thesis

such apparently different classes of property could arise out of a single, more basic one and
what the latter’s nature could be.
Naturalism and Non-materialism?
But does naturalism not entail materialism? What right do naturalists have to start in-
voking thinking, feeling entities while claiming they remain within the scientific paradigm?
J. P. Moreland, in a general article on the argument from consciousness (1998, 80) quotes
David Armstrong (a materialist) as saying (1978, 72):
I suppose that if the principles involved [in analysing the single all-embracing spatio-temporal
system which is reality] were completely different from the current principles of physics, in
particular if they involved appeal to mental entities, such as purposes, we might then count
the analysis as a falsification of Naturalism.
Armstrong is welcome to his own definitions but it seems somewhat fruitless to debate
which theories do or do not deserve the particular title of ‘naturalism’. A better question to
consider is as follows: How on earth could mental entities be incorporated into a world-view
which is otherwise materialist and scientific?
As many have noted, the quantum-mechanical view of matter leaves much room for
precisely such a combination. Although any significant discussion is beyond the scope of
this piece, some preliminary observations will be made. Several experiments in quantum
mechanics have forced us to the conclusion that the world consists not of particles but of
complex probability 13 waveforms which, under certain conditions, ‘collapse’ into particles of
either definite position or momentum (but never both at the same time). And all we know
for sure about the ‘collapse’ of these waveforms is that it has to take place prior to, in some
13 Complex probability is expressed in the form x+yi where i is defined as the square root of -1. See
Penrose (1989, 306–20) for a good introduction to how the state of a quantum system is represented as
a Schrödinger equation, whose value at each point is a complex probability.
44