“When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Sherlock Holmes

“Science should be interested in determining the truth, whatever that truth may be – natural, supernatural or otherwise.”
Sean Carroll

Probabilities rule our lives. We chose college majors that offer more job opportunities; take the route to work with less expected congestion; choose investments that are more likely to pay off in the long run; bet on sports teams with winning records; and adopt a host of lifestyle and health practices to lower the chance of illness and to prolong life. We handicap our entire lives.

But when it comes to the big questions – who we are, does God exist, what is the ultimate make-up of the universe, does life have a purpose – we throw probabilities out the window and just go along with what other people tell us is true.
Few people, it seems, have stopped to think whether the worldview that science and religion have handed us is the most probable one. This is chiefly because we either don’t have time to do the thinking ourselves or believe that answering the big questions is someone else’s responsibility. In the same way we rely upon doctors to prescribe medical treatments, we rely upon science and religious leaders to define our place in the cosmos.

This might not seem all that bad except when one considers that the leaders of science and religion do not have the most positive view of our place in the cosmos. This is particularly true in science. For example, the late, world-famous physicist, Stephen Hawking, said that the “human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies.” World-famous zoologist, Richard Dawkins, proclaims that we are “survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.” The Abrahamic religions separate humankind from the divine, saying that we must find salvation not in this world but in some other one, and the world’s most popular religion, Christianity, teaches that humankind is born in sin. Not the most promising attitude to experience life.

In this article I will do something different. I will seek to objectively compare the probabilities of two separate worldviews and let the reader decide which of the two is the more probable. Of course, only a rough comparison can be made, but even with this qualification the results should be clear.
For this probability test, we will compare a matter-first worldview and a mind-first worldview. The matter-first worldview is also called materialism, scientific materialism, naturalism, or reductionism. It can also be called the “Big-Bang worldview” because the Big Bang is its creation event. Inherent in the Big Bang is the idea that the entire natural world, life, and human consciousness began in a “singularity” – a tiny, infinitely dense seed – that for some unknown reason exploded into particles that then assembled themselves in the universe and all life forms.

Materialism holds as its key principles that ultimate reality is a lifeless thing; that all phenomena and all human experience, from stars to grains of sand, to love, fear, and consciousness itself, can be reduced to particles; that mind and matter cannot talk to each other; and that God, spirit, parapsychology, near-death experiences, and the vast field comprising the “supernatural” are figments of the imagination and of no value to science. Materialism also happens to be the worldview that underlies modern science and is the lens through which we see the world.

The opposing worldview takes a mind-first approach. I call this worldview the real dream worldview, or to use a more science-friendly term, ideal materialism. With this approach, the world we experience is a projection, or dream, of a united mind some call God. With this worldview, the universe began not as an explosion of matter and energy but as an explosion of creativity, thus making the traditional Big Bang a materialistic metaphor for creation. Under this view, we would all be part of the dream in progress, a story of the mind rising to the realization that it dreams the world. What drives the world is the urge to unite the mind to gain control over the world. With the world arising from one mind, the fields of religion, spirituality, parapsychology, mediation, near-death experience, and most everything we classify as the “supernatural” become part of the natural world. The natural world, under this viewpoint, is the world of a united dream, not the world of random particles blasted out from the Big Bang.

With these brief explanations, let us compare the probability that either of these two worldviews is true. For this test, we will consider some of the fundamental questions that now puzzle science.

Event: Creation of matter and energy
• Probability of Event Occurring – Scientific Materialism: Incomplete.
No answer to question

Explanation: Scientific materialism has no credible answer to this threshold question. The various articles and books (e.g. Lawrence Krauss’s A Universe from Nothing) on this topic all assume the existence of an energy field out of which particles arose. But as many others have noted, the energy field is not “nothing.” The more honest answer is that materialistic science assumes matter and the laws of nature as given, as something that requires no explanation. Nobel prize-winning, physicist, Leon Lederman wrote that when someone talks about the very beginning, he is making it up. (The God Particle). Stephen Hawking writes about how the laws of physics break down at the Big Bang singularity, meaning that science has no explanation for what happened at creation. (Brief History of Time.) Every theory that attempts to explain how something came from nothing never uses an actual nothing; rather the theories assume “one speck” of something, a quantum field or some other energy source to trigger the physical interactions necessary to ignite the Big Bang.

• Probability of Event Occurring: Ideal Materialism: 1 in 1
Explanation: We know through dreams and hallucinations that the mind can conjure up the appearance of something from its own power. To reach the conclusion that the physical world is a projection of the mind, we simply extrapolate from the power of one mind to the infinite power of the united mind. Contrary to scientific materialism’s incomplete creation story, ideal materialism provides a credible and testable means for something to come from nothing. This “something” is not the mind-independent world of materialism. That world is impossible. The something of the real dream worldview is, instead, a simulation or re-creation of science’s world of matter. This hardened, self-operating-like world is the ideal home for a dreamer. Because human beings and the outside world are both “simulations” or solidified ideas, they are real to each.

Event: Source of Order and Natural Laws
• Probability of Event Occurring – Scientific Materialism: 10^(10^123) or 10 to the 10th power raised to the 123rd power, to 1.
Explanation: Even if matter and energy, though an unknown miracle, burst out of the void and exploded in the Big Bang, there must still be a way for this mindless stuff to organize itself to the limit of mathematical order and operate in fixed, regular patterns that we call the laws of nature. The odds used here are from Roger Penrose’s book, The Emperor’s New Mind, 343. In describing the unthinkable enormity of this number, Penrose writes that “even if we were to write a “0” on each separate proton and on each separate neutron in the entire universe – we should fall short of writing down the figure needed.” Id. 344. Again, one can just as well assign this event a probability of zero, because we must not only assume that exploding mindless particles, in any universe, organized themselves to the limit of mathematical order (such as in a crystal) but that this configuration became locked into organized structures and then living things.

• Probability of Event Occurring – Ideal Materialism: 1 in 1
Explanation: In the dream motif, there is an intelligence connected to the physical world, like a painter holding a paint brush. The mind works through ideas and forms. The mind, like an artist, can form a world pleasing to itself. This view is diametrically opposed to materialism, which must explain a universe it assumes to be disconnected from the mind. On this point note that the great German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, held that view that the mind structures the appearance of the outside physical world.

Event: Origin of Life
• Probability of Event Occurring – Scientific Materialism: 10^40,000 to 1 (10 to 40,000 power)
Explanation: These odds come from Fred Hoyle, who coincidentally, coined the term the Big Bang. The question of how life arose is another deep mystery and one for which science has no answer. The problem is like explaining the laws of nature, but this one is even deeper. With life, we must explain how mindless residue from the Big Bang arranged itself into a flowing, embodied movement that struggles for life. Where did the struggle begin? This problem seems to get deeper the more we think about it.

• Probability of Event Occurring – Ideal Materialism: 1 in 1.
Explanation: Knowing that our minds can project a real world out itself, it is a short step to concluding that this mind would want a vehicle to experience the world. Life may be the best way for the dreaming mind to forget it is nothing.

Event: A Flat Universe
• Probability of Event Occurring – Scientific Materialism: 10^60 to 1
Explanation: We live in a flat universe. A flat universe is one where the exploding or repulsive power of the Big Bang balances out the attractive (gravitational) power of all the mass in the universe, comprised of stars, planets, and space dust. If the attractive force was stronger than the repulsive force, the universe would collapse into a Big Crunch. If the repulsive force were greater, stars and galaxies would fly off to oblivion, freed from the gravitational forces that hold the universe together. The odds here were calculated by Paul Davies in The Accidental Universe. These odds are high because any slight imbalance in either the gravitational or repulsive force at the Big Bang would have increased over time, making our present flat universe highly improbable.

• Probability of Event Occurring – Ideal Materialism: 1 in 1
Explanation: A flat universe is equivalent to a livable, stable universe. A stage setting that stays in place so that the actors can carry out their roles. Thus, it seems perfectly natural for a dreaming mind to conjure up a balanced, flat universe.

Event: Value of the Cosmological Constant
• Probability of Event Occurring: Scientific Materialism: 10^120 to 1
Explanation: According to quantum theory, the energy of empty space should be 10120 times the measured quantity. What does this mean? Among other things, it means there is something seriously wrong with materialism’s understanding of the universe. Under quantum theory, space cannot be completely devoid of energy, all space pulses with a quiet heartbeat of energy. The problem is that when scientists add up all the energy in the vast reaches of space they come upon a number that is wildly out of proportion to the measured value. According to the late Nobel prize-winning physicist, Stephen Weinberg, this is the “worst failure of an order of magnitude estimate in the history of science.” (Dreams of a Final Theory, 225.) Interestingly, if the energy of space did conform to the findings of quantum theory and contained the expected energy, the universe would have long ago blown up, making life impossible. Like many of its theories, the cosmological constant problem shows that if materialism were correct, we would not be here. But we are here, showing again that materialism is headed down the wrong path to explaining the world.

• Probability of Event Occurring: Ideal Materialism: 1 in 1.
Like a flat universe, the cosmological constant is not a problem in the real-dream worldview. The universe becomes a picturesque dream of God, not a computer model of scientific materialists.

Event: Fine-tuning of universe for life

• Probability of Event Occurring – Scientific Materialism: 10^500 to 1
Explanation: These are the approximate number of universes in the multiverse; many estimates place the number much higher. This number comes from Stephen Hawking. (The Grand Design, 118.) It has been widely recognized that life itself depends upon the fine-tuning of fundamental parameters, in the same way that sound of a piano depends upon the fine-tuning of the strings. Materialism believes that one of these universes has the conditions necessary for life.

• Probability of Event Occurring – Ideal Materialism: 1 in 1.
Explanation: Because the mind created the world, it will naturally be finely tuned to allow the mind to live in the world

Event: Existence of God
• Probability of Event Occurring – Scientific Materialism: 0 in 1.
Explanation: Although many scientists practicing within the materialistic paradigm are religious, materialism, by definition, is atheistic. Materialism allows no mind, intelligence, spiritual being or God to enter its mindless domain.
• Probability of Event Occurring – Ideal Materialism: 1 in 1.
Explanation: God is the united mind of humankind and the source of the physical world.

The reader may critique any of the odds given above; many have been left out, such as why matter predominates over anti-matter; how random mutations through the process of evolution led to humans; the origin of consciousness, three dimensions, photosynthesis, and the DNA molecule. Some readers may take issue with my assigning a probability of “1 in 1” to the events for ideal materialism. I did this to show that we have proof, in dreams and hallucinations, that the mind can project a real-seeming world from nothing. Scientific materialism, in contrast, has no mechanism for converting the black void into a “singularity” other than the imagination of a scientific theorist. Even if we assign a probability of 1 in a billion or some other large number to the chances that the world is a projection of the mind, the odds will always be lower than those for scientific materialism. In our world, we know dreams and hallucinations are possible. My overall point is to show that approached objectively, a mind-first worldview presents us with not only a possible world, but also one that makes sense of religious devotion. Deep down, the mind knows it is God but has been estranged from its real self. Thus, it projects the notion of God outside of itself.

Regarding materialism, we repeatedly arrive at the same conclusion: not only is there no source for the creation of mind-independent particles but trying to explain how dead and dumb particles decided, on their own power, to create the wonders of the world is a futile task.

Where does religion fit in? Religion is based upon faith, not reasoning or experience. It believes that God (or Supreme Being) is the cause of the matter, order, life, and the fine-tuning of the universe. But because religion does not further examine the logic behind these positions, it winds up adopting the naïve realist view of the world: it takes the outside physical world as existing independently of human consciousness and then winds up adopting the materialistic perspective. God, religion surmises, arranged the mindless particles into the form of a universe. God becomes the Grand Tinkerer, a puppeteer working with infinite strings to make particles dance together. But religion cannot explain how spirit moves the mind-independent particles of scientific materialism.

Ideal materialism does leave one question unanswered: how are dreams possible? This question we will never answer. Rather, the deep and impenetrable mystery of this question is the source of the religious sentiment.

As noted above, the materialistic worldview cannot be true. If we encountered similar odds in any other endeavor, we would quickly try another option. Materialism cannot even explain the very material it uses to build the rest of its worldview. And, even when matter is gifted to materialists, the doctrine still encounters a cascading array of intractable dilemmas going all the way from the Big Bang to human consciousness. In simple terms, modern science has mistaken its mechanical model of the universe for reality. But its theories have always been models, mental constructions of what lies “out-there.” The source for this model is the mind of the scientific theorist; the model did not create itself.

A person is free to believe anything they want. Beliefs are private. Subjecting beliefs to logical criticism and experiment is the hallmark of the scientific method. But to date, scientific materialists have refused to subject their own underlying assumptions to questioning, fearing that they will be forced to give up the practice of science if they do so. But science is the quest to find truth, not to prove materialism true. In the future we must place the scientific method upon a deeper and firmer foundation and then find where this new science leads us. The odds are that it will be a better place than where we are now.