Changing Thought-Leaders: My Interview with Greg Moffit on Legalise Freedom

Scientific materialism — the form of science predicated upon the belief that dead matter is the ultimate reality — is slowly fading away.  My current thinking is that we believe in this worldview not because it is right, logical, or even plausible, but because the leading scientists all operate within a system of thought that assumes it is true.  Since science is the most authoritative intellectual discipline, we happily go along with the will of our thought leaders.  After all, who are we to question all of these professors and Nobel-prize winners?

But it turns out that scientists do not believe in materialism because it is correct, but rather because of an assumption (or fear?) that the very practice of science cannot occur unless “there is a real world out there” (to use Lee Smolin’s phrase from The Trouble with Physics.)  The very message of quantum physics, however, is that there is not in fact a free-standing material world independent of the observer.  But forgetting that quantum theory directly contradicts materialism, modern scientists nevertheless continue to tighten their grip on this “matter as ultimate reality viewpoint,” somehow believing that final — and correct theories — can still be reached even if one refuses to let go of a fundamental, internal contradiction.  Good luck with that.

The question of the day then, may not be why materialism is so wrong but rather, what will it take to convince a thought-leader they are wrong?

Here’s one answer: a new thought-leader.

This is among the topics Greg Moffit and I discuss on his radio show, Legalise Freedom.