The entire intellectual edifice of scientific materialism rests on a single word: “matter.” It purports to explain the whole universe – from the Big Bang to consciousness – through laws that apply to material entities. But what happens if this fundamental concept turns out to resist any coherent definition?
“Everything is matter” sounds like a scientific conclusion, but the confidence of this declaration exceeds its explanatory power. This does not refer only to solid things we can hold in our hands. Physicalism, the contemporary version of materialism, also includes fields and other entities described by physics. The claim is that everything that exists ultimately rests on physical foundations, and that nothing in reality lies beyond them and what follows from them.
The strongest attack on this foundation does not come from outside, but from the heart of the philosophy of science itself. It was formulated most sharply by Carl Gustav Hempel – the man who studied physics with Max Planck and logic with John von Neumann, and devoted his life to the question “What makes a scientific explanation valid?”
In a brilliant irony, it was Hempel himself who posed a dilemma exposing why the materialist explanation fails to meet its own standards. The dilemma confronts the materialist with a simple but devastating question: Do you base your worldview on the physics of today, or on the physics of tomorrow? In either case, as we will now see, confidence in the declaration requires far more than the word “matter” provides. [1]
1. The first option – the physics of today.
If “matter” is defined according to current physics, we encounter a twofold failure. First, physics itself cannot define “matter” fully or finally. It may be that the picture is missing more than details: its very inventory of fundamentals may change. If a fundamental entity is discovered that is neither included in current physics nor derivable from it, the claim that everything rests on the fundamentals known today will be false.
The difficulty is not that matter is complicated or that we have yet to explain every phenomenon. The difficulty is that materialism, when it ties itself to current physics, turns a revisable inventory of fundamentals into an answer about existence as a whole. Science is free to revise the picture; anyone who has declared in its name that all the foundations of reality have already been identified will also have to revise that declaration. Building absolute certainty on a partial picture is not wisdom – it is self-deception.
Second, and more importantly, current physics – for all its complexity – fails in the face of our most immediate and certain phenomenon: subjective experience. Nothing in the Standard Model explains how the movement of electrons in the brain produces the sensation of red, the taste of chocolate, or the feeling of love. This is not a technical gap that a better microscope will close. It is a categorical abyss. Even a detailed account of how the brain distinguishes colors leaves open the question of why this activity is accompanied by an experience of red. The claim here, then, is not that we lack a better microscope: further detail about the mechanism is not, in itself, an explanation of the emergence of experience. This is the abyss that the materialist explanation must cross. The promise that it will one day cross it is not the explanation itself. [3]
The materialist can reply immediately: “No problem. We may not know at present, but we will find out in the future. And the new fundamental entity will also be physical.” But in giving this answer, the materialist has already left the first option behind. The physical is no longer being defined by what physics knows today, but by what it will know in the future.
And that is the second option.
2. The second option – the physics of tomorrow.
Here the claim changes: “Although we do not yet know all the foundations of reality, future physics will discover them, and everything will turn out to be physical.” This hope is understandable. The achievements of science give us good reasons to keep investigating. But the hope of further discoveries does not tell us in advance what will be discovered.
Future physics may fundamentally change our picture of the world. We therefore need to ask what happens if it leads to a conclusion that the materialist rejects today. Will the materialist admit that their position was wrong, or expand the word “matter” once again so that it encompasses that conclusion too?
If every future discovery is counted in advance as confirmation of materialism, the problem is even more serious. Materialism has turned from philosophy into prophecy. Here the materialist is effectively admitting: “I do not know what will be discovered, but I am certain it will confirm my position.”
This confidence rests on faith rather than knowledge.
How can a worldview be presented as a scientific conclusion when its fundamental concept is waiting for someone, someday, to give it content? It is a check with no funds to back it. This futuristic materialism is a postdated check, with no one knowing whether it will ever be honored.
Moreover, without limits on what counts as physical, this “future physics” might also encompass what materialism rejects today – perhaps it will discover that the foundation is mental? Perhaps mathematical? With such a broad and empty definition, materialism becomes a meaningless tautology: “Everything is matter, because we will define matter as whatever exists.” The sentence is true by definition, but tells us nothing about the nature of reality. It announces what we will call reality, whatever it turns out to be.
This is intellectual evasion. Imagine someone declaring that they know what is inside a closed room. When asked to elaborate, they reply: “Everything in there belongs to the kind of things I will find when I open the door.” They certainly will not be wrong. They also have not said what is in the room. Absolute certainty is purchased by giving up the information the declaration promised to convey.
One possible response to the dilemma is that the physicalist need not accept every possibility. They can set conditions on what counts as physical, even without knowing the details of the future theory. The philosopher Jessica Wilson, for example, proposes supplementing reliance on physics with the condition that physical fundamentals are not fundamentally mental. This leaves something that the position rules out, and therefore gives it content. [2] We do not need to know everything to make a claim, and a lack of knowledge does not turn every expectation into blind faith. Hempel’s dilemma is not a license to declare every form of physicalism refuted.
But this answer requires a choice. If we set limits on the concept of the “physical,” we must justify why reality actually falls within them. The definition alone does not guarantee this. If we abandon every limit to ensure that every discovery confirms the position, the claim becomes empty. We cannot enjoy both the content of a specific position and the immunity of a statement that fits every possible reality.
Hempel’s dilemma exposes the rot in a materialism that presents itself as knowledge while its fundamental concept oscillates between a partial picture and a future promise:
If it rests on the physics of today – it does not provide a complete explanation. It presents a revisable inventory of fundamentals as though it were the final word on reality.
If it rests on the physics of tomorrow without restricting what will count as physical – it is an empty claim, a position of faith. It guarantees itself victory at the cost of emptying the claim of content.
Materialism cannot draw its authority from science while exempting its fundamental claim from the need for definite content and justification. The success of physics in uncovering reality does not give every declaration about “matter” the status of a scientific conclusion. Anyone who claims more than research has shown must give reasons for that additional claim.
This also explains the importance of the Illuminist question: Is what we call matter the foundation of reality, or an expression of a deeper foundation? The position I have presented here on this page is that this foundation is mathematics. It is not merely a description of reality; it is reality itself, and what we call matter is an expression of it.
This position does not become true simply because materialism encounters a difficulty. But neither can it be dismissed by saying “everything is matter,” as long as the word “matter” takes its content from whatever may be discovered. If even a universe that is mathematics will be declared material after the fact, materialism has not settled the dispute. It has merely renamed the answer.
Sources
[1] Daniel Stoljar, Physicalism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Section 4.3.
[2] Jessica Wilson, On Characterizing the Physical.
Author’s draft, 2005, section 2.2; the article was published in 2006 in Philosophical Studies.
[3] David Chalmers, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, 1995.
