Continuing my quest to uproot physicalism from science. 🫡

Uncovering the dark reality behind science's flagship philosophy makes us question whether we actually want AI to have the same values as those who build it.

In my previous article, I explained that our philosophical belief shapes our predictions. I also hinted at the fact that science is dominated by a philosophical view that, at its core, the universe is a lifeless sandbox – and things such as life, intelligence or consciousness are just by-products of complex swirling of inanimate matter and energy.

But this view – commonly called physicalism – is just one out of many plausible interpretations of our reality.

In this piece, we'll explore where it came from and how it managed to dominate the minds of the smartest men and women. Then we'll examine the negative externalities that can arise when we build our models of reality upon this belief.

And to be clear, this piece is not a criticism of physicalism per se. What I criticise is the inadequate separation of physicalism from science, giving it an undeserved special treatment as the "most scientific" or "evidence-based" philosophical view.

How physicalism and science got together

To help us understand the origin of the close link between science and physicalism, let's examine the original purpose of philosophy and science – taking information and turning it into useful knowledge. Both of these disciplines help us make better models of reality so we can make better predictions and ultimately survive what reality throws at us.

Making predictions has two parts: observation and model-building.

Historically, people had to build models with little data, which naturally led to inaccurate models with many unexpected events. These "mysterious things" out of human control gave rise to religious frameworks, where divinities accounted for the unexplainable. The fact that some things were simply unknowable was natural, obvious.

This changed with the adoption of the scientific method. Its ability to make predictions about literally everything observable introduced the notion that "Gods are no longer needed" to explain reality.

In other words, people (mostly scientists) concluded (incorrectly) that the most rational way to make predictions is with science only, as these are 100% verifiable and any extra philosophical assumptions only introduce unnecessary uncertainty.

This is wrong in so many ways, so let's address a few.

1. Even if you could observe everything and find all patterns in the universe, you still need a philosophical framework to put it in context and to explain what's inherently unobservable.
2. Even if everything is accounted for in the entire history, new, unexpected patterns could still emerge in the future.
3. There are countless ways how God/creator/&?# could make reality appear "physicalistic" to us while in fact it would not be so. See Maya.

So why did scientists make such an erroneous conclusion?

I think it was simply out of convenience. You see, predictions from science only are much easier than from science + philosophy, especially because science is only one and there are many philosophies. But as I explained, science will always need some philosophical framework to construct reality models. And so, scientists (perhaps unconsciously) adopted physicalism as a "dummy filler" or "minimum viable philosophy," simply because it was a framework with the fewest assumptions or arbitrary variables (extra dimensions, unseen forces, Gods and such…).

On its own, this would not be that problematic – just scientists being pragmatic. The problem emerged as the enormous success of scientific predictions "rubbed off" onto physicalism. In other words, as scientific thinking dominated the world, its default "philosophical appendage" – physicalism – received a "special status" among other philosophies.

Physicalism's ascension to supremacy

Physicalism became perceived as something "more" than a belief. More or less consciously, it was touted as the most scientific, rational, logical, plausible and believable philosophy out there. This caused a massive rise in atheism and a severe weakening of dominant monotheistic views.

But this was overcompensation. Yes, science debunking certain religious "truths" should naturally weaken people's beliefs in particular religions and doctrines. But it should not automatically lead people to straight atheism. If thinking rationally, scientific understanding about how reality works doesn't really give us any firm evidence to make conclusions about how it was made in the first place.

But humans evolved in religion, not in rationality. And so here enters the great cliché – science became the new religion. People became so inundated by the success of the scientific method that the scientific community acquired many characteristics of a sect or a cult: power hierarchies, strict gatekeeping, codes, traditions, even dark and spooky ceremonial robes!

While it's paradoxical that science – a rational method of inquiry – became the new object of religious-like reverence, it's not entirely surprising. We need some belief to build our world model and for millennia, this need was fulfilled by religion. As science falsified more and more religion's claims, people shifted their belief from religion to science, not realizing that one cannot believe in science, only in science's default philosophy – physicalism.

The fact that physicalism "filled a spiritual hole left by divorce from religion" explains why it became engrained as one of the unquestioned "dogmas" in scientific circles. Sadly, this had plagued scientific discourse with a very toxic dynamic where any research or result incongruent with the postulates of physicalism is approached with extreme skepticism or even dismissed outright, without due consideration.

I will go into more detail in my next posts, but suffice to say that the physicalist philosophy does influence which research gets done and which results are accepted. In this sad twist of irony, the "deification" of physicalism goes against objectivity and undermines the foundations of science itself. Bolstered by the echo chamber dynamic, this chokeholds the entire field of scientific enquiry in arbitrary bounds, delineated by agreement with physicalism.

Thus, the belief in physicalism turned from a "convenient approximation" to a "gatekeeping requirement" – necessary if you want to be taken seriously in academia. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop at academia...

Physicalism goes viral

As our societal structures accepted science as the etalon of "ground truth," physicalism mirrored it to (unjustly) become the "most likely interpretation of reality according to science." Technology, economy, law – all the "serious" things where scientific rigor is so useful – are permeated by the unspoken assumption that we live in a fully impartial, mechanical universe.

The painful irony is that most people actually believe in God (or something else) but live inside social/corporate/technological structures that all assume the universe is dead. And not because this assumption is convenient – because it's "most likely right, according to science."

The saddest thing is when teachers impose this fallacy on kids: "As science tells us, the universe was not created by God but erupted from a single point of immeasurable density in what we call the Big Bang." Kids can so easily miss the error – that God could still have created the Big Bang, or could be Big Bang itself – and build the core of their worldview on false premises.

Being manipulated into a belief through faulty logic is bad enough, but it gets much worse when such imposed belief causes negative externalities. Alas, the physicalist worldview has many negative externalities...

Of course, every belief has its pros and cons – and I do not argue here that physicalism is "net negative." Forming the very foundation of many influential people's world models, physicalism has far-reaching influence – from individual mindsets to global geopolitics. Discussing its merits compared to other worldviews would be far beyond the scope of this post.

Here, I dissect some of its negative effects to illustrate the full scope of negative consequences of physicalism's overrated status – especially the crucial implications for AI development.

Fallout from physicalism

Unsurprisingly, there is a deep connection between our worldview and our mentality. To understand how physicalism influences our mindset, let's start with the physicalist interpretation of life.

In cold space where blind matter and energy swirl in an endless vortex of cause and effect, with a sprinkle of chaos at the quantum level, life appears only through a fluke; by an insane coincidence, a self-replicating molecular mechanoid assembles itself somewhere in early Earth's chemical soup. Its replication in chaotic environment then evolves into all life on Earth.

Collectively, the sheer improbability of such an occurrence puts an extreme burden on those who believe it. It's like carrying a precious but fragile gift – struggling against the unforgiving forces of the universe in order to keep this "accident" going, lest it all disintegrate back into chaos the moment we let go of control.

Individually, it paints our self-image as a biological machine – composition of meat and bones with a single purpose: making babies. The individual is defined by their separation from the rest of the universe – an isolated skin bag whose value is determined by how well it competes against other skin bags. Life is a competition between individuals over resources for their legacy to survive. (When resources become the limiting factor for reproduction, resource acquisition replaces reproductive fitness as the driving force of evolution.)

Physicalism also implies that all our decisions are fully determined by our previous conditioning – determinism – which posits that people actually have no "free will" to affect what they do or think. While this is a heated debate and not all physicalists subscribe to it, many people agree this is indeed the reality we live in. Most of them believe it not because they want to, but because it's strongly implied by science physicalism.

Imagine yourself bearing the responsibility for maybe the only life there ever was, competing for resources against 8,235,223,287 meat bags, and no matter what you consciously decide you cannot actually change what's going to happen.

Sounds like a real struggle... But despite this being exaggerated, there are many people living with this belief unconsciously rooted at the core of their worldview.

Again, I'm not saying it is a bad worldview – such life can still be a lot of fun! I'm saying that people shouldn't be pushed, coerced, or defaulted into this worldview. Choosing one's worldview should be an informed and conscious choice – not something imposed, especially not through a logical fallacy. Perhaps when we solve all mysteries of the universe, you might give someone a nudge...

But for now, we need to stop imposing physicalism as the default philosophy – or at least be explicit, openly declaring our metaphysical assumptions.

Because the worst thing is when someone struggles through life not because of bad choices, but because they were misled by false evidence into believing life must be a struggle.

The ill effects of substituting spirituality with physicalism

It's difficult to estimate how many people adopted physicalism in this way, but here in Czechia the rise of atheism was extreme, currently estimating that around 70% of the population holds atheistic/irreligious views, compared to 7% declaring no religion 100 years ago. Of course, this is largely due to the old religions being unable to "keep up" with the pace of societal progress.

But it's really important to understand the trade-offs involved in replacing churches and religions with science and physicalism. Trying to fill the "God-shaped hole" with physicalism replaces spiritual connection with rational isolation – trust, faith and unity are replaced by observation, calculation and game theory. There is less blind faith and fanaticism, but the community is less connected and cooperative.

In my first year of university, I was excited by the collective of so many smart people. But within a few years, my excitement turned to disillusionment. I was completely baffled by the intense competition, rivalry and weak cooperation among research groups. Despite their intelligence and the many benefits of cooperation, individual scientists prioritized their own career progress instead.

Could the physicalist view of life as a competition of individuals in survival, optimization and reproduction be driving STEM professionals to be more selfish, calculating and competitive?

Crucially, if these people are building AI in this mindset – in a literal arms race – do we actually want to align AI to those human values?

I don't want to sound like a vibe assassin, but if perfect alignment of AI with human values results in let's say Anthropic making Artificial Anthropic, Google making Artificial Google, etc… – and then all these "big AAI labs" just… pick up the pace?

Seems to me like humans should first align with their inner intelligence before chasing after something else and trying to align it with them.

But…

How do we align our own box of crayons?

How many scientists does it take to unscrew physicalism from science?

What do we replace it with if we want AI that is wiser than us, helps us without manipulating us, and doesn't kill us all?

Unfortunately, we are out of spacetime to answer these prickly questions here, but in the next post we'll explore the latest and greatest metaphysical interpretations to see if they could help us out of the sticky situation we got ourselves into.

In the meanwhile, if you can think of any possible answer to these impossible questions, please share it in the comments.