Nice post. In my view, there are many modern thinkers - particularly scientists - who follow what I've dubbed "the cult of materialism". This is the first time I've heard of "physicalsim", but it seems quite similar to the philosophy of materialism. I call it a cult because all we humans ultimately have at the end of the day are the stories we tell ourselves - about who we are and our place in the universe, about what's real, about everything. Materialism has become the religion of science - though it seems this may be changing. I'm all for a skeptical and critical eye, but it's impossible to remove the observer from the observation (and, in my experience, the duality of the two is a mere illusion). At some point, one may come to the conclusion that Alan Watt's did: that you're not just a walking meat-sack. When that happens, the world of simple matter magically comes alive and transforms into something so much greater than any mere mechanical model can possibly account for.
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Some think that physicalism developed from materialism in line with increasingly sophisticated physics: not everything described by physics is 'material' - e.g.: gravity. Historically, I think 'physicalism' was coined by the Vienna Circle - more info here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/
But the conventional view is that the terms physicalism and materialism are basically interchangeable, and that's good enough for me on a hot Melbourne afternoon.
And yes, some people are very attached to their ideas. Dualism is a dirty word in much of science. But people are coming around - David Chalmers (another ANU philosopher) is a great ambassador for dualism and panpsychism.
I have a friend you might enjoy talking to. He just joined Steemit and hasn't been approved yet, though. He did his Bachelor's thesis combining Whitehead and Parmenides, and he wanted to touch on panpsychism (a big part of his personal philosophy) and Taoism, but he was already 8 pages over the 30 page limit lol.
I think the only way to really come to a comprehensive and solid philosophy of reality is to incorporate a lot of these more mystical traditions that have gone beyond the limitations of what can be put into words. That's one reason I also like Parmenides, because he's basically like the Lao Tzu of ancient Greece. Eastern and Western philosophy aren't at odds; they're two sides of the same coin. The trouble is when we get caught in the literalist surface layers.
By chance, have you read "A Brief History of Everything" by Ken Wilber?
Cool - I look forward to talking to your friend about this. If he's into Whitehead and panpsychism, and wants to read something a bit different, he should read Noumenautics by Peter Sjöstedt-H.
The limitations of words thing is important too. That why I like Wittgenstein: 'What can be shown cannot be said'.