This episode in the Science Uprising series discusses the relationship between mind, materialism and free will.
Recall from previous episodes in the series that the narrators wear Guy Fawkes masks to symbolize their rebellion against the dogma of scientism, i.e. the belief that materialistic science can answer all the important questions in life and that whatever questions science can't answer aren't worth thinking about.
Scientism is popular among materialists despite being obviously wrong. I say "obviously wrong" because it's clear that science can say nothing about moral questions like whether I ought to help the poor or care for the elderly. Nor can it answer questions about the nature of justice and what obligates us to do justice.
Science, unaided by philosophy, cannot tell us what foreign and domestic policies our leaders should pursue or what kind of life we ought to choose for ourselves.
These are not unimportant or insignificant questions, quite the contrary, but science has nothing to say about them. Science can help guide us toward whatever ends we choose, but it can't tell us whether the ends we choose are the ones we ought to choose.
Indeed, scientism renders the entire fields of metaphysics, axiology (the study of aesthetic and moral value) and much of epistemology worthless.
By itself, without the aid of philosophy, science can't even tell us why one should value science or believe in scientism in the first place. Nor can it justify accepting its own basic assumptions like the uniformity of the laws of physics, the principle of cause and effect, or the reliability of human reason.
Anyway, here's the video. Note in the beginning the reference to eliminative materialism. This is the view that all that exists is material substance. It holds that there's no immaterial mind and that mental states, like the feeling of pain, and consciousness are both a kind of illusion.
There's more on Wilder Penfield's work here, and more on Benjamin Libet's work here.
