Materialists

In a certain sense, it is surprising that the modern materialist philosopher does eventually advert to some notion of the soul rather than just giving up on the question. He thinks of the soul as part of the ancient mysticism that we enlightened moderns have been liberated from. However, the strict materialists that every high school chemistry class in the country is turning out (with their strict and antiquated Bohr models of atomic and subatomic structures) is left with nothing to advert to when it comes to explaining life. The scientist, unguided by philosophy that is truly grounded in nature, seeks to create life by mixing together a vat of amino acids and electricity in an acidic atmosphere to create a single protein, which incidentally is not life. In order to explain the leap of faith that the scientist is making in holding that this extremely improbable action would happen in nature, the scientist is required to hold that the world has already existed for an extremely long period of time, if not eternally. Additionally, the scientist is required that over enough time, every possible combination of events will occur. However, again this is quite a leap of faith. Not everything that is imaginable in our picture thinking imaginations is something that is potentially possible. I can imagine that I could sprout wings and fly, and thus you could say that it is possible, but I have no real potency to do such.

The possible is the rationalist’s replacement for the Aristotelian distinction of act and potency, which helps to ground both philosophy and science in the real. The potential is based upon what something could actually do or be but currently is not, while the possible is based upon what is conceivable in the mind but currently is not. Equating the possible and the potential is little more than sloppy philosophy and egoism.