The Magician’s Twin, with David Berlinski, Stephen Meyer, and James Orr | Uncommon Knowledge
What this covers
Recorded on May 26, 2024, in Fiesole, Italy.
In his 1943 book The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis wrote: “The serious magical endeavor and the serious scientific endeavor are twins: One was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse.” In this Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, mathematician and philosopher David Berlinski, intelligent design advocate Stephen Meyer, and Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Cambridge University, James Orr explore the parallels between scientific and magical endeavors, referencing C. S. Lewis's notion that both were born from the same impulse, with one thriving and the other fading. They also explore the historical relationship between science and religion, noting how early scientists such as Newton and Galileo saw their work as uncovering divine order, in contrast with the more secular views of modern scientists such as Steven Weinberg and Stephen Hawking. The discussion also reveals deep philosophical and historical insights into the evolution of scientific thought and its complex relationship with materialism and religion.
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Modern materialism is intellectually incoherent and increasingly untenable in light of discoveries in cosmology, molecular biology, and the nature of consciousness; scientific discoveries point toward rather than away from theistic explanations.
- Mathematical laws of nature cannot themselves be material objects, contradicting materialism from its first principle
- Big Bang cosmology and DNA's informational complexity require non-material causation that materialism cannot explain
- The mind-body problem and consciousness remain irreducible to physical processes, undermining the materialist research program
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The association between materialism and religion as opposites is a shoddy reading of the history of philosophy; Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics rejected materialism without being theists, and materialism was a minority position historically.
“This association of materialism or this split between materialism and religion, is a very shoddy reading of the history of philosophy. I think before theism even steps onto the philosophical field, we've got figures like Plato, we've got figures like Aristotle, we've got the Stoics. They are not Abrahamic monotheists, but nor are they materialists.”
Early modern scientists (Galileo, Kepler, Boyle, Pascal, Newton) believed that the human mind was made in the image of a rational creator and that nature was endowed with rationality and order by the same creator, giving them confidence that nature was intelligible and could be systematically studied.
“In the period of the Scientific Revolution... they are influenced by a profoundly Judeo-Christian understanding of the relationship between God and the natural world. And so they perceive that science is possible, because they believe that the human mind has been made in the image of a rational creator. And that same rational creator made the natural world and endowed it with rationality, and order and evidence of design.”
Edward Zilsel's historical research showed that the concept of natural law is not found in Stoic or Greek philosophy but is a juridical metaphor of theological origin, emerging from the idea that God legislates nature like a sovereign legislates laws.
“Edward Zilsel... The Genesis of the Concept of Natural Law... You don't find it in the Stoics... the Greeks... the idea of natural law as the moral law... But the idea that nature is governed... regularities in nature are a product of the divine mind... the concept of the law of nature is a juridical metaphor of theological origin.”
Newton devoted a significant portion of his life and attention to alchemy, writing over a million words on alchemical subjects and conducting experiments, because chemistry did not yet exist as a discipline and alchemy offered the richest schemata of possibilities available to him.
“When Newton was writing the Principia at end of the 17th century, the subject of chemistry really didn't exist. Newton was not a quantum physicist. He had no idea about the quantum world. He had no idea about the elements... He turned to the tradition that seemed to offer him the richest schemata of possibilities and that was alchemy.”
Medieval and scholastic philosophers explained causation through formal causes—attributing causal powers to the names of effects (like saying opium causes sleep because it has a 'dormitive virtue')—which late 17th-century mechanical philosophers correctly rejected as circular reasoning
“The scholastics, late and medieval scholastics often reasoned like this. If I smoke some opium and then it puts me to sleep, then I ask the question, 'Well, why did that happen?' Well, it's because the opium had a dormitive virtue. You attribute causal powers to the name of the effect.”
How mathematical expressions cause effects in the real world is itself a conceptual confusion; confusing the map (mathematics) with the territory (physical world), as when one mistakes longitude/latitude lines for causes of mountain heights.
“The laws of nature are expressed in mathematics, but how is it that mathematical expressions are causing something in the real world? This is a conflation that occurs a lot among physicists... It's like saying that the longitude and latitude lines on the map are responsible for the height of the Himalayan mountains.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein argued that the modern worldview wrongly assumes that laws of nature explain natural phenomena, when in fact laws only describe regularities; the modern system creates an illusion that everything is explained when nothing fundamental is.
“Here's Ludwig Wittgenstein, 'At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena... The modern system makes it appear as though everything were explained.'”
Materialism as a research program fusing science and philosophy is unraveling because science cannot reduce or eliminate consciousness, mathematics, modality, or morality without cutting against fundamental intuitions
“I think it is absolutely true to say that as a research program, which is really what it is. Materialism is a research program fusing science and philosophy, is unraveling on all of those M words that I mentioned. Whether it's the philosophy of mind and the return of the hard problem of consciousness. Whether it's mathematics and the conviction that mathematics must be real, because science presupposes mathematics and couldn't detect or establish or verify mathematical truths. Questions of modality, questions of morality, these are questions that science are simply not equipped to cope with.”
Physical explanations properly understood do not rule out the supernatural (that which exceeds our five senses) but rather show that science has limits beyond which other forms of understanding may apply
“Even when we do that, we're talking about explanations of natural phenomena, which properly understood, still leave all kinds of room for some grasp of ideal forms if you want to be. It does not, properly understood, rule out the supernatural. That which exceeds our five senses, correct?”
The wars of religion in the Early Modern period were not primarily about religious doctrine but represented the birth pangs of the secular nation-state, with Protestants killing Protestants and Catholics killing Catholics for political rather than theological reasons
“I think it's also a bit of a misreading to think of the wars of religion as wars of religion. Protestants are perfectly good at killing Protestants, and Catholics are perfectly good at killing Catholics. What we're seeing really is not the death pangs of religion, but the birth pangs of the secular nation state.”
Newton himself viewed gravity as ultimately caused by constant spirit action—the laws of nature are a mode of divine action, not autonomous material processes.
“Newton's view of gravity was that the ultimate cause of it was what Leibniz feared. It was constant spirit action, that it was a mode. What we call the laws of nature are a mode of divine action.”
Newton's Principia was titled to reveal the mathematical principles of the universe as expressions of the mind of God; Newton was explicitly trying to explore the divine order embedded in nature through mathematical analysis.
“Well, he was trying to reveal the mathematical principles that governed the universe that were an expression of the mind of God.”
Newton's law of universal gravitation includes an action-at-a-distance term (inverse-square law) that Leibniz criticized as bringing the occult back into science because force is transmitted through empty space without material mediation, creating the philosophical problem of how gravity actually works.
“Newton is accused by Leibniz of bringing the occult into science, because he has this wonderful inverse-square law that the force of gravity is proportional to the masses... but the distance squared term is the rub. Because it implies that a force is being transmitted through empty space without a mediating material interaction.”
Carl Sagan's assertion that 'the cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be' is an aggressive metaphysical claim asserting that the natural scientist is the ultimate arbiter of what is real, ruling out any religious or transcendent sensibility.
“If Sagan is asserting anything, if he's being aggressive toward any proposition, what he's trying to do is rule out any religious sensibility. That's what he's after. He's trying to rule out God, isn't he?”
The separation of science from theology began gradually but particularly in the late 19th century with geologists and Darwin, who explained features of Earth and life through slow, gradual, purely naturalistic processes without invoking a guiding intelligence.
“It occurs gradually, but particularly in the late 19th century, and you have the rise of figures in the field of geology... the origin of the great features on planet Earth. It's a result of slow, gradual, purely naturalistic processes. Then Darwin does the same in biology.”
Laws of nature distinguish between accidental regularities (regularities that could be otherwise) and non-accidental law-like regularities; for example, you cannot have a cubic sphere of gold more than a mile wide (accidental) but you cannot have a sphere of uranium a mile wide (law-like, because it would trigger chain reaction).
“Look, it's a regularity that you can't get a cubic sphere of gold more than a mile wide. That's an accidental regularity. In principle, if you had enough gold you could put that together, but it is a law that you can't get a sphere of uranium a mile wide. Why? Because it would set up a chain reaction.”
A universe with a Big Bang beginning requires explanation; Einstein originally resisted this conclusion because materialism makes a beginning of matter inconceivable, since the late 19th century consensus held that matter was eternal.
“Einstein, I think, inherited a default materialist view of coming out of the late 19th century. And it was simply inconceivable to him, as it was to Hoyle, another cosmologist in the 20th century, that you would have a beginning to matter.”
Einstein introduced the cosmological constant arbitrarily to maintain a static universe, fine-tuning it to balance gravitational pull inward with an outward antigravity force, but subsequent physics showed even small perturbations would break this balance.
“He made an additional move and he assigned a value to the cosmological constant. It was completely arbitrary... he fine-tuned it himself... Very small perturbations one way or another would cause a collapse of the universe or an expansion.”
Philosopher Anthony Flew, after spending six decades as an atheist, changed his mind and argued that biologists' investigation of DNA's complexity demonstrates that intelligence must have been involved in producing life.
“The late philosopher, Anthony Flew... who spent more than six decades of his life as an atheist, and then changed his mind. 'Biologists' investigation of DNA has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved.'”
Darwin assumed that life originated from a simple blob of jello without explaining the origin of life, but modern molecular biology has revealed that even the simplest single-celled organisms are fantastically complex and equipped with DNA encoding vast amounts of information.
“Darwin... thinks all life evolves from lower to higher. He's pretty casual about the origins of life because it's assumed that it's some simple blob of jello would do the trick. And what we now know about even the simplest forms of life, every single, single-celled object is fantastically complicated.”
Hubble and Humason's redshift observations provided empirical evidence that galaxies are moving outward, suggesting an expanding universe, which confirmed the Big Bang model against Einstein's steady-state preference.
“The evidence started to come in of the redshift from Hubble and Humason, and others showing that astronomically speaking, the galaxies were in fact moving outward, suggesting an expanding universe.”
The Hawking-Penrose singularity theorem in the 1960s provides rigorous proof that any universe satisfying certain physical conditions must have had a beginning, commanding broad consensus in modern cosmology.
“The Hawking-Penrose singularity theorem in the 1960s, which I think commands as big a consensus as there is at the moment, at least in cosmology, did have that impact.”
Newton's achievement during 1684-1686 included independently developing the calculus, solving problems that had eluded mathematicians for 2,000 years, and inventing the technique of representing nature by differential equations, initiating both a mathematical and physical revolution.
“It's really hard to overestimate what he accomplished in those two years. The controversy between Leibniz and Newton about who first had the idea with respect to the calculus is still ongoing. But it's clear that Newton independently thought of the leading ideas of the calculus... That was the essence of the Scientific Revolution he initiated.”
Francis Crick's sequence hypothesis (1958) posited that nucleotide bases along the DNA double helix function like digital or alphabetic characters conveying instructions for building proteins, treating DNA as a code.
“Crick advances the sequence hypothesis, in which he asserts, realizes that the nucleotide basis, this chemical subunits along the interior of the famed double helix, are functioning like digital or alphabetic characters conveying instructions for building proteins.”
Newton described himself near death as like a boy playing on the seashore, finding smoother pebbles and prettier shells while the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before him, expressing epistemological humility about human knowledge.
“When at last he came to face death, he chose to describe himself in words of majestic detachment. 'I don't know what I may seem to the world, but as to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore. And diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.'”
The 1966 Wistar Institute conference on Mathematical Challenges to Neo-Darwinism revealed that if you randomly alter nucleotide bases (As, Cs, Gs, Ts) in DNA, function degrades before new function emerges, making random mutations mathematically insufficient to explain the origin of new genes.
“In 1966, there's a conference at The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia... What they realized that if the information for building the proteins is in a long bit string, that if you start randomly changing those As, Cs, Gs and Ts along the side of the DNA, it's mathematically inevitable that you're going to degrade the function that you have long before you find new function.”
Contemporary science offers a case for theism based on scientific discoveries (Big Bang, fine-tuning, information in DNA) rather than on gaps in understanding—a fundamentally different and stronger form of theistic argument
“A case for theism based on scientific discoveries, I think, is coming back. It's not that we are inferring that God is an explanation because of what we don't understand. It's because of the things we do understand, the things we have discovered about the beginning of the universe. The fine-tuning of the universe. The incorrigibility or the absolute necessity of information to understand what's going on in life, and what we know about where information comes from in our general experience.”
The hard problem of consciousness for materialists is to explain how mind can be identified with and reduced without remainder to neurophysiological processes.
“The fact of mind, the problem of consciousness or the so-called hard problem of consciousness for materialists... it is incumbent upon the materialist to explain how mind can be identified and reduced to without remainder neurophysiological processes.”
The only consciousness one can be epistemically certain of is one's own; about all others, including those implemented in machines or other humans, one has only analogical inference and probabilistic doubt.
“The only one I can see with a first-person, subjective experience is me. About the rest of you, I have my doubts... I have no reason to doubt my own experiences.”
Newton's tutor Isaac Barrow examined Newton on mathematics at the beginning of the 1684-1686 period and found him deficient, revealing that Newton's extraordinary mastery of mathematics during those two years represented not innate genius but extraordinary work ethic and intellectual power applied through sustained effort.
“Isaac Barrow, his tutor, examined him in mathematics right at the beginning of that period, 1684. He found him to be deficient. And by the end of that two-year period, he had not only mastered the whole of the Western corpus of mathematics”
Universal skepticism created by the evolutionary argument against naturalism is self-refuting: if my ancestors were indifferent to truth, this fact has no bearing on whether my current reasoning is sound, because the standards of valid reasoning are logically independent of the evolutionary history of my cognitive faculties.
“I can open up a logic book, see what sound reasoning is. The causal sequence has absolutely nothing to do with the standards of assessment... if we accept this as a universal point of skepticism, it perishes on a self-imposed blaze of self-reference.”
Lewis's distinction is not between rational and causal processes, but between rational and merely causal processes; reasoning involves rational inference (following reasons) which is logically distinct from causal connections, even if they are neurologically correlated.
“Lewis's point is that we're actually speaking metaphorically there... Rational discourse, rational reflection, reasoning our way through an argument, although it's tempting to use causal metaphors, these are not causal connections. Or at least certainly they may be identified and correlated with causal, neurophysiological connections, but they're not the same thing.”
C.S. Lewis's key insight is that naturalists focusing on the nature they study fail to attend to the fact that they are themselves thinking; once one attends to one's own thinking, it is obvious that thinking cannot be a merely natural event, implying something other than nature exists.
“C.S. Lewis, 'The naturalists have been engaged in thinking about nature. They have not attended to the fact that they are thinking. The moment one attends to this it is obvious that one's own thinking cannot be a merely natural event, and therefore something other than nature exists.'”
Atheists accuse religious believers of holding false belief systems explained by Darwinian survival value (religion as coping mechanism), but if this explanation works, then it also applies to atheism itself, creating a dilemma: either both are unreliable or the criterion for reliability cannot be evolutionary utility.
“What is it that atheists accuse religious believers of? If not being committed to a false belief system, which must be explained in Darwinian terms because there is religion, whether it's false or not, as some kind of survival coping mechanism... Dawkins himself makes exactly that argument, that religion has a survival value, but yet he also claims it's false.”
Materialism as a philosophical position is incoherent because material objects necessarily have numerical identity, but numbers are not material objects, creating an internal contradiction within the materialist framework itself.
“You cannot imagine an object without its numerical identity. But if the two are necessarily associated, if anything that counts as an object, counts as a numerical object, has somewhat necessary numerical identity. The numbers are not material objects. What are they doing in a materialist scheme?”
David Berlinski's 1996 essay in Commentary titled 'The Deniable Darwin' explained the mathematical challenges to neo-Darwinism posed by the DNA revolution, and this argument has not been answered adequately according to Meyer.
“This is the argument of a very famous essay that David wrote for commentary in 1996 called The Deniable Darwin... And David did a beautiful job explaining that in the '96 essay, that really I don't think has been answered adequately.”
C.S. Lewis's quotation about the triumphs of modern science being purchased at too high a price, requiring reconsideration and something like repentance, suggests science needs rethinking its materialist metaphysical assumptions.
“The triumphs of modern science may have been too rapid and purchased at too high a price, reconsideration and something like repentance may be required.”
The Protestant Reformation contributed to the rise of capitalism and modern science not primarily through religious doctrine but through the structural emphasis on individual autonomy, personal responsibility, and the capacity of the individual subject to understand and act on the world—principles that enabled both economic and scientific flourishing.
“there are certainly, if you think of all of the great institutions that begin to emerge, a lot of the great principles that begin to emerge. The stress on individual autonomy, individual capacity, the enlightenment. You can really see a great precursor to it in the turn to the subject, in the Reformation.”
The Kalam cosmological argument from the Abbasid Caliphate in the 8th-9th century states: the universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause, and that cause cannot be material since matter itself is what is being explained.
“It recovered one particular version of the cosmological argument developed in the Abbasid Caliphate in the eighth, ninth century, the so-called Kalam cosmological argument. The universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause. And that cause crucially... can't be itself a material cause. Because what's being explained is the sum total of matter, space-time.”
Physicist John Polkinghorne argued that if thought is merely electrochemical neural events, then thoughts cannot be right or wrong—they simply occur, and rational discourse collapses into absurdity, which we all know to be false.
“Physicist John Polkinghorne... 'If thought is replaced by mere electrochemical neural events, then thoughts are neither right nor wrong. They simply happen. The world of rational discourse disappears into the absurd chatter of firing synapses. Quite frankly, that can't be right and none of us believe it to be.'”
David Armstrong's account of laws proposes that properties like force, mass, and acceleration are universals that have quasi-causal connections, and concrete instances conform to these universals in a way that can be explained scientifically without requiring divine lawmaker.
“David Armstrong... says that there's a kind of... you think of them in terms of universals... there's a kind of what he calls a quasi-causal connection between these universals... concrete examples... conform to... And that conformity can be explained in scientific terms.”
Charles Darwin himself doubted whether the mind's faculties, having evolved from lower animals through random accident, could be trusted to yield true knowledge; he worried that evolution undermines confidence in reason itself.
“Charles Darwin, 'With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.'”
Physicist Richard Feynman noted that the mere existence of rules governing nature is itself a kind of miracle, and the fact that human minds can discover and express these rules through mathematics is remarkable.
“Here's Richard Feynman, 'The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle, that it is possible to find a rule, like the inverse-square rule of gravitation, is some sort of miracle.'”
From the materialist perspective, the emergence of mind and truth-tracking cognitive faculties is a genuine puzzle that cannot be easily explained, whereas from a non-materialist perspective it is not problematic.
“My point was simply looking at it from a strictly atheistic perspective, the emergence of mind, truth-tracking cognitive faculties is a puzzle... It's not a puzzle if you don't accept the materialist hypothesis.”
Explaining laws of nature in purely secular, naturalistic terms is extremely difficult because laws appear to require a lawmaker or ordering principle; without invoking a divine legislator imposing laws top-down, it's unclear how naturalists can account for why nature is law-governed.
“Now, how do we explain it in secular, naturalistic terms? It's not easy, not easy at all without the divine lawmaker, as it were, imposing the laws top-down. And yet secular, materialistic philosophers try to lift up this idea, lift up the conception, and will all bring in causal language.”
After 1958, molecular biology revealed that the fundamental nature of reality includes information as a third category alongside matter and energy, making it very hard to be an intellectually fulfilled materialist.
“After '58, I think it becomes very, very hard to be an intellectually fulfilled materialist... Now we find that deep, deep down is a phenomenon, coding information that is intrinsically ideal or mental, immaterial, and that poses an enormous challenge.”
Unless there is nothing but mathematics and no physical world exists, there must be something beyond mathematics that mathematics describes; this suggests a decidedly anti-materialistic view.
“Unless there's no such thing as the physical world, there's only mathematics. A point of view we mathematicians are partial to... Which is a decidedly anti-materialistic view.”
Information, in the uniform and repeated experience that forms the basis of scientific reasoning, is not a product of material substrate alone; information is a non-material phenomenon that requires explanation.
“In our experience, our uniformed and repeated experience, which is the basis of all scientific reasoning, information is a mine product. It's not a product of just an underlying material substrate.”
Universal skepticism (the claim that nothing can be known) is self-defeating because if universal skepticism is true, then universal skepticism itself cannot be known to be true, making it a statement that undermines its own validity and collapses.
“if we accept this as a universal point of skepticism, it perishes on a self-imposed blaze of self-reference. Universal skepticism must be self-referential, and if it's appropriate, then universal skepticism itself may be dismissed.”
Laws of nature as a concept emerged in the 17th-18th centuries with the language of a divine legislator or deus ex machina, but paradoxically, as widespread belief in God declined in the 19th-20th centuries, the concept of laws persisted as the foundation of materialism
“One of the great paradoxes of the 17th and 18th century, is while the language of laws of nature begin to emerge and with it this sort of idea of a divine legislator or ex machina. At the very time when widespread commitment to the existence of God is beginning to wane. And yet, the laws of nature as a notion, keep persisting all the way through into the 20th century, right up to the present day.”
A form of measurable, obvious, and palpable intelligence exists in mechanical systems, and if we are all limited to effectively computable functions, then mechanical intelligence may be the only form of intelligence available to us.
“A form of intelligence, which is measurable, obvious, palpable, exists in a mechanical system... it may be the only form of intelligence, if we're all limited to effectively computable functions.”
ChatGPT-4 serves as evidence that intelligence can be entirely instantiated in a mechanical system, providing a counter-example to the thesis that intelligence requires biological substrate and thereby showing that mind is reducible to computation.
“You open up your computer. Type in ChatGPT-4, there's a mind that's entirely mechanical. There's a point of evidence. This is an extraordinary achievement... We have a counter example to the thesis of the divisibility between intelligence instantiated in a biological system, and intelligence instantiated in an electromagnetic system.”
Berlinski's statement 'Laws are what they are' parallels the biblical 'I am that I am' (Exodus 3:14), suggesting laws of nature are self-explanatory ground-of-being—neither derivable from nor dependent on anything beyond themselves
“Now, forgive me if this is just a sheer perversity, but I'll tell you that that reminded me of something, Exodus 3. 'Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel and she'll say unto them, the God of your fathers.' I am that I am. What am I to say to them? What is his name? What shall I say to them? And God said unto Moses, 'I am that I am.' Did you do that on purpose? They are what they are, I am that I am. It certainly feels like the ground of being.”
ChatGPT does not have first-person subjective conscious experience, which is qualitatively different from whatever intelligence it exhibits; the existence of mechanical intelligence does not establish that consciousness is mechanically instantiable.
“David, surely you wouldn't say that ChatGPT has a first-person, subjective, conscious-minded perspective on the world... Maybe that concedes the point that there is somewhere a first-person, subjective experience, which is qualitatively different than that in ChatGPT.”
C.S. Lewis identifies magic and modern science as historical twins born from the same Renaissance impulse to subdue reality to human wishes, both representing a will to power distinct from the medieval goal of conforming the soul to reality through knowledge, discipline and virtue
“For the wise men of old, the cardinal problem has been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline and virtue. For magic and applied science alike, the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men.”
The publication of Newton's Principia (1684-1685) coincided with the sudden disappearance of the astrological tradition in London, suggesting a causal connection between Newton's mathematical science and the decline of astrology
“1684, 1685, Newton publishes the Principia, and like a group of birds scattered by a shot, they disappear, never to be heard of again. Where did they go? What did they do? What was the intellectual relationship between the publication of this very difficult work, Newton's Principia?”
Newton's mathematical formulation provided something the scholastics lacked—a powerful, predictive mathematical description—which is why Newton's circular definition of gravity advanced science despite committing the same logical form of error as scholasticism
“But that was just a mistake, because Newton offered an incredible insight with his mathematical formulation. Exactly. He had something the scholastics didn't have, which was the powerful mathematical description. But it raised this deep question then, what is the cause of gravity?”
Laws of nature are understood by theoretical physicists and mathematicians as filled with primordial energy that not only explains but governs the world with a power to command and shape all existence
“But that is not just in my view, I think that is how the scientific community, or at least the part of the scientific community that deals with the mathematics... But the physicists, the theoretical physicists and the mathematicians, that's exactly how they view the laws of nature, as if they're filled with the kind of primordial energy that not only explain but govern the world, the universe.”
The discarded image problem emerged when reality became naturalized, revealing that some aspects of reality could not be reduced to natural sciences, leading magic to become a way of attempting to restore a unified understanding of reality
“Once the discarded image problem emerges, which Lewis describes. That is to say once reality is naturalized, even very early on it became clear, that there were still aspects of reality that couldn't easily be reduced to the natural sciences. And so in a way, magic then becomes a way of trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”
Modern materialist scientists (Weinberg, Hawking, Dawkins) argue that science has made belief in God unnecessary because science gives us abundance and practical success where religion failed to do so.
“During the long eons of belief, humankind got nowhere, subsistence living for the last 250,000 years. Then we get modern science and living standards take off... God gave us nothing. Science gave us abundance. That's the underlying story.”
Leibniz proposed in the 17th century that all intellectual endeavors could be reduced to computations and imagined a future in which all knowledge could be mechanized, an idea that may well be our future.
“That was available as a point of argument as early as the 17th century. Leibniz was very proud of his computing machine. He looked forward to reducing all intellectual endeavors to computations, and that may still be our future.”
Astrology flourished in 17th-century London with practitioners like William Lilly specializing in finding lost objects and achieving widespread commercial success, suggesting these practices had effective methods they deliberately concealed
“William Lilly came to London from the provinces because, 'There was money to be got.' That's a quotation from Lilly. He opened up his own practice. He specialized in finding lost objects. And over something like a 30-year career, he was enormously successful, successful at finding lost objects. We have no idea what he did.”
The shift from a theocentric to anthropocentric conception of the universe, emerging with Renaissance humanism, positioned the human mind as the great organizer and constructor of reality, representing a Faustian-Promethean impulse
“The idea is that we're shifting from a theocentric conception of the universe, which Lewis describes, to an anthropocentric one. The human mind becomes the great organizer of reality, the great constructor of reality.”
Materialism has become the water we're swimming in as a default way of thinking among many natural scientists, social scientists, and in humanities ideologies derivative of those sciences, despite not holding up well to rigorous inquiry
“It's the water we're swimming in.”