Witches just love to toss “eye of newt” into their bubbling cauldrons, but the docile critters did nothing do deserve such a sinister association. For me, newts have opened a window of appreciation into the broader community of life.
I find solace in asking a newt what it thinks of our politics, our technology, our schemes. The act of asking such questions out loud in the presence of a newt is as silly as it sounds, but only because the subject matter is silly. Conversing with a newt is just basic politeness. The newt is a genius in that it doesn’t waste a single moment caught up in such trivialities. The newt is fully engaged in Life, which is incomprehensibly more amazing, rich, complex, and bad-ass than anything humans have ever—or could ever—create.
In this post, I will explore what a newt’s-eye view can tell us about ourselves and our obsessions.
Politics
Last week’s post was on the familiar left–right political spectrum, and how I find myself so far outside of this spectrum that left-wing and right-wing politics become almost indistinguishable to me. Both are so far in the wrong where it really counts.
In this sense, I have already shared something close to a newt’s-eye view. The newt can’t tell Karl Marx from Ayn Rand. Or is it Ayn Marx and Karl Rand? Both are primarily concerned with how best to organize production and exploitation of “resources” for some twisted goal of transforming the world away from its ecological happy place. Neither used their most passionate voices for the Love of Life, or to question our place in ecological terms. Both were focused on human concerns, human relations, human organization—in service of atrocity. It’s the Human Reich.
For contrast, consider the models of human organization practiced by hunter-gatherers. Small tribes work together as a type of collective organism, intimately connected to the landscape and careful not to inflict permanent damage on their source of life. Their cultural norms do not sanction irreversible devastation: the practices in which they engage are time-tested to preserve essential features of their community of life for the long haul. Newts can easily tell the difference: wetlands “forever” vs. drained, filled, then covered by parking lots and shopping malls.
Cars
Consider high-end cars from makers like Maserati, McLaren, or Ferrari (disclosure: I don’t know a thing about high-end cars, except an impression from Silicon Valley that the way the doors swing is vitally important). Now compare to a beat-up and rusting 1966 Chevrolet pickup truck with enough miles to have taken it to the moon and an unpleasant odor that never went away after smashing a skunk. Market value indicates a world of difference between these classes of vehicles: essentially zero resale value for the truck.
What does the newt see? Literally, a newt sees for both cases a black treaded tire heading for it and then no more. If luckier than that, the newt sees a frightening hunk of metal barreling down the road guided by a human driver. The newt sees and experiences this alien strip of asphalt that exudes unpleasant oils and chemicals, is laced with ecologically harmful molecules from tire wear, gets hotter than Hades in the sun, and creates habitat barriers. And the newt is not wrong.
Now compare this mode of transportation to walking (e.g., along a forest path). How does the newt consider such a behavior? Well, it’s marginally dangerous to be a tiny critter who might get stepped on. But humans tend to watch their footfalls in ways that they surely don’t for tires. If nothing else, the speed makes a tremendous difference. Newts evolved with larger creatures walking around, and would not still be here if this hazard were too much to bear. They definitely did not evolve with fast metal boxes careening down the highway. Most roadkill victims would fare remarkably better in walking encounters!
Religion
Whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or Buddhist, the major religions of the world are built on the notion of personal salvation. All are “new” to the world, emerging in reaction to the suffering that followed the inevitable ills of totalitarian agriculture. All are anthropocentric, some explicitly promoting human dominion over all life on Earth.
The newt compares these religions to animism, which is the opposite of anthropocentric: situating humans deep within a mysterious web of life, animated by relationships we may only barely apprehend. The ethos is one of humility in relation to any form of life. All know how to do things that we can’t come close to achieving ourselves. All are kin. All can be teachers if we know how to listen. All know how to live on this planet. It is a spirit of awe, of belonging, of gratitude.
Next to animism, which explicitly welcomes, reveres, and includes the newt, the others look all the same—despite our cultural tendency to amplify their differences.
Energy
Modernity’s energy menu is large and ever-growing: hydroelectricity, coal, petroleum, gas, nuclear fission, wind, geothermal, solar, tidal, ocean currents, waves, and we could go on. Which does the newt see as best? None of the above. They are all essentially the same—because more important to the newt than the form of energy is what we do with it.
We use energy to clear forests, mine materials, manufacture a bunch of junk, pump out pollutants, dispose of “obsolete” junk, fragment habitat, grow monocrops, make fertilizer, produce oceanic dead zones, dam rivers, drain wetlands, build concrete jungles, pave road after road after road, zoom along those roads in the aforementioned metal boxes also made via this energy, and again we could go on. What good does the newt see coming out of any source of modernity-powering energy?
The newt, of course, is not alone. Millions of species are in decline: struggling to just hang on in this world-turned-upside-down. Population decline is a somber march toward extinction, and the animals must know it shouldn’t be this hard. Something is definitely not right.
As an alternative, consider muscle. The newt understands this. It’s how everything gets done. Humans have muscles, too, and for a few million years this was a primary energy resource deriving from food in an ecologically vetted way. It’s how all animals lived. It is true that humans supplemented with fire for much of our time on Earth. The newt isn’t sure what to make of that: not a fan. But fire is not unknown to the planet. Fires existed everywhere on Earth before humans arrived, and many plants are specifically adapted to rely on its occasional appearance—plants that are much older than humans. Still, the newt has reason to be circumspect on this issue, even while knowing for sure that the list in the first paragraph of this section is no good: not of this (ecological) world.
Paper or Plastic?
This question may come up less frequently in stores than it did a few years back. Far more important than the bag material is what the hell you’re putting into a bag in the first place. But the paper/plastic question might stand in for a lot of choices we make as consumers. Which detergent is better? Which television? Which phone? Which house?
The newt can’t identify with any of these choices, nor can any other animal on the planet. Most in our culture interpret this difference as proof of our greatness, but step outside the anthropocentric zone for a moment and ask if the community of life is of the same opinion. Does the more-than-human world benefit in any way from our choices, or is it a loss no matter which way? Which species would vote for our choices? When the vote is 10 million to 1, consider the unpopular notion that maybe our culture is doing something wrong, and thus not “great” in a positive way.
Such material choices might be fine in the absence of context, which is where colossal ignorance allows us to pretend we live. If humans were not of this planet, separately created, given the planet to treat as we wish, not dependent on ecological health or biodiversity, masters of all, and could engineer every need without any connection to the living world, then perhaps our behaviors might be at least logical if not still dastardly. Of course, the context isn’t gone just because we’re largely oblivious to it.
The newt would suggest “neither” as the best answer to most of the choices we weigh, because usually both are unambiguously part of the predicament. If a newt can do without them, what makes us such utter wimps that we need any of those things?
Lots More
I suspect I don’t need to go on. The pattern is clear. Pick almost any element of modernity, and the spectrum of choices we consider along each (where to live and in what sort of house/dwelling; what career; what major in college; which diet) may seem diverse to us, and do carry discernible differences. But to a newt (deer; tortoise; chickadee; butterfly) they all look pretty much the same. Embedded in modernity, all engage in planetary destruction the likes of which few species ever have or ever could endure. All have alternatives so far off the limited modernity spectrum that we don’t even consider them. The lifestyle resulting from exercising these much different choices would be utterly different, but that’s the point, right?
This all reminds me of the way Dennis Meadows framed an analogy. If a man is rushing at you with a hammer, intent to do you harm, the particular weapon wielded is of secondary concern to you. It could be a knife, club, gun, rock, or wine bottle. The real problem of primary concern is his intent to do you harm. The intent behind all these “choices” within the modernity tent are like supporting tent poles af anthropocentrism, human-supremacism, ecological ignorance, non-reciprocity, entitlement, and abuse. All add up to an unsustainable lifestyle that will collapse one way or another.
In the meantime, please ask yourself when making choices what your favorite wild animal would make of your selection, and if your considered spectrum is broad enough to include a more acceptable option. I’m not saying you can wave a wand, click your heels three times, wink and nod, or any such quick remedy to pop yourself out of modernity. It may take generations, and I’m plenty guilty myself. But it’s time to start considering other ways of being—through the eyes of a newt.
Views: 1246
Brilliant Tom.
Trying to think about what choices your favourite animal would want us to make is a nice way the start handing the reigns back to the World.
Gosh, I couldn't help but nod along with all of this.
However, over the last few years, I've tried to think objectively (though usually failed) so that, in response to opinion pieces like this, I start to wonder if any of it make objective sense.
There is no objective "good," so, when we think of something as good (or when we think of some other species thinking of something as good), that is highly subjective and usually aligned with our emotional preferences. Your invention of what this or that species might think about some human activity is surely a projection of your own preferences, a kind of anthropomorphism?
Even the notion of hunter-gatherer societies being caring for their environment doesn't seem to totally line up with what we know about hunter-gatherers driving 46 species of mega-fauna to extinction, or how they perturbed climax ecosystems when they slowly moved into them.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-prisms-extinction/article/latequaternary-megafauna-extinctions-patterns-causes-ecological-consequences-and-implications-for-ecosystem-management-in-the-anthropocene/E885D8C5C90424254C1C75A61DE9D087
All humans were hunter gatherers at some point in the past. Now almost all are not.
There are no rules of how to live on this planet. Everything follows the laws of physics, which can't be broken, so everything is as it should be, however much you or I would want it differently. I hate what my species is doing but it will continue at it until it can't. Modernity is unsustainable but almost none of us could live without it. Which is likely what will happen.
I get what you're saying, and can't fault the logic. This is, in fact, where logic ends and values begin. Total nuclear annihilation might well turn out to be the natural way of things—what had to happen. That doesn't mean we have to like it. It also means that if we see an opportunity to prevent its happening, we will (in which case *that* is what was meant to be).
The projection is fair, but the attempt is to have it go opposite the usual direction. I am *attempting* (imperfectly of course) to capture what the community of life would prefer and project that onto my own feelings. Lots of "bad" outcomes can be easily identified from another species point of view, mostly identified by extinction, population decline, removal of habitat, denied access to food. It's not quite the same as "I like to look at the stars and ponder the meaning of things, so I'll project that onto raccoons as well."
While this instance of the use of "anthropomorphism" didn't carry a strong sense of human supremacy, I'll note that often that is the case—as in: "Humans are so extraordinary that it is ridiculous to imagine an animal experiencing anything remotely similar in terms of emotions, etc." I really dislike that flavor of admonishment when associating ourselves with kindred beings. For many, I think anthropomorphism is a "sin" because: how dare we compare (or project) human greatness onto slime. Again, this isn't the tone of what you were doing, but this was a decent place to make the point.
What's the big deal with extinction?🤷
It's been happening for a very long time and is all part of life on earth.
(I'm doubt any other creatures are worrying about it too much🤔? Human worries about extinction are probably more about our own (inevitable) demise rather than any concerns for the rest of creation)
Evolve into something else or become extinct have always been the only two options on offer.
No creature can choose to evolve into something else. Remember that all species evolved from the same organism. It's not always one or the other.
The big thing about extinction is that, probably all, ecosystems have been perturbed and are far from their climax state, so will undergo continuing massive change for some time. The mass extinctions that humans are causing is also affecting the ecosystems that they live in now, and will have to live in once modernity ends. Whilst it's likely true that biodiversity will boom again at some time in the future, it's doubtful that that future will include humans. Which is OK for the rest of nature but not so good for our descendents.
@Mike Robert’s
But Mike, there is no subjectivity in the universe if it is all just particles interacting according to the laws of physics, no?
@mike Roberts
Yes, I appreciate that no organism is "choosing" to evolve. That there is any choice being made here.
After all, there is no such thing as "free will" or "agency"😉
But so what to extinction 🤷? It happens. Has always happened? Will probably always happened?
Just because we are the cause of the next mass extinction?🤷 So what?
It's not like we are in control of our actions anyway.
We are just a bunch of atoms acting through the "laws of physics". We aren't in control.
We can't predict the future, but the future has already been decided. Events aren't random. It's just that the interconnections are so vast and complex, that we can't see the pattern.
Giving extinction/evolution a "value system" is just a human construct.
There is no clear deliniage between creatures. At what point did we stop being Homo erectus and started being hono sapiens?🤷
Whether or not a deliberate caricature, this captures pretty well the nihilistic fallacy of those unable to situate determinism and lack of free will alongside perceived experience of being in control and making choices, as well as the origin of values.
Situations like this conjure for me the example of a fox in a den getting a whiff of smoke. Not only does the fox flee, but alerts others. One can connect this to survival of the species, honed by feedback in an evolutionary context. Foxes who do not proactively respond to perceived threats (and save more than themselves) may not have what it takes to continue living on Earth. They, too, have a values system (not unique to humans by any stretch)—also programmed by evolution. They don't allow philosophical rejection of the fundamentals paralyze them, either, musing that nothing matters and it's all just a giant crank.
The "decided" issue is, I would say, overstated. The universe knows nothing of the future. The only way to realize the future is by taking it one attosecond at a time, following the rules. The future is written real-time by every particle reacting to its environment and the near-infinite set of relationships tugging on each one. Life has developed structures to react in ways that feed back on the results, and thus becomes tuned to make proactive, interesting decisions that indeed SHAPE what comes next. In other words, we are not passive participants but integrated influencers.
That's what this moment is all about for me. I have smelled the smoke; which kicks in a program to take action, alert others, and try to influence conditions in accord with values instilled in my evolved structure for survival of not just me, not just humans, but the web we depend on so critically. Life values the continuation of Life, as must be true. We don't know what happens next, but could be more certain of failure if we don't react to the stimuli (due to some philosophical bug that defeats eons of evolutionary instinct: and THAT probably would be unique to (some) humans).
Of course, nothing matters, in an objective sense. To the observer, to those experiencing events, some things matter. Values are a concept specific to the creature holding those values but they may mean nothing to another creature (even of the same species).
We have no "control" over our own decisions or our own values, yet we still make decisions and still have values. The neural arrangements in our brains may alter slightly based on events and information, causing different decisions to be made than might have been made before those events and before that information found they way to our brains.
So, if extinctions don't phase you now, they may phase you in the future, if you read stuff like Tom's posts. Or they may not.
It's impossible to give a rational argument for why anything should matter, except in the context of a specific goal (e.g. that your descendants live in a rich bioshpere with minimal toxins).
As for when homo sapiens began, there is no clear cut time. The species mix you see around you now is what happens to exist at the time you look, and what definition you use for a species. I'm reminded of the image Richard Dawkins described about a girl holding her mother's hand, who held her mothers hand, who held her mothers hand, on back to the first reproducing single cellular life. It would be impossible to see where the species change happened but there would be a clear change when comparing those from several tens of thousand generations apart.
Surely absolutely everything matters in an objective sense, if absolutely everything is just matter obeying physical laws?
Also: everything is connected, so every single aspect of every single thing in the universe is of consequence (matters) to every other thing in the universe. Every thought/feeling/belief/value (which are fundamentally just collections of interacting atoms) will therefore matter/be of consequence to everything in the universe.
Lastly, there are no observers that aren’t part of the universe (at least I don’t think there are!), so if something matters or means something to an observer, it will matter or mean something to everything else in the universe, whether these things are conscious of the fact or not.
A particular thing may/will mean different things to different things of course!
@Bim,
You seem to be using two different meanings of the word "matter" and saying "everything is important (matters) because everything is physical (matter interactions)."
But whether something is important is subjective. Whether something affects something else is objective and, yes, in some way, everything in the universe affects everything else in the universe (though, with a universe which is 93 billion light years across, those affects are mainly exceedingly indirect and immeasurable). However, the importance of that effect depends on how the thing being affected feels about it.
Of course, there is no choice involved with these vast webs of effect between parts of the universe. They just happen. So the universe doesn't attach importance to them (this is more important that that), only the thing (or organism) being affected decides on the relative importance to them.
@Mike Roberts
Your argument is that thoughts/consciousness are all ultimately just due to interacting particles obeying the laws of physics, correct? If this is the case, no thought can be had that is not connected to all the other particles in the universe in some way (no matter how tenuously). No thought can be had outside and independent from the rest of the universe. So if something matters in a “subjective” sense, it actually matters in a thoroughly objective sense.
Bim,
"if something matters in a “subjective” sense, it actually matters in a thoroughly objective sense"
I don't think so. In an objective sense, everything just is. All constituents of the universe are simply there. Interesting accumulations of the stuff of the universe, e.g. us, can ponder these things and, subjectively, decide whether we consider them important, or not; whether they matter.
I'm into insects. Silverfish (zygentoma) are a favourite of mine. They have survived four mass extinctions. I think one of their secrets is their ability to eat basic stuff, like wood and paper.
Whenever I meet a silverfish it can't get away from me fast enough. I always bring with me a lot of light and it can't stand that; it has to get away from it, and me, as fast as silverfishly possible. Very wise. It would dry out if it loitered, get eaten by a bird or be 'nuked' with spray by my mother!
It's going to survive number five and I'm not! Help me, silverfish. Tell me your secret. Keep it simple? Okay, I'll try and do that. Anything else ..? and it's gone. Thank you, silverfish, for that brief encounter.
Four mass extinctions. What does it think of me/us causing a fifth? Not a lot. It's got what it takes and we … haven't???
Awesome!
In response to @tmurphy
2025-05-22 at 09.01
Enjoying the debate 👍.
Am I being nihilistic?🤷 Or is that just another of your "value judgements"?🤣
I think what we are discussing comes down to a question of "Fate". A concept that we humans have been grappling with for a very long time.
If everything is governed by the "laws of physics" then are outcomes hardwired in?
Things play out as they were always going to.
The fox runs away because it always was going to. The fox that doesn't run away was always going to not run away. The behaviours are governed by the laws of physics. No "choice" on the part of the fox.
The meteorite that wipe out the dinosaur, was always going to hit earth when it did. It was just The laws of physics playing out, not some random event.
If we extrapolate on that, then you were always going to write this article and I was always going to respond.
Neither of us have free will or agency. We are "acting" due to the laws of physics and a set of interactions and relationships, cause and effect going back to the beginning of time (if time had a beginning?)
Ever since the "big bang" (or whatever) set the wheels in motion, there could only be one set of outcomes.
Cause and effect between atoms playing out in unimaginable complexity. 🤯
I'm trying hard not to use the word "predictably". The interactions between atoms are so vast that it is impossible to predict most of what will happen. (Well…some people claim they can if you cross their palms with silver 🤣)
But we humans have glimpsed a fraction of the "laws" and can predict some things.
We see some patterns.
(we humans, love a pattern!)
The movement of the planets for example.
Or is Fate not a thing?
(Without sounding too morbid) Is the time and place of my death already "decided"?
Reminds me of the dialogue in No Country For Old Men, between Anton Chicur, the petrol pump attendant and the dime at the petrol station.
Maybe we've got evolution all wrong. It's not a load of random events playing out between organisms, but a script with only one set of endless outcomes.
The dinosaurs were always going to become extinct because the meteorite was always going to hit.
In discussing Fate, am I being nihilistic? 🤷
I don't know if *you* were being nihilistic, but the words you used had that familiar ring: a sort of resignation—no point in trying.
The universe is still full of randomness in at least two ways. First, quantum probabilities select randomly from a menu (with known chances for each branch). Complexity and computational limitations aside, there is not just ONE way the universe can go, but gazillions—based on countless random realizations of probability distributions. Second, precise-enough knowledge isn't available (even in theory) to project forward. For instance, a particle's position and momentum cannot be both known to arbitrary precision simultaneously, so that its future path is necessarily uncertain to a degree. Pile on a few interactions with other uncertain particles and the situation is hopeless.
So, rather than working the problem backwards from the future and saying there's only one way the future can turn out (no evidence for that, and rather the opposite), we could say that the universe as it is now is the ONE way it DID transpire, obeying physics at every turn. Physics does not constrain a single outcome, but every outcome is constrained to have obeyed physics, as far as evidence suggests.
In this light, a number of statements/questions in your framing require modification (not a matter of random vs. physics: physics incorporates randomness). The result is unpredictable, but consistent with physics. Foxes can indeed either run or not, according to how their brain (wired by evolution, not "them") processes the situation at hand. Foxes are only foxes based on their pattern of reactions in the past lineage, all the way to microbes. Poor decisions are punished, on average, and thus less likely to manifest.
Tom, I'm not sure your characterization of Buddhism is correct. If any of the systems you mention is potentially similar to your question about what a newt would think, Buddhism has the best chance. Part of the goal of Buddhism is to cause people to stop thinking like a human, and to start merely watching ones own brain be the brain of an animal.
Anyway I recommend spending a little time with Buddhism. I think you'd find it worthwhile. I myself should probably go back to studying it. Been on a detour through grad school and raising two teenagers and surviving a pandemic and stuff.
> Whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hundu, or Buddhist, the major religions of the world are built on the notion of personal salvation. All are “new” to the world, emerging in reaction to the suffering that followed the inevitable ills of totalitarian agriculture. All are anthropocentric, some explicitly promoting human dominion over all life on Earth.
Typo at Hundu. Some errors here-
– The claim that all these are "new" to the world is incorrect. C, M and B have particular founders, and can be said to be "new". Similarly, the Mosaic distinction in Judaism (which distinguishes true and false religions, true and false Gods etc..) is "new". These are counter-religions. Not so with natural religions like Hinduism, Shintoism, animism, shamanism and so on.
– While a major part of Hinduism does focus on personal salvation (so called mokSha-goal), human fancies ("kAma"-goal) and prosperity ("artha"-goal), it does address overall wellbeing of other beings and the environment. Humans are not categorical different from other beings – one can incarnate as another; animals are known to be able to "curse" humans, some animals & trees are divine and inviolable etc.. So, at a theoretical level, it is not as anthropocentric as the Abrahamic religions.
– At a practical level, classical H ritual requires a huge variety of natural material (wood from particular trees, porcupine quills, skins from particular species, avoidance of modern metals and materials and so on); which then leads to concerns about their preservation. Sacred groves (kaavu in S India) are mandated, similar to sacred groves of shintoism. Humans deviate from these ideals despite their religion, not because of it. Major monks are vocally luddite.
– The anthropocentrism is an almost inevitable consequence of being anthropogenic; and is exacerbated by voluminosity. If you observe hunter gatherers talking, it's mostly about themselves and things which concern their well-being. So, that's a bad metric.
"the nihilistic fallacy of those unable to situate determinism and lack of free will alongside perceived experience [of] making choices"
So "Poor decisions are punished" without their having even being made, but merely "perceived" to have been made (by a collection of atoms that are able to perceive, somehow). Such sophistry lets humans off the hook for the ongoing disaster being meted out to the more-than-human world.
We're just cells… proteins… molecules… atoms… nucleons… muons… quarks… Keep going and eventually one always reaches *unknown*, where the reductionist explanation says: nothing. (If we only had a bigger particle accelerator…)
That the reductionist explanation isn't 'end-to-end' doesn't mean it's not misguided. Prior to it becoming the default, natural events were ascribed to the gods, sprites, demons, curses etc etc. None of those 'explanations' fit into any brain either.
Life comprises atoms etc, which may behave mostly deterministically, yet complexity endows it with the ablility to choose (i.e, to behave non-deterministically). But no – because, ironically, *you* require even a purely material basis for consciousness (or 'choice') to fit in your brain.
Why can't life be made of atoms etc *and* exercise choice? Just because it's too hard to fathom?
No one here is saying "it can't possibly be material in origin". Of course it can. It's just that reductionists insist that that negates free will. (And don't say "free of what?". 'Free' here just means 'unconstrained'. I.e. *all other things being equal*, the agent is free to decide what to do. A prisoner in jail is not free to decide to go to the cinema, but he is free to decide to stand on his head etc.)
The Standard Model (like all abstract models) reflects a desire for categorization and certainty – a very left-brain trait, typical of so many scientists and other well-educated professionals. Consciousness is an 'illusion' because it can't be explained by the model. I bet if one were to ask 'primitive' people or modern indigenous people if they had consciousness and could choose, they would say it was obvious – 'yes, we do'.
Maybe, past a certain point, scientific enquiry itself became another foolish, human-supremacist quest… It's only succeeded in producing machines, toxic chemicals, pollution etc, all of which are destroying the world that life depends on ('sawing off the branch').
The nihilistic fallacy belongs not to those who refute denial of free will, but to the reductionists and their left-brain models of reality. (Why does reality even need to be 'modelled'? So 'we' can manipulate matter/exercise control over Nature? That hasn't worked out too well, has it?)
The nihilism, I perceive, comes from those asking "then what's the point if there's no free will?" It's not that they themselves are nihilistic, but imagine that a materialist view must be so (without having truly occupied that space). My own reaction to materialism is: Wow! Brain-exploding! Wondrous!
I agree that mysteries will always remain in any pursuit (like physics and the Standard Model). I can ask all kinds of questions about the SM that have no answer, and many that almost certainly never will. That does not in any way negate that we observe these things called electrons that behave in this and that way. Whether they are vibrating strings or whatever does not mean we can dismiss them because mysteries remain.
As for fitting in brains, it sure seems to me that most "explanations" are tailored to do exactly that (God, souls, spirits, consciousness, etc.): fit in brains—skip over intractable complexity. Note that my stance is that we're actually incapable of a satisfying explanation (those in the list above tend to be "satisfying" to their holders—thus the preference). Expansionist may be a better term than reductionist, in this sense: rather than have a pat answer, I have to throw up my hands and say I have no clue how it all fits together. Yet, it would seem silly to assume it's incapable—so why make up new stuff? Clearly, material is a huge part of the story or we would not have brains whose size, structure, and complexity map to our abilities and experiences. Very simple/forgivable not to demand any more than that.
I agree that besides serving a human-supremacist regime, science has been a heavily left-brain enterprise—critically guided of course by countless right-brain insights. Not everything that the left brain does is wrong: it just often fails to incorporate a complex and varied context. But a hydrogen atom in a vacuum has an electron interacting with a proton and almost nothing else matters, so the context *is* stripped away and the left brain is justified in going to town analyzing that fundamental interaction. Even then, it's surprisingly messy, but worked out.
I also agree that science has been a net negative. Again, it does not mean that the findings are wrong, just dangerous (indeed, the findings are dangerous only to the extent that they are *right* and have predictive/explanatory capability that's on target).
Finally, I agree that it is "obvious" to any human that we have consciousness and free will, but that does not mean our perceptions are immune to generated sensations. Our brains are wired to experience a sense of awareness and metaphysical control, and the illusion is almost impossible to shake. But, you admit: of course it can all be material and an illusion—so again we're largely in agreement. You're not saying a materialist stance is demonstrably wrong, just (judging by the totality of reactions) that it's profoundly distasteful to you—and that's fair.
Isn't this a bit like "turtles all the way down?" There will always be aspects or the universe that we don't know, can't know, can't grasp. In the past (and even now) some people invent entities acting in another sphere to explain stuff which defies explanation, leaving those invented entities unexplained.
So, there could be some force or process which can produce decisions which aren't simply the end result of how the neurons in our brain fire. A mechanism operating in tandem with, but influencing, those neurons. A mechanism that we haven't figured out yet. A mechanism that is the essential us. A mechanism that can exert its will on the neurons. But then the question is, as Sapolsky said, where did that intent come from? Given the different decisions that different people make with the same information, there must be something influencing the essential "us" to make that decision.
The way our neurons are wired are influenced by everything that went before, including genes, environment, culture and upbringing. That seems to provide the answers to why the essential "us" makes the decisions it does. Could there be more? Yes, but we don't seem to need more to explain our decisions.