Joe Schmid returns to Catholicism citing psychophysical harmony argument

Joe Schmid, a philosophy doctoral student at Princeton and creator of the YouTube channel ‘Majesty of Reason’, has announced his return to the Catholic Church. Schmid, previously known as a prominent young agnostic, cited a specific philosophical paper as the catalyst for his change in belief.

The paper, titled ‘The Argument from Psychophysical Harmony’, was authored by Brian Cutter and Dustin Crummett while they were affiliated with the University of Notre Dame. Published in ‘Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion’ in 2025, the argument explores the relationship between consciousness and physical states.

The argument posits that mental states and physical states exist in ‘strikingly harmonious relationships’ that appear highly purposeful. For instance, the paper suggests that psychophysical laws correlate specific biochemical brain states with phenomenal experiences, such as pain, in a way that serves a normative role, such as prompting an organism to avoid harmful stimuli.