Materialism is the prevailing paradigm in modern science and dominates much of Western culture, education and media. It is diametrically opposed to idealism, the view that consciousness if the fundamental reality, and that matter is merely a perception within consciousness.

In 16th-century Europe, science and religion went their own separate ways.

Definition: Materialism posits that matter, governed by the laws of physics, is the fundamental substance in nature. All mental phenomena are caused by material processes in the brain. They depend upon those processes and thus cannot exist without the brain. Consciousness is merely a by-product (epiphenomenon) of brain activity.

It is easy to see that materialism is diametrically opposed to the model of My Big TOE

If you want to establish a new scientific paradigm, one could believe that the onus to

Idealism may be difficult to falsify, but materialism already has been.

Few people are aware that materialism has been falsified already.

Logical implications of materialism

Taking a materialist worldview necessarily has a number of implications, even if not all materialists may be aware of them. If you’re a materialist, logic dictates that you must also:

• be an atheist: materialism leaves no room for a non-material ("supernatural") being that created the universe and
  continues to interact with it;
• believe that death is the end of your existence: when your physical body dies, your consciousness and all your memories will be extinguished as their physical basis will cease to exist;
• believe that you have no free will: if consciousness is merely a by-product of neural processes in the brain, then all your actions are determined by those processes and you are not responsible for them – you merely act out what your brain forces you to do;
• believe that, by definition, paranormal phenomena cannot possibly occur – those who claim to have them must be either fools or frauds;
• believe that spiritual or mystical experiences must be caused by brain malfunction – they have no deeper meaning and cannot tell us anything about the nature of reality;
• believe that there is no ultimate purpose to our existence because both the creation of the universe and the evolution of life in it were chance events, and as such they were neither inevitable nor deliberate.

Some materialists also believe in determinism, the idea that everything that happens is fully determined by existing physical causes. This view requires them to deny not only their free will, but also any randomness in the universe, despite strong evidence to the contrary. In its most extreme expression, determinism even denies the existence of time: change, by which the passing of time is perceived, is considered as being merely an illusion within human consciousness. Time is just one of the four dimensions of space-time. posits the existence of a block universe.

Why materialism appears to make sense

Until you stop to think about it, materialism does seem to provide a convincing explanation for human experience and existence, even if you may not like all of its implications. There seem to be many good reasons to believe that matter must be more fundamental than consciousness:

In our universe, matter precedes mind.

• Conscious beings only appeared billions of years after the Big Bang.
• The consciousness of an embryo in the mother’s womb only emerges as its body and brain become more complex.
• When a living being dies, its consciousness seems to "disappear" while its body remains, at least for a while.
• We can easily imagine the universe going on even if all life on Earth or other planets should go extinct.  

• Stimulating specific brain areas can induce certain types of experience.
• Anesthetics make us unconscious, alcohol alters our perception and thinking, and psychotropic drugs can induce mystical experiences and altered states of consciousness.
• Damage to the brain, nervous system or sensory organs can limit our conscious experience and intellectual capacities.
• The brain temporarily shuts down our conscious awareness during sleep.

• Materialism is the prevailing paradigm.
• Science has successfully explained many phenomena previously thought to be "mystical"; it has also refuted many religious claims and ideas about the nature of the universe.
• Scientists and atheists are thought by many to be free of beliefs.

• They have not had any paranormal, mystical or spiritual experiences that would require a non-materialist explanation.
• They are unaware of the explanatory limitations and logical contradictions of materialism (see below).
• They believe the only alternative to materialism and atheism is going back to religious superstition and dogma.
• They believe that there is nothing about religions and spiritual traditions that points to a larger truth; their only function may have been an evolutionary advantage through social    and alleviating fear of death by providing false hope for an eternal life.

Materialism is thought by many not to be a view of the world or a belief system but as the only way to look at the world objectively. Many people think that scientists and atheists are free of beliefs just because they don’t believe in religious dogma and believe that matter is fundamental.

Neither science nor organized religions encourage self-inquiry and mystical experience

Until now, there has not been a convincing alternative scientific model

Belief: it has become established language to attribute everything we do to the brain

It’s fair to surmise that many people have arrived at the materialist worldview because they can’t make sense of the world otherwise. Especially the problem of evil and suffering in the world seems too monstrous to fathom. None of the traditional religions seems to offer a convincing explanation for the existence of human suffering caused by illness, accidents or natural disasters, or the suffering of animals who are killed by other animals.

• Up until now, there simply hasn’t been a coherent scientific model based on idealism, and scientists can’t get themselves to drop an existing model before they’ve got a new one to replace it with. My Big TOE is just about to change that.

they think life’s meaning is only what you give it. And from that they conclude that anything hoping for life after death is just fake meaning, fueled by the fear of extinction, and th

In realirty it is they who seem to be afraid of spirutal being true. Shouldn’t anyone rejoice at the prospect of immortality?

They argue, if consciousness created all this, what would be its motivation? Why would there be so much suffering?

We can’t will to change the outside world. It doesn’t respond to our volition.

correlation gets mixed up with causation

Some die-hard materialists such as philosopher Daniel Dennett are not embarrassed to claim that consciousness itself is an illusion, curiously ignoring that it takes a consciousness to perceive an illusion.

The scientific community’s continued belief in materialism is the reason why physics has not made any fundamental discoveries in decades. Physics is stuck in a dead-end.

It takes only one single case to falsify materialism.

Placebo effect cannot be explained

Strictly speaking, any type of physical reaction to one’s mental states cannot be explained, such as producing saliva at the thought of a lemon, getting sexually aroused by erotic thoughts or images, the body sweating because of mental stress, or other bodily expressions of fear such as an increased heartbeat.

Mystical experiences are taboo. Religions don’t encourage them, they are not taught in school.

Sheldrake had his TED talk banned, pseudoscience

Skepticism is often applied to only religion, not science. You have to be skeptical but also open-minded.

Many non-scientists believe that scientists are free of beliefs.

People believe that just because they reject religious dogma they are free of beliefs.

Materialist explanations are readily accepted, NDEs are caused by a lack of oxygen

Speculations are presented as truths: multiverse, many-worlds theory

Highly implausible speculations are acceptable. Readers don’t understand that they are only employed to save the materialist worldview.

The underlying beliefs of scientists are not revealed.

Determinism, no time, no free will.

Hard problem of consciousness. Consciousness cannot have evolved.

Dennett: consciousness is an illusion.

Materialism leads to consumerism: if there is no ultimate purpose, then consumption… Materialism destroys the planet because we will take too many resources.

Materialists think they are taking the most rational position.

They are afraid that abandoning the "lawful" idea of a material universe would entail going back to a lawless world of religious dogma

Why, then, is materialism still the prevailing paradigm?

• Beliefs are hard to overcome
• Materialists are creative in inventing strings, multiverse etc., ideas that are no less fanciful than some religious ideas
• Following 9/11 the New Atheism movement has been successful at branding everyone else as "deluded".
• Technological progress has been so successful that it seemed correct
• Research and industry have a vested interest in maintaining it
• Most people don’t think too much about the implications, such as no free will
• There has so far been no credible alternative as to the purpose of our existence and the definition of a "good life"
• Science has refuted many religious claims about the nature of the universe.
• Fear of a return to society governed by religious institutions
• Many people have not had paranormal experiences, or can’t remember having them. They lack first-hand proof of falsification. Others don’t talk about them for fear of stigmatization.
• There seems to be no convincing explanation for the existence of evil
• Nor does there seem to be a convincing explanation as to why it would appear to us like there was a material reality around us

My physics experiments

How to falsify materialism for yourself

Nothing is more valuable than first-hand experience. My Big TOE is not about believing anything. If it’s not your experience, it’s not your truth. You can learn how to remote-view. You can learn to remote-diagnose other people’s illnesses. I teach the basic techniques in my workshops, but there are many other ways to learn this.

Dualism

Panpsychism