The well-known scientist Carl Sagan once declared, “I am a collection of water, calcium, and organic molecules called Carl Sagan.” This idea — that matter is the only reality and that everything, including human beings, is therefore entirely reducible to physical explanation — is called “materialism” or “physicalism.” It has had enormous influence in the modern world and contributed to the loss of religious belief and respect for human dignity. In this talk, physicist Stephen Barr will explain why a number of well-known physicists and philosophers have argued that the phenomenon of consciousness is not reducible to physics and thus refutes physicalism.
Stephen Barr is President of the Society of Catholic Scientists and Professor Emeritus of theoretical particle physics at the University of Delaware. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society for his contributions to theories of the unification of the fundamental forces and the cosmology of the early universe. He is the author of Modern Physics and Ancient Faith and The Believing Scientist. He was elected in 2010 to the Academy of Catholic Theology and was awarded the Benemerenti Medal by Pope Benedict XVI.
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