The Ego Trick (baggini, Julian) / quote 57 of 254
A complete account is more than a physical one
It should be clear that this argument simply repeats the kind of category mistake identified by Ryle. So it is true, as Swinburne says, that a physical account of the world is not a complete account of the world. But it does not follow that the world is comprised of more stuff than physical stuff. Rather, it simply follows that a complete account of the world is more than just an account of physical descriptions of the movements of stuff. This should not be a difficult thought. In the same way, a proper account of a game of football is not an account of the changing co-ordinates of the twenty-two players and the ball. If you knew enough about the game, such a description might enable you to infer what was going on, but nothing in it would entail that this was a sport with certain rules and a certain result.