Consciousness Part 2: Idealism

This is the second part of a series of articles on consciousness. In the previous article, we explored the limitations of viewing consciousness purely from a physicalist standpoint. In this video, we will explore Idealism, which suggests that the entirety of reality is mental.

One of the objections often raised against substance dualism is the language of their arguments. For example, you’ll hear or read substance dualists say something like this: “If we are just atoms and molecules, how do we have conscious experience?” “If we are just our brains…” and so forth. Some say it’s a weak argument to say, “consciousness can’t just be the firing of neurons” because what happens when the day comes and science discovers that consciousness is just the firing of neurons? What if they discover the physical mechanism that makes matter conscious?

Or perhaps we’ve been looking at this all wrong because we are clinging to old ideas about matter? Maybe it’s not spirit or mind that is the problem in all of this but our concept of physical matter. If that’s the case, let’s examine what matter is, and see if consciousness can be constructed from this.

What’s the Matter?

What is matter? According to dictionary.com, matter is:

·      physical or corporeal substance in general, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous, especially as distinguished from incorporeal substance, as spirit or mind, or from qualities, actions, and the like

·      something that occupies space

·      a particular kind of substance

The dualism in these definitions is based on outdated science. It is assumed in the above definition that spirit or mind doesn’t occupy space so therefore it is ontologically different from matter. But we see countless examples in the Bible of spirit beings operating in our physical reality. So, it seems that spirit can occupy space. Also, the definition of matter also mentions it is a “particular kind of substance.” Likewise, according to substance dualism, spirit is a particular kind of substance. What the substance is we don’t know, but it isn’t all that different from matter and can interact with matter, contrary to what skeptics say who think the interaction problem is the nail in the coffin for substance dualism.

When theologians talk about the nature of spirit they usually invoke such language as invisible, unbounded, immaterial, mind, or intangible.  In truth, these terms could all be applied to matter. For example, the elementary particles that make up atoms are invisible until they are observed, so in a sense, matter is immaterial until it is observed. It may also surprise many to know that matter is basically empty space. It’s more like spirit than we ever imagined. In a sense, we could say that matter is immaterial because there really isn’t much to it. It takes up space, but not a lot of it.

To demonstrate just how "immaterial" matter is, consider that if we could blow up an atom to the size of the earth, the nucleus would be a basketball in the center of the earth with the electrons way out in the atmosphere and everything in between would be empty. As Gerald Schroeder stated:

If we could scale the centre of an atom, the nucleus, up to four inches, the surrounding electron cloud would extend to four miles away and essentially all the breach between would be marvelously empty. The solidity of iron is actually 99.9999999 percent startlingly vacuous space made to feel solid by ethereal fields of force having no material reality at all.[1]

According to Brian Greene, if the Empire State Building could be shrunk to eliminate all the free space between the atoms and all the free space within the atoms themselves, it would be the size of a grain of rice![2] So when we think of something being "solid," we must realize that there really is no such thing. Solidity is an illusion brought on by invisible forces at the atomic level. Like charges repel, so this repulsion of charges is what gives us the impression something is solid. The reason our hand slaps a table has nothing to do with the material or substance of the table. Rather, the atoms in our hand interact with the atoms of the table and repel due to like charges. We hear a slap and can even feel pain in our hand but in truth, our hand never really touches the table. But all of this takes place in our consciousness! All of these charges of repulsion and the physical processes going on “out there” create an inner conscious experience. Remember this as we progress through this video.  

The last sentence in the above Gerald Schroeder quote is vitally important to the thesis of this article so it bears repeating and explaining. Stated another way, solidity, which has long been considered one of the distinguishing features of matter, is the result of invisible forces that have no material reality. He uses the word "ethereal" because the fields that create the force lack any material substance.

Max Planck, considered by many the father of quantum mechanics, also said concerning this: 

As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear-headed science, to the  study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force, which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force is the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter."[3] 

Again, we see that matter only exists by virtue of a force that has no material reality. The forces that create the repulsion or attraction are the result of virtual particles that pop into existence for less than Planck Time (10-43 seconds), which is the smallest unit of time possible, so they really don't even exist. This force, along with all forces and energies that animate our reality, according to Planck, are the power of God’s thoughts.[4] What would possibly lead the father of quantum mechanics to think this way? To answer that, let’s do a quick dive into the quantum world. 

The Subatomic Realm

Atoms are by no means the end of the story when it comes to the smallest constituents of matter. In the 1960s, physicists discovered that the protons and neutrons that make up atomic nuclei are actually made up of smaller bits of matter called quarks. We would have to shrink to 10-18 cm to enter the realm of these elementary particles. To give you an idea of how small quarks are, think of an electron being one centimeter long. A quark in comparison would be the size of the thickness of a single hair. Anything smaller than a quark has not yet been discovered, and it is here where string theorists take the baton.

String Theory

Many physicists believe that quarks and other subatomic pieces of matter could be more accurately described as a “tiny filament of energy” that vibrates and looks like a string. According to string theorists, electrons, quarks, and all of the pieces of matter that we assume are point-like particles, are actually not points, but strings. If we had powerful enough microscopes to see that small, string theorists claim that the higher resolution would reveal a tiny string that is wiggling and vibrating. String theorists claim that all the properties of elementary particles like mass, spin, charge, etc., are really just different frequencies from vibrating strings. These strings are one-dimensional and are about one hundred billion billion times smaller than an atomic nucleus (10-33 cm).[5] For this to make sense, think of an atom enlarged to the size of the entire solar system. A string would be no larger than a tree on earth.[6]

Panpsychists need to ask at this juncture why protonconsciousness has not been discovered as a fundamental property of the subatomic world if matter is indeed imbued with some form of consciousness. Why do charge, mass, and spin so readily show up in observations and experiements, but protoconsciousness doesn’t if it’s such a ubiquitous property in universe? Furthermore, how does a pre-conscious property show signs of conscious potentiality if it’s not conscious to begin with, and how would we identify a property as protoconscious if it isn’t conscious? If matter has potential for consciousness if it’s arranged in a complex way, then the ingredient to form that consciousness should still reveal itself when it’s not arranged in complex ways.

Is String Theory the End of the Road?

            Can we go even smaller and cut these strings in half to see what they are made of? Is there a point where matter can’t be divided into smaller parts? Brian Greene, in response to the question if strings can be cut into smaller pieces, writes:

There are two possible answers to this question. First, strings are truly fundamental – they are "atoms", uncuttable constituents, in the truest sense of the ancient Greeks. As the absolute smallest constituents of anything and everything, they represent the end of the line – the last of the Russian matrioshka dolls – in the numerous layers of substructure in the microscopic world….Using our linguistic analogy, paragraphs are made of sentences, sentences are made of words, and words are made of letters. What makes up a letter? What a linguistic standpoint, that's the end of the line…Similarly, a string is simply a string – as there is nothing more fundamental, it can't be described as being composed of any other substance.[7]

Some physicists believe that the strings are not really the end of the road. There is a possibility that the strings could be made from even smaller ingredients. If this is the case, what are we left with once we've cut the strings into nothing? The latest idea is that when we get to the smallest of scales and want to see the very fabric of spacetime, what you see is a membrane alive with all kinds of activity. Physicists began to realize by the 1990s that there was more to string theory than just tiny, one-dimensional strings. The mathematics revealed that there are multi-dimensional membranes. The one-dimensional membranes could be thought of as the strings of string theory. However, there are two-dimensional branes, three-dimensional branes and on it goes all the way up to ten spacial dimensions. Add the dimension of time and you have an eleven-dimensional universe.

This latest idea is called M-Theory. There is no agreement among physicists as to what the M stands for, but most use the term "Matrix." According to this idea, the universe is actually a membrane suspended in a higher-dimensional existence and is one among countless other parallel universes. Amazingly, these parallel universes could be less than one millimeter away, yet we can't reach out and touch them. Everything, including light, is bound to this matrix and has no chance of escape.

According to M-Theory, all the elementary particles that we observe in our universe are the endpoints of strings. The other part of the string exists in the other dimensions. It makes one wonder what’s on the other end of the string in those other dimensions. Closed strings, it is thought, are not bound to our membrane and can "seep" out of this universe, which to physicists explains why gravity is such a weak force compared to the other forces of nature. But if this is possible, then why is it impossible to think that spirit or mind could “seep” into our membrane universe from the spiritual realm to interact with the physical universe? Is it crazy to think that perhaps the membranes where these strings are vibrating is the boundary of the physical universe that exists in a higher-dimensional spiritual plane?

This membrane is where elementary particles exist in wave form before they pop into existence. We've been taught to think of matter as little pieces of solid, point-like particles. In chemistry class we all saw the model of the atom with electrons circling a nucleus like planets orbiting the sun. This model of the atom that showed point-like pieces of matter is now considered outdated. Electrons and other elementary particles actually exist in an invisible wave and are spread throughout the entire universe until an observer makes the wave collapse to present a particle. 

As we probe deeper into the atom and examine the ingredients that are used to construct them, it becomes increasingly apparent that an intelligent mind created them. The smaller we shrink, and the closer we get to the very substance of space, the more "aware" the universe seems to be. One of the fascinating discoveries to come from studying the subatomic realm is a strange phenomenon called "the observer effect." The way elementary particles behave reveals that some intelligent mind must have programmed them with the ability to know when they are looked at. Like sensors on floodlights that can be triggered by someone's presence, God created particles of matter with "sensors" to know when they are observed.

The Double-slit Experiment

The double-slit experiment is a famous experiment that reveals this strange behavior of matter responding to observation. When physicists fire electrons through a screen with two slits, they expect two lines to form on the detector screen behind it. This reasoning seems logical because we would see that result if we fired marbles or BBs through a screen with two small slits. But there is a big difference between firing huge pieces of matter (relatively speaking) like marbles and firing incredibly small bits of matter like electrons. The subatomic realm does not follow the same rules as the macro-world and can indeed be rather "spooky," as Einstein labeled it. The results of the experiment actually show more than two lines on the detector screen, which means the electrons went through both slits at the same time as a wave.  

When physicists discovered that a particle could travel through both slits at the same time, they decided to put a measuring device by the slits to see if they could catch the particle in this ghost-like state. Every time they went to observe what was happening, the wave property of the particle collapsed and formed a point-like particle. In other words, the electron or photon leaves as a particle, travels as a wave, but will manifest as a particle when a conscious being observes it or the particle interacts with something. Brian Greene wrote concerning this: 

“Particle properties...come into being when measurements force them to. When they are not being observed or interacting with the environment, particle properties have a nebulous, fuzzy existence characterized solely by a probability that one or another potentiality might be realized.”[8] 

You might be puzzled over how electrons or other elementary particles can behave as a wave. Most of us were taught that electrons, protons, and other elementary particles exist as point-like particles, or little balls of matter. It is now believed that electrons and all elementary particles exist as some kind of wave in a quantum ocean. Again, Brian Greene explains this well:

Thus, the success of quantum mechanics forces us to accept that the electron, a constituent of matter that we normally envision as occupying a tiny, point-like region of space, also has a description involving a wave that, to the contrary, is spread through the  entire universe.[9]

So, electrons and other elementary particles go from not occupying a region of space by being spread throughout the entire universe, which sounds a lot like descriptions of spirit or mind, to occupying a region of space. The next obvious question is: what is this wave that is spread throughout space? The waves are mathematical descriptions of something that has no material reality. Physicists don't know exactly what these waves are or what they are made of because the waves will not allow anyone to see them. They do know that whatever this stuff is that is waving, it is not made up of the ingredients that make particles. The particles don't take on the substance of the waves and then manifest. In a truly miraculous fashion, the particles, composed of entirely different “ingredients,” pop into existence out of this waving field only when they are observed. 

There are several phrases that have been adopted over the years to describe these waves. It is common to hear such terms as "universal field," "field of intelligence," "superstring field," and so forth to describe this quantum ocean. But the point is, there is so much we don’t understand about reality and we all, materialists and dualists alike, assume way too much in these conversations. Dualists assume too much when they say, “just matter,” and physicalists assume too much when they think consciousness could emerge from unconscious bits of matter. Maybe there is a place in the middle where matter is not just matter and the idea of spiritual substances and energies is not so far-fetched.

Idealism

Admittedly, not all physicists buy into the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, which is the idea we discussed above that elementary particles have no physical reality until they are observed.[10] However, it is the view held by the majority and the view taught in textbooks. But what we could learn from this is a fundamental truth about reality; namely, God created it for conscious beings. If there is no God, then how or why the universe was set up as a stage for consciousness makes no sense.

Idealists would speak up here and say, “Hey! Wait a minute! That sounds a lot like what Berkely said!” Yes, Berkeley did say “reality is a presentment for consciousness,”[11] and he was correct! Berkeley also argued that all that exists are minds and ideas and I think he was correct here as well. Eric Haynes explains this well:

Berkeley is essentially arguing that reality ultimately exists and is connected through God’s consciousness. Thus, from Leibniz and Berkeley one can already begin to     see a universal theme in their idealism. This theme is that God, as creator, facilitates a perception of reality in knowing subjects. This manifestation of reality is ultimately done so that spiritual beings (souls/persons) can have a sensible (or tangible) reality for experience and life (tangible meaning that God produces for His creatures a reality they can experience through sensations, though this does not require a separate substance, matter).[12] 

Idealism says the world out there is “real.” It’s not just “in our heads,” but how we perceive that very real stuff out there forming the substance of reality is not how it really is when a conscious being is not interacting with it. Take the technicolor experience away that we call consciousness, and all you really see are forces and small pieces of matter jostling around. For example, when you hold an apple, you are really holding a bundle of information that your consciousness processes as an apple. The apple is an idea in the mind of God, and for that idea to be expressed in our consciousness, the substance of space constructs an apple. You think you’re “holding” the apple, but the apple actually never touches you. The illusion of solidity is just that, an illusion. You think it’s solid but the forces of repulsion that have no material reality. You may describe the apple as smooth, but that is just a mental sensation. We say the apple tastes sweet and has a juicy texture, but all of that is experienced in the mind. The sweet and juicy we experience comes from our consciousness processing information in matter. The atoms and molecules that make up the apple aren’t sweet and juicy, but when the atoms and molecules are arranged in the right way by following the laws of chemistry, our consciousness processes that information as sweet and juicy. The substance of reality is created for mental interaction, so it appears that our consciousness “reads” matter and its properties to create our conscious experience. This points to God because it shows that the world “out there” was created for consciousness, which shows design.

One reason to perhaps go with this view is its simplicity, which in philosophy, is called parsimony. In other words, why invoke another explanation or substance to account for something when the simplest explanation will do? Why say there is a physical substance “out there” when God doesn’t need another substance? Haynes writes:

When applied to metaphysical systems, this principle of pure reason seems to favor the monistic philosophies. So, Occam’s razor provides support in favor of idealism at least when compared to dualism, since idealism has fewer hypotheses and things postulated. Idealism is simpler because it only has one substance and thus there is no interaction problem.[13]               

 The idea of one substance (mind) being the foundation of reality answers so many questions about how a spirit or soul could interact with matter. It can interact because it isn’t a different substance. If you think about it, why is an extra substance like a brain needed for the soul to function? Obviously, the soul can think without a brain because we will exist in a conscious state without our physical bodies between our death and the resurrection. But if the soul is immaterial as commonly taught, does it have an immaterial brain to think? And if the soul can think, then why do we even need a physical brain? If our memories are stored in the brain, does that mean we will lose those memories in the intermediate state? This is where Idealists would speak up and reiterate the fact that it is indeed more parsimonious to stick with one substance like mind, rather than bringing in something superfluous like a physical substance. If God could create conscious souls out of a spiritual substance, then why does this spiritual substance need anything more to function?

Maybe dualists have been looking at this the wrong way by keeping matter and spirit in separate categories. We have such a limited understanding of what matter actually is, and do we really think God calls matter “matter.” Do you think God calls atoms “atoms?” Do we think God describes the elementary particles the way humans do? Our words and concepts do not adequately describe what reality is made of. The best we can do is observe what it does and how it works, but what it is is another story.

We need stop thinking that atoms and just atoms or physical matter is just physical matter because there is nothing simple or basic about matter. Even a simple hydrogen atom is an ingenious invention of Almighty God. Just because we know certain properties about matter doesn’t mean we have it all figured out. We forget that we are studying a substance, if you can even call it that, created by God, and as such, we can assume it has properties and capabilities we know nothing about. So, we need to stop looking down our nose at matter like it’s nothing to be impressed with because it’s actually an amazing creation of God.  

Interaction Problem

I’ll say briefly here that the interaction problem loses its teeth the more we understand the nature of reality. The old “spirit-is-so-different-from-matter-it-can’t-possibly-influence-it” line won’t work anymore. This certainly doesn’t align with what we see in the Bible. For example, from Genesis to Revelation, we see God (who is spirit John 4:24) manifest in various forms (light, fire, electricity, cloud, and even in human form). For light to manifest when God entered a region of space would require the spiritual energy God emits to interact with the physical elements around him. That is after all how light works. Electrons jump around in different orbits when they receive and give off energy, so God’s spiritual energy can interact with electrons. If our soul is a spiritual substance, then why can’t it do the same?

Also, think about angelic beings in the Bible. They weren’t always invisible or immaterial (Gen. 18-19; Dan. 6; Luke 1:11) They could be touched, and some argue even had intercourse with women to produce offspring (Genesis 6), so it’s hard to make a case that spirit was considered a radically different substance or element from matter. The ancient Hebrews certainly didn’t make such a careful distinction.

Another thing to consider is the erroneous idea that heaven is a “spiritual dimension” outside the physical boundaries of our universe. The ancient biblical writers did not have the language, science, or philosophical concepts for such an idea. That is not to say that God did not exist prior to creation is some kind of spiritual reality, but we have no idea what that looks like. What we do know, however, is what God was up to in Genesis, and there we see God setting up the cosmos to be His divine temple to house His glorious presence.[14] Since God is spirit, we can conclude from this that God created the universe for spirit beings. What we call matter and the smaller constituents that make it up were created by Almighty God to interact with conscious beings. In other words, the pixels of reality were designed to give a first-person experience in color. Information is driving everything, and this information came from intelligence. The intelligence came from a mind. Everything starts with mind.

Sources

[1] Gerald L. Schroeder, The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2001), 4.

[2] Brian Green, “The Fabric of the Cosmos: What is Space,” PBS http://video.pbs.org/video/2163057527/.

[3] M. Planck, “Das Wesen der Materie” (The Nature of Matter), speech at Florence, Italy, 1944.

[4] Josh M. Moritz, “Max Planck and the Mind Who is the Matrix of all Matter,” Aish, September 14, 2022, https://aish.com/max-planck-and-the-mind-who-is-the-matrix-of-all-matter/.

[5] Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality (New York: Vintage Books, 2004), 17.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003), 141-142.

[8] Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality (New York: Vintage Books, 2004), 121.

 [9] Ibid., 90.

[10] Andrew Zimmerman Jones, “The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics,” ThoughtCo., January 28, 2020, https://www.thoughtco.com/copenhagen-interpretation-of-quantum-mechanics-2699346.

[11] Edward Douglas Fawcett, “From Berkeley to Hegel,” The Monist 7, no. 1 (October 1896): 42.

[12] Erik Haynes, “A Case for Monistic Idealism: Connecting Idealistic Thoughts from Leibniz to Kant with Support in Quantum Physics” Liberty University Graduate School Friday, May 6, 2016, 4.

[13] Erik Haynes, “A Case for Monistic Idealism: Connecting Idealistic Thoughts from Leibniz to Kant with Support in Quantum Physics” Liberty University Graduate School Friday, May 6, 2016, 26.

[14] See works by John Walton and others who argue the Genesis creation story needs to be interpreted in the light of other ancient Near East cosmologies.