The Birth of Modern Science

Just read this blog post by Edward Feser.

Like so many other superficial materialists, Greene thinks the problem merely has to do with its being intuitively difficult to see how conscious experiences could be material. No, the problem is much deeper than that – it is that modern physics essentially defines the physical world in a way that entails that consciousness is non-physical. The problem has less to do with consciousness than with matter as physics conceives of it.

Yes, absolutely spot on.  I've often talked about this myself e.g. in my Why the existence of consciousness rules modern materialism out.  Indeed, the philosopher  Keith Augustine (one of the editors and by far the most prolific contributor to The Myth of an Afterlife and which I reviewed here) has said that I should get myself a parrot in order to save myself repeating this "birth of modern science" (as he labels it) point. 

The fact is that the conception of matter that arose with the birth of modern science in the 17th Century by definition rules out the existence of experiences, and indeed intentionality.  Yet so may scientists insist that this modern materialism is obviously correct and that dualism has many problems.  But, really, they don't know what they're talking about.  They just lack the knowledge of the history and philosophy of science.  But this doesn't stop them writing pop science books, spouting forth their nonsense, brainwashing young males in the process who inevitably just lap up these books.