If everything is physical, then physical events have only physical causes, which in current physics are particles of matter or energy that exist in space and time to exert a force. This predicts a physical world that is conserved, continuous, complete, and fundamental, but these foundations have fault lines that need theoretical patches, as follows:
1. Conserved. If the physical world is all there is, it must be conserved in total. Parts of it can transform, as water can turn into vapor, but the total should be in an eternal steady state. Yet big bang theory cracked this pillar last century, as what once began can’t be eternal. One patch that covers this fault is the speculation that a big crunch follows a big bang, in an ongoing oscillation that is in effect a steady state.
2. Continuous. If the physical world is all there is, space and time must be continuous, without gaps, for particles to be fundamental. If time had gaps, a fundamental particle couldn’t exist in the gap and so wouldn’t be fundamental. If space had gaps, a fundamental particle could move into a gap where it couldn’t exist and so again wouldn’t be fundamental. Yet field theories that assume continuity produce infinities, and what is infinite is impossible. The patch that covers up this fault is the mathematical method of renormalization, which Feynman called a dippy process as it just defines the problem away.
3. Complete. If the physical world is all there is, everything must have a physical cause, but events like atomic decay have no physical cause, as no physical history can predict when a radioactive atom emits a photon. Quantum theory adds that quantum collapse is random, so every physical event also involves randomness. The patch in this case was the ludicrous idea that every random choice creates an entire new universe, to give a multiverse that avoids randomness.
4. Fundamental. If the physical world is all there is, particles should be fundamental, but in the two-slit experiment, electrons move through both slits as waves that produce an interference pattern and only become particles when observed. The patch that covers this fault is the standard model’s wave-particle duality that lets particles also be waves, so particles aren’t really fundamental.
Figure 1.7 shows the four pillars of physicalism, their faults, and the needed patches. These pillars, as the necessary assumptions of physicalism, have implications, for if the physical world is always:
1. Conserved, then it must be eternal,
2. Continuous, then it must be all-pervading,
3. Complete, then it must be all-powerful, and
4. Fundamental, then it must self-existing.
That the physical world is conserved, continuous, complete, and fundamental therefore equates to saying that it is eternal, all-pervading, all-powerful, and self-existing, all properties once attributed to God. The implication of physicalism is then that the physical world has properties that were once considered divine, so it is an ideology, no different from the theism of religions.
Physicalism as an ideology not a fact can no more prove its statements about physical reality than religion can prove its statements about God, so instead of a divine scripture with all the answers, the physical world now does. But if the physical world is eternal, why did it begin? If it is all-pervading, why are there Planck limits? If it is all-powerful, why are there random events? And if it is self-existing, how can it expand? Have we then just swapped one ideology for another?
To accept the ideology of physicalism one must believe that our world began itself, that infinities can be defined away, that photons can spawn new universes, and that particles can be waves. To say that physicalism has shaky foundations is then an understatement, so why does it still stand?
The answer seems to be that the ideology of dualism is even less appealing so physicalism is better than nothing, but there is another alternative, that quantum events create physical events as quantum theory says. Physicalism and dualism both assume physical realism, that the physical world is real, so that the quantum world is real is quantum realism.
Quantum realism makes the physical world a virtual reality that is inevitably impermanent, digital, contained, and dependent. A virtual reality has to begin, so it is impermanent not eternal. It consists of discrete pixels and cycles, so it is digital not all-pervading. It is inside another reality, so it is contained not all-powerful. It is also constantly created, so it is dependent not self-existing. If the physical world is impermanent, digital, contained, and dependent, as later chapters suggest, to attribute divine properties to it is foolish. However to reject the ideology of physicalism, science has to change its current axioms.