If materialism were true, Wright and other materialists who insist the mind and the soul are nothing but mere products of the brain cannot trust these thoughts. Their thoughts about the brain, or anything else, would be products of material causes and no more significance than steam wafting from a bowl of oatmeal. In Chesterton’s terms, materialism is an insane idea precisely because, as it explains everything, it explains away everything—even itself.   

In the opening pages of Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton likened modern philosophy to insanity. Its inherent circularity may appear to explain everything, but only because it makes reality very small. Those who claim matter and energy are all that exist, he wrote, have an “insane simplicity…the quality of the madman’s argument; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and leaving everything out.” 

That’s an appropriate designation for this recent post on X by evolutionary biologist and Manhattan Institute fellow Colin Wright: 

I am perplexed by people claiming that consciousness is metaphysical. We have absolutely no reason to believe that, and every reason to believe it’s a product of our physical brains…We have never observed a mind existing independent from a physical brain…I think we can safely conclude that consciousness is a natural, physical phenomenon. 

Wright then recited the familiar materialist litany that the mind is nothing but the brain. After all, that organ’s activity can be monitored with fMRI, and specific regions of the brain can be linked with specific behaviors, emotions, and actions. If the brain is damaged, associated aspects of the person’s memory, abilities, or personality are affected. Therefore, the mind and consciousness of the person must be nothing more than a product of the brain and its activity.  

It’s a simple, tidy explanation . . . one that Chesterton would say has the telltale mark of insanity. It seems to cover everything, but only because it leaves out everything important. For instance, is love merely a mixture of neurotransmitters? Are justice and integrity arrangements of gray matter? Are true beliefs, or an eye for beauty, or the ability to grasp a mathematical theorem reducible to chemical reactions?  

Even if matter and energy are the fundamental “stuff” of which everything is made, it would not follow that everything can be reduced to the sum of matter and energy.

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