physicalism
physicalism by metawave October 17, 2020
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Spiritual Physicalism
Spiritual Physicalism is a term, derived from spiritual materialism, used to refer to spiritual people and religious people, mainly online, who often support or full support physicalist, materialist, positivist and scientistic views of the world, reality, religion and spirituality. Spiritual Physicalism often seeks to explain all spiritual experiences such as Astral Projection and Mediumship by physicalist means and denies any possibility of existence of extraphysical interaction with reality itself and reject any kind of extraphysicalism and even the notion of extraphysical mechanics, also supporting the development of spiritual scientism that's the union of spirituality with scientism where it seeks to adapt spirituality for scientism and make spirituality full dependent of scientism itself. The oppose of spiritual physicalism is spiritual extraphysicalism, that's the use of extraphysicalism and its ideas and theories to explain spiritual experiences/phenomena and support of extraphysicalist views of views of the world, reality, religion and spirituality.
"Spiritual physicalism is really common among spiritual communities online, that's one of the reasons they are a bad example of spirituality. But still, the fight on physicalism is still necessary, mainly inside spiritual communities online, to make spirituality extraphysical again and to enable the development of extraphysicalism and extraphysics inside spiritual communities again."
Spiritual Physicalism by Full Monteirism May 9, 2021
Hard Problem of Physicalism
A more nuanced version of materialism's problem. Physicalism claims everything is physical or supervenes on the physical. The hard problem is defining "the physical" without circularity. Physics describes the behavior of matter, but doesn't define its essence. Furthermore, if physics is just our best current model, then physicalism becomes the claim "everything is whatever our current physics says it is," which is both provisional and strangely empty. It's materialism with a philosophy degree, but still struggling.
*Example: "She's a physicalist but admits physics doesn't have a clue about consciousness. The hard problem of physicalism: she believes consciousness is 100% physical, but 'the physical' is an ever-changing list of quarks, fields, and maybe strings. She's betting on a mystery being solved by a moving target."*
Hard Problem of Physicalism by Abzugal January 30, 2026
Social Sciences of Physicalism
A field that studies physicalism—the view that everything that exists is physical or supervenes on the physical—as a social phenomenon. It examines how physicalism became dominant in academic philosophy and science, how it is taught and transmitted, and how it shapes research priorities and funding. It also studies the social correlates of physicalist belief (e.g., profession, disciplinary training), and how physicalist communities respond to challenges from dualists, idealists, or panpsychists. The social sciences of physicalism treat physicalism not as a proven truth but as a historically situated framework with its own social life.
Example: “Social sciences of physicalism research showed that physicalism’s dominance in neuroscience is reinforced by grant funding patterns—research that assumes physicalism is funded, while research that questions it is dismissed as ‘philosophical.’”
Sociology of Physicalism
The sociological subfield focusing on the communities, institutions, and practices that sustain physicalism. It examines how physicalist orthodoxy is enforced in academic departments, journals, and conferences; how dissenters are marginalized; and how physicalist commitments shape career trajectories. The sociology of physicalism also studies how physicalism functions as a boundary marker—distinguishing “serious” scientists from “woo” advocates—and how this boundary is policed through peer review, hiring, and public communication.
Example: “The sociology of physicalism revealed that graduate students in neuroscience quickly learn to avoid any language suggesting that consciousness might be non‑physical—not because the evidence is settled, but because expressing doubt would harm their careers.”
Sociology of Physicalism
The sociological subfield focusing on the communities, institutions, and practices that sustain physicalism. It examines how physicalist orthodoxy is enforced in academic departments, journals, and conferences; how dissenters are marginalized; and how physicalist commitments shape career trajectories. The sociology of physicalism also studies how physicalism functions as a boundary marker—distinguishing “serious” scientists from “woo” advocates—and how this boundary is policed through peer review, hiring, and public communication.
Example: “The sociology of physicalism revealed that graduate students in neuroscience quickly learn to avoid any language suggesting that consciousness might be non‑physical—not because the evidence is settled, but because expressing doubt would harm their careers.”
Social Sciences of Physicalism by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal April 16, 2026
Late-Stage Physicalism
Similar to late‑stage materialism but with an emphasis on the laws of physics as the ultimate arbiters of reality. Late‑stage physicalism denies the reality of anything not expressible in physical terms: mental states, social facts, moral properties, even mathematical truth if it cannot be grounded in physics. It often leads to eliminativism about everything except fundamental particles and fields. This position is self‑undermining, as physicalism itself cannot be stated in purely physical terms, and its proponents ignore the actual practice of science, which uses non‑physical concepts constantly.
Late-Stage Physicalism Example: "He argued that consciousness didn't exist because physics didn't describe it—late‑stage physicalism, denying the existence of his own thoughts while speaking."
Late-Stage Physicalism by Abzugal May 5, 2026
Hard-Narrow Physicalism
A dogmatic version of physicalism that asserts that only physical entities exist and that all phenomena—including consciousness, meaning, and society—must be reducible to physics. It rejects emergent, functional, or pluralist accounts, treating any non‑physical explanation as crypto‑mysticism. This hard‑narrow stance is often asserted rather than argued, and it dismisses the hard problem of consciousness as a “pseudo‑problem.”
Hard-Narrow Physicalism Example: “He insisted that love is ‘just neurotransmitters’ and that any talk of meaning is illusion. Hard‑narrow physicalism: reducing the rich to the reduced.”
Hard-Narrow Reductionism
A stringent form of reductionism that holds that complex phenomena must be explained entirely by their most basic physical components, and that higher‑level explanations are at best provisional. It rejects holism, emergence, and systems thinking as unscientific hand‑waving. This reductionism is hard‑narrow because it denies any legitimate autonomy to psychological, social, or biological levels of analysis.
Example: “He claimed that sociology could be reduced to psychology, psychology to biology, biology to chemistry, chemistry to physics—and that anything else was ‘folk theory.’ Hard‑narrow reductionism: the ladder that forgets it leans on nothing.”
Hard-Narrow Reductionism
A stringent form of reductionism that holds that complex phenomena must be explained entirely by their most basic physical components, and that higher‑level explanations are at best provisional. It rejects holism, emergence, and systems thinking as unscientific hand‑waving. This reductionism is hard‑narrow because it denies any legitimate autonomy to psychological, social, or biological levels of analysis.
Example: “He claimed that sociology could be reduced to psychology, psychology to biology, biology to chemistry, chemistry to physics—and that anything else was ‘folk theory.’ Hard‑narrow reductionism: the ladder that forgets it leans on nothing.”
Hard-Narrow Physicalism by Abzugal May 23, 2026
Hard-Narrow Physicalism
A radical, dogmatic philosophical stance, common in online science communication circles, asserting that everything real is ultimately reducible to the entities, properties, and laws of fundamental physics. Unlike moderate physicalism, this variant is militant and contemptuous: it treats explanations from biology, psychology, sociology, or the humanities as “illusion,” “epiphenomenon,” “empty discourse,” or “pseudo‑matter.” Adherents believe physics already contains (or will soon contain) all truth; other disciplines are mere “engineering” or “second‑class science.” They often ridicule consciousness, free will, meaning, and intentionality as “ghosts in the machine” or “evolutionary cognitive errors.” In practice, a hard‑narrow physicalist denies ontological reality to anything not measurable by a particle detector or describable by a differential equation—including moral values, subjectivity, history, and even mathematics (reduced to computational physics). The position is self‑contradictory: no physical experiment can prove hard‑narrow physicalism; it is itself a metaphysical belief. Its proponents habitually block critics.
Hard-Narrow Physicalism Example: “A hard‑narrow physicalist argued that ‘pain is just a firing pattern of C‑fibre neurons, nothing more.’ When asked about the subjective experience of pain, he replied: ‘That’s an illusion of language. You’re falling into Cartesian error. Only physics matters.’ Then he blocked everyone.”
Hard-Narrow Physicalism by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal May 23, 2026