I finished the trilogy His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman, the three books starting with The Golden Compass, a few weeks ago. If you're unfamiliar with them, the books tell an anti-religious fantasy story that focuses on the difference between child and adulthood; innocence and experience.
They were pretty good, and I appreciate the timeliness of their anti-religious message, but I thought the world view Pullman espouses in place of the church's artificial dogma was a little materialist. For example, death in Pullman's books consists of the body fragmenting into its component molecules and returning to oneness with the universe. Ok so far, yes? But then, consciousness in Pullman's model is also a type of physical body, a collection of molecules that (after certain plot developments) also break apart at death and rejoin the cosmos.
The mind, or consciousness, is by definition immaterial, or non-physical. Pullman decides to make the mind physical (a collection of certain molecules), which is a scientific materialist (or material reductionist) technique for solving the problem of mind-body duality. Of course, by giving the mind physical structure, Pullman unwittingly pulls the mind down to earth and equates it with the body. This is mind-body becoming body-body. But where's the mind? It's still standing over there waiting to be acknowledged. Will you account for it in your world view?
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