Distraction

In a recent post on his blog, philosopher Colin McGinn questions the current scientific understanding of Motion:

The motions of particles are notoriously unpredictable and inexplicable at the quantum level, but at the cosmic level we have the problem of explaining galaxy acceleration–the universe is expanding more slowly than the calculated amount of matter in it would make us expect, given the accepted rules of gravity. Physicists have taken to speaking of “dark matter” a what accounts for the extra pull, but there is absolutely no evidence for the existence of such a thing–and isn’t the idea of intrinsically invisible matter an oxymoron? It’s just sheer handwaving. So we don’t know why the cosmos is movingas [sic] it is.

It surprises me how easily McGinn dismisses modern physics and cosmology in particular.

McGinn continues:

Do we know why animal bodies move as they do? Doesn’t the mind play a role in “determining” these movements? But physics has nothing to say about the forces that govern the mind and its capacity to induce motion.

I’m not sure physics is supposed to directly explain “the movement of animal bodies” as McGinn implies. I expect the answers will come from the field of computational neuroscience and I’m sure they will be grounded in physics.

I do wonder though if McGinn is implying that physics will never have anything to say about “the forces that govern the mind and its capacity to induce motion.” I get the impression he is circling around an unspoken argument for some sort of dualism. Of course, it’s just an impression.