Rushi Mar 29 '24 at 18:00
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There are several flawed assumptions behind this question, which could improve your thinking if corrected.

The first is that simplicity is not a good metric to use for the goodness of a worldview. This was discussed in the answers to a prior question: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/110052/29339 What really matters, per Popper, is predictive power.

The second is that physicalism is not clearly an ontology. Physicalism was embraced as a stand-in for materialism, after Einstein refuted that matter is fundamental. But "what physics studies" isn't an ontology, and this has been an ongoing source of disquiet in the post-materialist era. There are two issues for physicalism as an ontology. One is that physics studied the fusion of two things -- stuff plus relationships. Relationships have no energy, or mass, but are key to what the "stuff" behaves like. Under Popper's 3 worlds ontology, physics is actually studying worlds 1 and 3, not just world 1. This makes physicalism a dualist ontology.

The other issue is that for physicalism to work as a worldview, it needs to be more than an ontology, but also an epistemology. Physicalism is most comfortable with two epistemological views: global reductionism, and scientism, but most thinkers on both subjects have concluded that neither are the case. There are three major problems with these assumptions.

The first is that physics as a science is intrinsically incomplete. All active work in physics is outside current "known physics", and we are unable to define what any boundaries for "future physics". This leads to a definitional problem called Hempel's Dilemma. Hempel's Dilemma holds that one cannot define physics to exclude the things physicalists want to reject -- Gods, ghosts, spirits, etc -- without asserting a definition we know to be wrong. The second problem is that physics is just a field of science, and science in general is not derived scientifically, but rather as a subset of the philosophical practice of empiricism. So science, and physics, are by definition not the only sources of knowledge. The third problem is a practical one, that science itself has realized that global reductionism is likely not true, and emergence needs to be accepted as a real phenomenon. This leads to science as a whole accepting that other sciences besides physics discover things that physics cannot. The implication of this admission, plus the inability of science to self justify is also that non-sciences are very reasonably valid sources of knowledge as well.

In addition to these theoretical issues for physicalism, there are practical test cases, in which physicalist explanations for consciousness have repeatedly been found to fail, as they predict we should not be conscious. This is the famous "hard problem of consciousness". Physicalism also, by leaving no place in its ontololgy for values, tends to lead to a futilitarian or nihilist worldview, which leads to a failure in the test case of "is this a useful philosophy to live my life by".

These problems for physicalism reveal a problem for the assumptions behind your resort to Occam's Razor. Physicalism does not explain everything we would like a complete philosophy to explain. It has contradicting test cases, and theoretical inabilities to self justify, or address all of our desired philosophical questions. Occam invoked his Razor to sort between competing explanations that can both explain the same problem set. But if the explanations don't explain the full problem set, then Occam isn't a valid metric at all, even in Popper's rewrite.

It is the nature of philosophical worldviews that they all have these sorts of problems and challenge areas that they struggle with. Idealisms, Popperian Triplism, Spiritual dualism, Russellian neutral monism, emergent naturalist pluralism -- NONE of these does not have similar issues of test cases they struggle with, or theoretical problems that limit their range of applicable scope, etc. None of them can explain the "full data set of the world".

The better way to sort between philosophic worldviews is to treat them as Research Programmes, in the theory Imre Lakatos developed to better explain how science operates. https://www.scientowiki.com/Imre_Lakatos

Under Lakatos' criteria, the question you are asking would be transformed to -- is there a more progressive philosophic research programme than physicalism? All worldview frameworks can be characterized for their progressivity and regressivity. Physicalism was, 3/4 of a century ago, an immensely progressive programme. The issues I have noted have been accumulating, unresolved, and have degraded this progressivity over the last 3/4 of a century.

The consequence of the increasing recognition that physicalism is not delivering on the promise it had in the mid 20th century, has been a revival of philosophers pursuing the various alternatives I listed. However, I do not believe that any of these alternatives is currently demonstrating greater progressivity. There is instead in the communities pursing alternatives, the hope that an alternate programme can overcome past challenges that made it difficult to address failed predictions, or made that programme difficult to make useful predictions with at all. There is more speculation and hope, rather than demonstrated accomplishments, behind the current increasing pursuit of alternatives to physicalism.

Dcleve
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Physicalism is a form of naturalism:

Everything has a natural cause, miracles do not happen.

Because naturalism does not rely on gods, devils and other spirits its ontology is more parsimonous than a theistic ontology with its theological superstructure.

A naturalistic worldview has to pay a price: It has to let open several fundamental questions and leave them as a topic for later generations.

Combined with the critical rationalism of Karl Popper, naturalism relies on falsibilism. Hence naturalism is freed from the search for final explanations with absolute certainty.

Jo Wehler
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Imo the best way to gauge the simplicity of a model is to program a simulation of that model. Compare the size of the programs, the smaller one is simpler.

Now, that obviously gets unfeasible in certain contexts, especially contexts where no such program exists, and so one must try to speculate and surmise what such programs might look like.

That being said, it's generally taken that simulating the Christian God would take more lines of code than the code for simulating, say, quantum physics. Until someone can write a program that simulates the Christian god, we have to assume quantum physics is simpler, since quantum physics CAN be simulated (even if only at small scales, like at the scale of a super simple molecule).

Our failure to simulate the Christian god indicates one of two things, maybe both: the Christian god would be an incredibly complicated program to write, AND/OR the model of the Christian God is so poorly defined that it doesn't even make sense to try to simulate it.

If it's the second case, then it ceases to be a matter of comparing the simplicity of two models - you're comparing one real fully featured model to an idea that isn't well defined enough to call a "model" at all.

This post oversimplifies pieces of the debate, no doubt. However, here's more reading material on the idea:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity

Now, op said Physicalism and I've made my post about the Christian God in particular - I've done that just for illustrative purposes. You can apply the same kind of thought pattern here to any non physicalist view of the world. The fact is, we don't have any models of souls or spirits either - we have many models of physical things, but not a single model of how souls operate.

TKoL
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    Brain in a vat explains every possible observation, which makes it a poor explanation for any specific observation. I think idealism and Physicalism are incorrectly placed at odds with each other, potentially. – TKoL Mar 27 '24 at 09:37
  • Metaphysical Solipsism is like brain in a vat - no matter what you experience, metaphysical Solipsism could explain it, which makes it a poor explanation – TKoL Mar 27 '24 at 09:38
  • Brain in a vat explains every possible observation, which makes it a poor explanation for any specific observation - How so? I don't follow the logic. – Mark Mar 27 '24 at 09:38
  • @Mark what thing could you experience which would demonstrate that "brain in a vat" is not true, or at least probably not true? – TKoL Mar 27 '24 at 09:39
  • Nothing I can think of, but I fail to see how that logically entails the claim "it's a poor explanation". Define "poor". But instead of answering in the comments, please edit your answer. It's better if you elaborate on this in your answer. – Mark Mar 27 '24 at 09:40
  • This is very tangential to my answer @Mark. Good explanations explain specifically what you observe, and they do a poor job of explaining things that are entirely unlike what you observe. It's like making a bet. Good explanations place a big bet on the things you observe, and bad explanations place tiny little bets on everything. Brain in a vat is the second type. – TKoL Mar 27 '24 at 09:42
  • I still don't understand. I'm not following. And in addition, I fail to see where these rules about "goodness" are coming from. Mind citing a source? – Mark Mar 27 '24 at 09:58
  • @Mark it's related to falsifiability. Relativity, for example, makes a really big bet on a really narrow region of the Roulette table - it's like placing a big bet specifically on the number 4. If the ball lands on anything other than 4, relativity is wrong, but if it lands on 4, we can be really confident relativity is right. "Brain in a vat" doesn't place a big bet on a single number, it places a tiny bet on EVERY number - whatever number it lands on, "brain in a vat" stays a feasible option. There's nothing that could falsify it ... – TKoL Mar 27 '24 at 10:02
  • ... but by the same token, nothing that should make you very confident in it either. Sources on the importance of falsifiability abound. – TKoL Mar 27 '24 at 10:02
  • So, when the roulette table lands on 4, Relativity has a big win, but you see that "Brain in a vat" takes some winnings as well, just much smaller winnings - because it also placed a bet on 4, just like it placed a bet on every other possible thing you could observe. So you conclude, Relativity is good at betting, and Brain in a Vat is not. – TKoL Mar 27 '24 at 10:04
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    Those are epistemological considerations, not ontological considerations. And you still need to make dogmatic assumptions about your subjective experiences, your memories, the external world, etc., to get this off the ground. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma – Mark Mar 27 '24 at 10:08
  • @Mark I'm okay with that. Are you? – TKoL Mar 27 '24 at 10:11
  • I mean, you are free to do whatever you want, but my question is mainly concerned with the complexity of the ontologies (and sure, you can add your personal caveats about epistemology if you wish). But please in your answer, because comments can get deleted. – Mark Mar 27 '24 at 10:55
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Mark: Is physicalism the simplest worldview in terms of the complexity of its ontology?

Does physicalism enjoy the simplest ontology among all worldviews?

Are there alternative conceivable views of reality with a simpler ontology than physicalism's that can explain the same data?

Can anything simpler than physicalism be conceived with equal or greater explanatory power?

Alistair: I find physicalism simplicity and naturalism to be the best guiding lights.

However, currently, "physicalism" seems lacking in the "physical"... which raises questions...

Is there a "physical"? Who's/which "physical"? What is "physicalism"? Does "physical" help in figuring out reality? Why are we considering physicalism? How are we defining physicalism?

As far as I can tell (you can trust me, I have delved)... the current human "best guess" at "physicalism" is the Standard Model of Particle Physics"... which lacks in physicality, except as an emergent phenomenon.

One philosopher to another. In any of all existing physics theories...

And then add for review...

The challenge would be to find a single suggestion or single claim of any actual physical object that is non-divisible and has a volume greater than zero (0).

If you look at the Planck's constants what you find is they are a relationship. A ratio. Size (amplitude, wavelength), and time (frequency) with the result being in "Joule-Seconds" which is a quantification of the mysterious and fuzzy "energy".

Asked "What is E or energy?" ChatGPT returned this:

Energy (E) is a fundamental concept in physics that represents the capacity of a system to do work or produce heat. It comes in various forms, including kinetic energy (energy due to motion), potential energy (energy due to position or configuration), thermal energy (energy associated with temperature), and many others.

In different contexts, energy can manifest in different ways, but its fundamental nature remains the same: the ability to cause changes in a system.

Do you remember the old Star Trek episode with "energy beings"?

Provocative "forces and Energy"

The chosen images labelled fundamental forces and fundamental energy are purposefully a little provocative. They are to invite yourself to ask yourself... when you hear the terms:

  • Forces
  • Fields (the new forces)
  • Energy
  • Fluctuations
  • Spin
  • Charge

Can you envision anything that you would describe as "physical"?

Anything with volume and shape and size and physicality anywhere among any of the theories or candidate theories?

(Note: You can try, but fair warning, it is a rhetorical question)

So when we say "Is physicalism the simplest take on reality, or worldview?"

Given that the current Planck's Constant based Standard Model of Particle Physics is energy-based, I would say... is energyism is what we are calling "physicalism".

Alistair Riddoch
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Physicalism is simpler than idealism because it contains physical laws that explain the orderliness of things happening in the world. In an idealistic world, there are no laws proposed, hence the orderliness that we see in the world becomes a complete and utter miracle.

Baby_philosopher
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I apologize for making 2 answers, but I think this one is potentially distinct enough to warrant a second answer. Also, fair warning, wacky speculation ahead.

The natural interpretation of the question is, "What is the simplest view of the nature of our reality?", but in thinking about it more, I keep finding myself tempted to think bigger than "our reality".

What if the simplest program to explain this universe is a program that generates all other programs?

You wanted to compare physicalism to idealism - this is perhaps a type of "idealism", if you can call it that, that resonates with me. And then, this universe is physicalist, but it's physical because "physical universes" are one of the ideas generated by this type of idealism.

So physicalism would be true of this universe, but true on a bedrock of a type of idealism which says "all implementable ideas are implemented".

TKoL
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