The possibility of possibilianism

In the above video, neuroscientist David Eagleman lays out a position he calls “possibilianism,” which is his term for an “active exploration” of the “giant space” of possibilities, rather than getting caught in the “false dichotomy” between the believers and the new atheists, like Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, etc. He feels that our knowledge of the universe is still too minimal to become encamped with the new atheists, but also that science has revealed too much to commit to a specific religion. Thus, rather than using the term “agnosticism” to describe his position, he invented a new one, possibilianism.

From Eagleman’s website:

A third position, agnosticism, is often an uninteresting stance in which a person simply questions whether his traditional religious story (say, a man with a beard on a cloud) is true or not true. But with Possibilianism I’m hoping to define a new position — one that emphasizes the exploration of new, unconsidered possibilities. Possibilianism is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind; it is not interested in committing to any particular story.”

Harris, a fellow neuroscientist and author, seems to hold a dim view of this position. From Harris’ blog:

This posture will win him many friends, but it is intellectually dishonest. When one reads between the lines—or even when one just reads the lines—it becomes clear that what Eagleman is saying is every bit as deflationary as anything Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens or I say about the cherished doctrines of the faithful.

As Harris notes here, Eagleman isn’t as non-committal as it seems at first glance, although he may claim as much. Eagleman admits about possibilianism that “anything goes” at first, but then,

What we do is import the tools of science, right, so it would be terrific if ESP existed. We’d all love that. But to the extent that we’re currently able to do it, we’ve tested these sorts of things and can’t find any evidence to weigh favor of it.

And I think here therein lies the problem with Eagleman’s position. He claims to be non-committal, but then says he is going to use the scientific method to narrow the field of the possible. That field, however, has already been laid barren, and there’s no need to fill it up again. The scientific rebuttal of religion is almost, if not fully, complete. We know that human beings, such as Lazarus, do not really come back to life after their brains die. We know humans don’t bodily ascend into the heavens. We know that evolution by natural selection is the explanation for how simple organisms become complex over time. We know that ESP, as Eagleman mentions, doesn’t exist. Therefore, human brains can’t communicate with each other, nor can people really read other people’s thoughts. If human brains can’t communicate with each other, why is there any reason to think human brains have the capacity to communicate with the “spiritual,” such as angels, gods, etc. We know that Earth is 4.5 billion years old, not the minuscule 6,000 attributed in Genesis. We know that people can’t walk on water, and we know that wine and wafers don’t really transform into real blood and flesh upon ingestion at communion. We know a great many things that are fatal to the idea of revealed religion or the spiritual in general, so while it’s not possible at this juncture to prove or disprove God, it is quite possible through evidence (or the lack of any), through the fallibility of holy texts, through science and our understanding of the universe and through the argument from improbability, to move quite a few degrees away from 50-50 agnosticism or from being non-committal altogether.