The latest Mind Matters podcast is a chat between neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and philosopher of science Bruce Gordon about how our minds relate to reality. Gordon offers a challenging view — idealism — that compels us to think about what we believe we know.

He proposes a theistic form of idealism where a divine mind undergirds the reality we all share. On this view the world is intelligible because it is first in mind and only then in our senses.

Why materialism falls short

According to the materialist view, everything about the mind can be explained by physical parts and processes. Gordon reviews several versions of this view and finds problems with each.

•Eliminative materialism denies the reality of beliefs and feelings, yet that denial still depends on belief.

•Reductive materialism tries to reduce experience and meaning to brain states. This does not capture the felt quality of pain or the way thoughts are about things.

•Non-reductive physicalism says mental properties arise from the physical but have no independent causal role. However, if they make no difference, then our reasons and judgments lose weight and we have little reason to trust our thinking.

Gordon also points to a deeper issue. If the universe is taken as a set of brute facts that could have been otherwise, the scientific search for explanations loses its grounding.

Why materialism remains popular

Gordon and Egnor talk about the cultural forces that favor physicalism. Many academics assume that only what can be measured by the five senses is real. At the same time medicine shows that brain activity and the mind are closely linked.

Gordon agrees that the brain is important for embodied life but warns against reducing the self to neurons. He mentions the work of Wilder Penfield (1891–1976)  who could trigger sensations by stimulating the cortex during surgery but could not produce the unified self who directs and chooses.

Dualism: Its strengths and gaps

Dualism claims that mind and body are distinct. Property dualism treats the physical world as basic and treats mental features as a higher level. Gordon argues that this approach risks making the mind a powerless shadow.

Hylomorphism, originating in Aristotle (384– 322 BC) and Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), holds that the soul is the form of the body and gives the person a deep unity. Gordon appreciates this unity but it raises puzzles. If the soul is the form of the body, what is the status of conscious subjecthood when the body dies?

Thomistic views say that the soul can subsist but in a diminished way. However, research on near-death experiences seems to show sharper awareness, not less. Another puzzle is the possibility of two knowers in one person if both the living composite and the soul are centers of thought.

The idealist option

Gordon proposes a theistic idealism instead. On this view. each of us is an immaterial mind created by God. What we call the material world is a stable, shared presentation that God coordinates for us. The difference between concrete sights and sounds and abstract ideas is real, but it is a difference within experience rather than a split between two kinds of substance. Thus, idealism keeps the unity of the person while explaining how a common world is available to many minds.

Quantum physics as support

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Gordon sees support for idealism in quantum theory. Quantum outcomes are probabilistic in a way that cannot be blamed on hidden variables. Nonlocal correlations appear without the transfer of energy and do not fit neatly within relativistic signaling.

Attempts to restore a purely mechanical picture face problems. Bohmian mechanics has trouble extending to modern field theory and still leaves a special role for measurement that brings in probabilities and performances by observers. Many worlds (multiverse) theory multiplies realities and drains the meaning of probability because every outcome is realized.

In a theistic idealist frame, the universal quantum wave function can be viewed as the content of divine knowledge of all physical possibilities and histories. God then actualizes one coherent world for our shared experience. This keeps the empirical success of quantum probabilities and also secures unity and intelligibility.

Freedom and moral value

Gordon defends free will in a strong sense. Real responsibility means the agent could have done otherwise and is the true source of the choice. He explains that divine freedom is different in kind. God does not do evil not because of a lack of freedom but because perfect goodness belongs to the divine nature. On the grounding of morality he holds that goodness is rooted in the being of God. This avoids the idea of a standard that is outside God while also avoiding pure arbitrariness.

What are particles, really?

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Egnor asks a playful question about whether there might be only one electron. Gordon answers by noting that quantum theory already undercuts the idea of tiny enduring particles. What we call electrons are patterns in experience with stable and lawlike behavior. They are not little solid objects that exist in themselves. This fits an idealist reading where the furniture of physics is a structured display within experience rather than the ultimate building blocks of everything.

Summing up Gordon’s approach

Science aims at explanation and presumes that the world is understandable. In his view, if we set aside brute facts and face the limits of materialist theories of mind, the case for mind as fundamental becomes strong. Dualist models move in that direction but hard questions about unity and about the state of the person apart from the body remain. A theistic idealism gathers what is best in these views. It helps make sense of quantum puzzles, protects human freedom, and supports our trust in reason. On this account the world is a meaningful order communicated by a divine intelligence to finite minds who can know, reason, and love.