Presented by Zia H Shah MD

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Abstract

This article explores the philosophical and demographic landscape of modern metaphysical naturalism, physicalism, and atheism, arguing that these worldviews culminate in an incoherent denial of phenomenal consciousness. By examining the works of “illusionists” and “eliminativists” such as Daniel Dennett, Keith Frankish, and the Churchlands, the analysis demonstrates how a commitment to strictly quantitative ontologies forces the dismissal of the first-person perspective as a “mistaken construct.” The report integrates demographic data from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the Royal Society, noting the overwhelming prevalence of atheism among elite scientists and philosophers, while highlighting the unique “realist” trend among mathematicians. It posits that if consciousness is a fundamental “primary datum” rather than an illusion, the prevailing naturalist worldview is not merely incomplete but fundamentally challenged. Ultimately, the article argues for a restoration of epistemic humility, suggesting that high intelligence does not guarantee wisdom, and that the greatest miracle of existence—subjective awareness—remains the ultimate refutation of a mindless universe.

The Demographic Fortress of Naturalism

The contemporary intellectual establishment is characterized by a profound commitment to metaphysical naturalism—the belief that only natural laws and forces operate in a closed causal universe. This worldview is most concentrated among the “greater” scientists and academic philosophers who shape the modern understanding of reality.

The Elite Scientific Consensus

Surveys of elite scientific bodies consistently reveal a near-total rejection of the transcendent. A landmark 1998 survey of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) found that only 7% of natural scientists believed in a personal God, with disbelief reaching 72.2%. This trend is mirrored in the Royal Society of London, where a vast majority of Fellows express strong opposition to belief in a personal deity or immortality.

Interestingly, there is a notable divergence across disciplines:

• Biological Scientists: Exhibit the lowest rates of belief, with 94.5% identifying as atheists or agnostics.
• Physical Scientists: Show slightly higher rates of belief at approximately 7.5%.
• Mathematicians: Stand as the “exception” in the scientific landscape. Surveys indicate that mathematicians are significantly more inclined toward theism, with 14.3% of NAS mathematicians expressing belief in God, and other studies suggesting rates as high as 30% to 44.6%. This is often attributed to the “ordered realm” of mathematics, which deals in pure, elegant logical structures that feel like a window to a grand design.

The Philosophical Landscape

The trend continues in academic philosophy. The 2020 PhilPapers survey revealed that approximately 67% of philosophers accept or lean toward atheism, while only 19% accept or lean toward theism. However, this consensus shifts dramatically among specialists: 69.5% of philosophers of religion lean toward theism, suggesting that deeper engagement with the metaphysical arguments for God often leads away from the naturalist default.

The Extreme Conclusion: Consciousness as Illusion

Despite their intellectual accomplishments, proponents of the naturalist triad (atheism, naturalism, physicalism) face a logical bottleneck: the “Hard Problem” of consciousness. Because subjective experience (qualia) cannot be found in the third-person data of neurons or atoms, the naturalist must eventually declare the most certain fact of existence to be a fabrication.

Proponent	Concept	Argument for Illusion
Daniel Dennett	User-Illusion	Consciousness is a simplified “interface” that hides complex brain code; there are no “qualia”.
Keith Frankish	Illusionism	Phenomenal consciousness is a “robust illusion” generated by distorted introspective misrepresentations.
Michael Graziano	Attention Schema	Consciousness is a “mistaken construct”—a data model the brain uses to describe its own attention.
The Churchlands	Eliminativism	“Folk psychology” (beliefs, desires) is a failed theory that will be eliminated by neuroscience.

This shift from explaining consciousness to explaining it away is seen by critics as a reductio ad absurdum of physicalism. If a theory of the universe requires the denial of the very consciousness that allows us to formulate the theory, the theory has reached a state of “manifest incoherence”.

The Primary Datum Error and the Call for Humility

The declaration that consciousness is an illusion represents what philosophers call the “primary datum error”. Consciousness is not a conclusion drawn from experimental data; it is “nature’s one given” and is epistemically fundamental.

The Inversion of Reality

Naturalism attempts to “pull the territory from the map”—using derivative physical models to deny the foundation of those models. Every scientific discovery, including the concept of the brain itself, is known only through consciousness. To use the brain to deny consciousness is a self-negating maneuver that Galen Strawson describes as “truly unhinged”.

The Intellectual Hubris of the Void

The “illusionist” position is often critiqued as a byproduct of intellectual hubris—a refusal to accept that the quantitative methods of science have hit an absolute qualitative chasm. Proponents of the hard problem argue that the “stark, false choice” between Cartesian dualism and mechanistic monism is a failure of imagination among the most accomplished.

If consciousness is a “miracle”—a fundamental feature of reality that cannot be reduced to mindless matter—then the worldview of the modern elite is fundamentally challenged. This realization demands a profound humility. It suggests that despite their mastery of the “how” (the mechanisms of the physical world), the most intelligent minds may be entirely “in the dark” regarding the “why” and the fundamental nature of Being.

Wisdom vs. Intelligence: The Quranic Perspective

The disparity between high-level cognitive function and the recognition of fundamental truths suggests that intelligence and wisdom are not always in perfect correlation. This theme is echoed in the Glorious Quran, specifically in Surah Al-Baqarah (2:13):

“And when it is said to them, ‘Believe as the people have believed,’ they say, ‘Should we believe as the foolish have believed?’ Unquestionably, it is they who are the foolish, but they know [it] not.”

In this context, the “foolishness” attributed to believers by those who consider themselves intellectually superior—the hypocrites or the deniers—is a projection of their own limited intellect. While they may possess “information” and “competence,” they lack the “Hikmah” (wisdom) to know the truth and act accordingly. True foolishness, the Quran suggests, is the ignorance of one’s own state of misguidance, regardless of how much material or scientific knowledge one has accumulated.

The Meta-Problem as a Signpost

The “meta-problem of consciousness”—the question of why we think there is a problem at all—is seen by illusionists as a way to dissolve the mystery. However, for the realist, it serves as an epistemic signpost, indicating that the human mind has reached its limits. The persistence of the “miracle” of awareness remains the final refutation of a worldview that seeks to reduce the subject to a mechanical error.

Enhanced Epilogue: The Great Inversion

In the halls of our most prestigious academies, a curious story is told. It is a story where the light of the sun is reduced to a “mishmash of wavelengths” and the light of human awareness is dismissed as a “user-illusion.” We are told by the most intelligent among us that the mirror of the mind is so flawed that it invents a “self” where there is only a collection of memes, and a “soul” where there is only a data model of attention.

Yet, as we have seen, this narrative is a profound inversion of reality. To claim that the witness of the universe is an illusion is to claim that the theater exists but the audience is a ghost. It is a desperate metaphysical maneuver designed to save a physicalist map that has mistaken itself for the territory. If consciousness is real—and it is the most certain reality we possess—then the naturalist paradigm is not just incomplete; it is a hall of mirrors where the most brilliant minds are lost in their own reflections.

This crisis of meaning demands a new humility. It reminds us that intelligence, while a powerful tool for measuring the world, is not the same as the wisdom required to inhabit it. The most accomplished mathematician or the most cited neuroscientist is just as dependent on the “miracle” of awareness as the simplest laborer. To deny this light because it cannot be weighed or measured is the ultimate intellectual hubris—a “pathetic grin of hubris,” as one critic noted, stamped on the face of an ontology that has thrown away the contents and kept the empty box.

The Glorious Quran (2:13) warns of this very state: a condition where the truly foolish believe themselves to be the truly wise, blinded by their own perceived cleverness. As we stand at the threshold of a future defined by the “polycrisis” and the rise of mindless AI, the choice becomes clear. We can continue to follow an ontology that dismisses our inner lives as a biological mistake, or we can recover the humility to recognize consciousness as the primary fact of Being. In the end, the light of subjectivity is not a trick of the brain; it is the fundamental “is-ness” of the universe—the irreducible spark that no amount of materialist logic can ever hope to extinguish.

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