The main and all-overriding law of physics says: "Information is never lost". Then, for the majority of people who don't write books and scientific articles, their experiences and achievements will disappear in the air when they die. Apparently, it creates a problem with physical-only reality.

Hawking proposed at one point that information is lost in black holes and it is still considered a mainstream theory, it is also lost in quantum collapse if it is 'real'. So "information is never lost" is hardly "main and all-overriding law of physics". It simply reflects reversibility of dynamics and may well be revised. Even if not, the second law of thermodynamics provides irreversibility for all practical purposes. Physicists are probably more committed to conservation of energy, but even that was revised in some early quantum theories. "Main and all-overriding laws" are open to revision.

Also, beware of reading a technical term as the colloquial meaning, whether in philosophy or the sciences... Or the arts or history, come to think of it. If it doesn't seem to make sense, that could be a terminology issue.

For me, the main "information leak" is the audacity to deny all philosophical heritage, proclaim a new physicalist philosophy, and then, don't bother to put a theoretical foundation under it.

I don't follow what the "information is never lost" has to do with this ("information" in the stat-mech sense has much more to do with "temperature" than it does "books"--i.e. a car's tank of gas would usually be assessed as having much more information-content than all the text in a book.)

Invoking heritage is appeal to authority. It is certainly good to be aware of that heritage, so you understand where your conclusions differ from it, but being inherited does not mean it is correct, even if it was good philosophy. Disagreeing with revered figures does not disrespect them; they did the best they could with the tools and information available.

Philosopher who wrote this article just insulted 51.93% of his fellow philosophers...

I would certainly say that any claim to that kind of precision should automatically be challenged, asking how he managed to find every philosopher, or even enough for a valid statistical sampling, never mind enough that he could carry it out to that many digits. I also want to know what the error bars around that number are. Remember that 51.93% of all statistics are made up for the purpose of the paper.

Your "info never lost" is problematic. You should (1) integrate it into the question (2) explain what you are talking about eg. (3) Explain why that relates to your question

@keshlam It says N = 1733, excluding skipped & insufficiently familiar (52 respondents) at the bottom... So, that's 900 respondents favour physicalism. Error bar would be 51.93± 0.06 %

@Philomath: Does it say how the cohort was selected? I'm still extremely wary of sampling error. Along with the question of how philosopher is being defined for that selection. But given that many people do still have religious beliefs that imply a mind or soul as something separate, I can believe the number.

Yes, it is in the tab Target Population. Mostly anglophone countries, I think. Religion is certainly a reason. Many still have the smell of the burning flesh of Giordano Bruno in their nose...

Upvoting because it's an interesting question. I suspect the best that one can do will be to search for the earliest use of the word with this meaning. In fact, the folks maintaining major reference dictionaries may already have done that work. However, I would bet that this point of view arose independently many times rather than having a single authority defining it. Can you say which philosopher developed non-physicalism?

@keshlam - Jack Daniel's can make anyone a qualifying philosopher.

Webster's gives first known use of the word with (roughly) this meaning in 1931. Unfortunately the free page doesn't provide the specific citation.

@keshlam that would be Neurath, and it's emphatically not roughly this meaning, it's a linguistic meaning with epistemological overtones, very closely related to operationalism. The modern meaning, "all the conclusions of 19th century materialism without the pesky premises", came later.

I would say with different premises, but poe-tay-to/poe-tah-to.

See History of Materialism from Democritus and Lucretius to Hobbes an La Mettrie and d’Holbach.

See John Symons etc (editors), The History and Philosophy of Materialism (Routledge) in general and, more specifically: Ch.27 Neurath’s Physicalism by John Symons and Ch.30 From Materialism To Physicalism: An Opinionated Sketch by Andrew Melnyk.