Groucho Marxism

I mention materialism a lot on this blog. In fact materialism is a key theme that unites many of the topics I talk about. But what exactly do I mean by ‘materialism’? The word has two very different meanings. According to the first meaning, materialism refers to a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values. That is emphatically not the meaning I am using! Rather, when I refer to materialism I am using the word in the philosophical sense. The usual definition given for this is: the theory or belief that nothing exists except matter. But I refer to materialism in a broader sense – the belief that reality has an objective existence outside of our perception of it. This belief is often referred to as ‘physicalism’.

Most people would call themselves materialists according to this definition, but there are some who dispute this view. According to these ‘idealists’, consciousness is the fundamental substance of nature and reality is entirely a mental construct. It would be tempting to simply dismiss idealism as nonsense were it not for the fact that surprisingly many philosophers adhere to it. The main argument these philosophers use against materialism and in favour of idealism is that the existence consciousness cannot be explained in purely physical terms. This is usually just asserted as an axiom, that is, something which is self-evident. But as I explained in a previous blog post, the existence of consciousness can be explained in evolutionary terms, which is a materialist explanation.

Some argue that quantum physics contradicts materialism. For example, in their book The Matter Myth, physicists Paul Davies and John Gribbin state: ‘Quantum physics undermines materialism because it reveals that matter has far less “substance” than we might believe.’ But Davies and Gribbin are arguing against the narrow definition of materialism – the belief that nothing exists except matter. Is there anything in quantum physics that contradicts the broader definition of materialism, i.e. that reality has an objective existence? There are certainly interpretations of quantum physics that contradict this view. For example, according to an interpretation known as relational quantum mechanics, the state of a quantum system must be defined as the relation between the observer and the system.

Another interpretation that seems to contradict materialism is quantum Bayesianism, according to which many aspects of the quantum formalism should be interpreted as subjective in nature. So there are at least two non-materialist interpretations of quantum physics, and there may be others. However we cannot use such interpretations to reject materialism, for two reasons. First, they are only interpretations of quantum physics, and there is nothing in the quantum formalism that requires us to take one of these interpretations. Indeed, there are many more widely-held interpretations according to which reality is fundamentally objective. And second, even if we do adopt one of these interpretations, we cannot reject materialism entirely as there is still a materialist or non-subjective element to them.

There are some who argue against both materialism and idealism, and claim that there must be some third thing that gives rise to both objective and subjective phenomena. What could this third thing be? One potential candidate is: information. Proponents of what is known as digital physics view information rather than matter as fundamental. For example, the physicist John Archibald Wheeler wrote: ‘all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe.’ The belief that matter is made up of information is often referred to as ‘it from bit’. But this belief is entirely compatible with reality having an objective existence, and it doesn’t make sense therefore to use it as an argument against materialism (in the broad sense of the term).

There is a more practical reason we cannot use arguments from fundamental physics to argue against materialism. Even if we decide that on a quantum level reality is entirely subjective, that doesn’t mean it is necessarily subjective on the macroscopic level on which we live. The reason quantum physics is so difficult for us humans to wrap our heads around is that our brains simply did not evolve to understand reality at that level. This in itself demonstrates that what might be true at the macro level is necessarily true at the micro level and vice-versa. If we want to develop a practical philosophy by which to live our lives, does it really make sense to worry about what’s going on at the level of subatomic particles? The question surely answers itself.

So much for the arguments against materialism. What about the arguments for it? It is very difficult to prove that metaphysical positions like materialism are ‘true’, but we can ask whether they are useful. Here, materialism has a clear upper hand over idealism. The scientific method is predicated on a reality which is entirely ‘out there’ waiting to be discovered. Conversely, religion is predicated on a reality that exists beyond the physical world that can only be accessed through our consciousness. The difference between materialism and idealism is therefore analogous to the difference between science and religion. I don’t want to dunk on religion but I think we can probably all agree that the former is a more useful lens through which to understand the world around us than the latter.

This, I think, really gets to the crux of the matter. The reason a materialist worldview is superior to an idealist worldview is that the former enables us to fully explain the world around us, whereas the latter does not. Scientists understand this and have done for hundreds of years, but unfortunately other disciplines have yet to catch on. I think what Marx was trying to do in his writings was put the humanities on a scientific footing by analyzing society through a materialist lens. Whether he succeeded is debatable, but his approach was fundamentally the correct one. It is up to us now to continue the work that he started.