I challenge you: your best argument for materialism

[Robin]

But it's not just the pain that's real. The water in your hand will begin to boil. Your cells rupture. Your skin burns off, then your nerves die. Actual chemical reactions occur because of the real heat.

If it were only in your head, then someone who doesn't understand chemistry would be immune to burns.

I could imagine the observable results of burns and so I would not necessarily be immune to them.

But then again, if I imagined the effects of a burn and others imagined the same effects of a burn and then found out later that these effects matched exactly the physics of heat and skin, then under Idealism we would have to ask who was it who was imagining the underlying physics.

This is the point that I was making earlier to Bernardo and for which he does not have an answer, as far as I can see.

He seemed to be saying that we were also imagining the physics, but the physics was obfuscated. But we cannot be using consciousness to make something work if it is obfuscated to us, even if consciousness is something that can make stuff work in the first place (which is something else that he has to establish).

So, if Idealism is true, there must be something imagining the unobfuscated physics of what is happening in our hand. If nothing is imagining the unobfuscated physics then we are back to Materialism.

Bernardo also seems to be talking about some sort of a universal consciousness, but does not it clear what this entity is.

So this is what I am expecting Bernardo to reduce to smouldering ashes, as he claims. Materialism does not need all these categories like trans personal consciousness, or impersonal consciousness or personal obfuscated consciousness or universal consciousness. Materialism does not even need a category of consciousness at all, it is jut something that is descriptive of the normal behaviour of matter.

All Materialism requires is that there is some stuff that behaves according to some mathematically describable pattern. And we know that whatever exists has mathematical patterns in it by observation.

This puts Bernardo's version of Idealism way, way behind on the parsimony scale and requires us to withhold our skepticism that there are such things.

Parsimony and skepticism were all that Bernardo could give us to recommend this theory and they obviously fall by the wayside, so if objections to his theory are to be reduced to smouldering ashes, now we have to have something else to recommend it than he has given us so far.

So I would be interested to see these alleged smouldering ashes, and trust that the participants of this forum will get a free copy of the book for the assistance we have rendered in it's creation.

 

[Robin]

Materialism starts from conscious experience and posits an additional entity, material, that exists independent of consciousness and causes it.

No, materialism is not dualism, Materialism is a monism and as such posits only one entity.

 

[ehcks]

If that's supposed to be an argument against idealism it's a strawman and a false dichotomy when idealism isn't represented by either of the options. Religion is not idealism.

But idealism is a religion.

It's still thinking that your own thoughts will have an effect on what's happening to you, instead of physically doing something.

 

[Robin]

In general, Bernardo, the problem for Idealism is this: If Idealism is to be true then everything that happens, including all chemical reactions, all of physics, needs to be the explicit result of the deliberate conscious action of a mind.

If there is even one thing that is not explicitly done as the result of a deliberate action of a mind then Idealism is false.

And it does not seem to me that this is what you are proposing. You appear to be proposing that there are things that happen apart from conscious deliberate activity. If so then you are not proposing Idealism at all.

If you are proposing Idealism as outlined above, you also need to explain how it is that a mind, something capable of calculation and planning, can be something absolutely metaphysically simple, not to have any parts whatsoever. How, for example, does something with no parts do a calculation.

If, on the other hand, mind has parts, then those parts are a necessary precondition for mind and cannot do any thinking on their own - then there is always a non-mind substrate for any mind and Idealism is false.

 

[The Man]

I am taking this to mean that you can't answer the question about how one would behave differently under Idealism either.

Take it anyway you want it, but if you are actually looking for an answer then that would depend on the aspects of the idealism one is proposing. For idealism that is defined as functional no different from materialism then by that definition one wouldn't (or perhaps shouldn't) behave differently, I suspect you already know this.

 

[Pup]

That includes the assumption that the world we experience behaves like a material world.

That, in turn, assumes that you can deduce something like a feeling of nausea from a set of equations. If you can't, then you can't conclude that a material world would contain a feeling of nausea.

I don't think the second paragraph follows from the first. I don't know that much about brain waves and such, but wouldn't a feeling of nausea be identifiable in the brain, just as scientists can see various areas light up with different stimuli? Wouldn't it be a good example of something that could be reduced to chemical and electrical reactions (equations)?

If a person behaves as if the world is not material, of course they can do that, but it doesn't seem to lead to success in whatever the world is. If you move your hand off the hot stove, you won't get burnt. If you leave it there and try to imagine a cold stove, you'll eventually get burned. That seems to be the lesson that humans are learning, overall, as they interact with the world.

It seems we're hardwired to look for patterns, cause-and-effect, and natural laws, because that's worked well for survival among our distant ancestors. So that's the tendency among people and why materialistic behavior dominates. It's not proof that materialism is real, but it's evidence that it could be real.

 

[The Man]

Again I ask the question - why would the stove hurt less under Idealism?

An Idealist could equally say that a Materialist should say 'since it cannot be defined then there is no such thing as consciousness therefore this does not hurt'

100% of people are Idealists.

Wait, what? Idealists don't need definitions? If everything is just information isn't that where definitions become most important and the only distinguishing element?

 

[Robin]

Take it anyway you want it, but if you are actually looking for an answer then that would depend on the aspects of the idealism one is proposing. For idealism that is defined as functional no different from materialism then by that definition one wouldn't (or perhaps shouldn't) behave differently, I suspect you already know this.

Idealism is not defined in terms of Materialism at all. Idealism is the idea that all that exists is mind. Idealists claim that what we perceive is functionally and phenomenally what we would expect if all that existed were mind.

 

[Robin]

Wait, what? Idealists don't need definitions? If everything is just information isn't that where definitions become most important and the only distinguishing element?

Can you quote the part where I said that Idealists do not need definitions? I am pretty sure I did not say that. But if I did then you should quote the part where I said it, instead of quoting the part where I didn't say it.

 

[The Man]

It clearly isn't. To reiterate the argument I outlined, any form of idealism starts from the conscious experience of the individual and assumes further instances of a similar entity. Materialism starts from conscious experience and posits an additional entity, material, that exists independent of consciousness and causes it. Idealism: 1 entity. Materialism: 2 entities.

"further instances of a similar entity" you say? So similar but not the same, a different conscious experience or different conscious entity. How many entities is that now?

 

[Robin]

I don't think the second paragraph follows from the first. I don't know that much about brain waves and such, but wouldn't a feeling of nausea be identifiable in the brain, just as scientists can see various areas light up with different stimuli?

Can you know what nausea feels like by studying the brain waves? Or the chemistry? Or the physics?

You don't even need the hypothesis that there is something that nausea feels like in science - according to the models it would all work the same if there was nothing that nausea felt like (or can you give me an example of a chemical reaction that would not work unless there was a feeling of nausea associated with it).

We only conclude that those activities are nausea because we observe the nausea that goes with them, not because we derive nausea from the equations.

So if I was starting with first principles and defining what a material world would be like then I could not conclude that there ought to be something like nausea, or pain or pleasure in a material world because I could not derive that from the equations.

 

[The Man]

Can you quote the part where I said that Idealists do not need definitions? I am pretty sure I did not say that. But if I did then you should quote the part where I said it, instead of quoting the part where I didn't say it.

Your assertion was that "Materialist should should say 'since it cannot be defined then there is no such thing as consciousness therefore this does not hurt'" Would not idealist also require a definition of consciousness, even more so as it is central to the ontology? Is your claim that just materialist can't define consciousness when you asserted "'since it cannot be defined..."?

 

[The Man]

Idealism is not defined in terms of Materialism at all. Idealism is the idea that all that exists is mind. Idealists claim that what we perceive is functionally and phenomenally what we would expect if all that existed were mind.

"what we would expect" from what? A materialistic reality, a purely idealistic one or just one that seems to have at least some materialistic properties?
Exactly what couldn't you expect "functionally and phenomenally" "if all that existed were mind"? What wouldn't you expect if everything was just material?

 

[The Man]

I could imagine the observable results of burns and so I would not necessarily be immune to them.

But then again, if I imagined the effects of a burn and others imagined the same effects of a burn and then found out later that these effects matched exactly the physics of heat and skin, then under Idealism we would have to ask who was it who was imagining the underlying physics.

This is the point that I was making earlier to Bernardo and for which he does not have an answer, as far as I can see.

He seemed to be saying that we were also imagining the physics, but the physics was obfuscated. But we cannot be using consciousness to make something work if it is obfuscated to us, even if consciousness is something that can make stuff work in the first place (which is something else that he has to establish).

So, if Idealism is true, there must be something imagining the unobfuscated physics of what is happening in our hand. If nothing is imagining the unobfuscated physics then we are back to Materialism.

Bernardo also seems to be talking about some sort of a universal consciousness, but does not it clear what this entity is.

So this is what I am expecting Bernardo to reduce to smouldering ashes, as he claims. Materialism does not need all these categories like trans personal consciousness, or impersonal consciousness or personal obfuscated consciousness or universal consciousness. Materialism does not even need a category of consciousness at all, it is jut something that is descriptive of the normal behaviour of matter.

All Materialism requires is that there is some stuff that behaves according to some mathematically describable pattern. And we know that whatever exists has mathematical patterns in it by observation.

This puts Bernardo's version of Idealism way, way behind on the parsimony scale and requires us to withhold our skepticism that there are such things.

Parsimony and skepticism were all that Bernardo could give us to recommend this theory and they obviously fall by the wayside, so if objections to his theory are to be reduced to smouldering ashes, now we have to have something else to recommend it than he has given us so far.

So I would be interested to see these alleged smouldering ashes, and trust that the participants of this forum will get a free copy of the book for the assistance we have rendered in it's creation.

Well, that was pretty much his assertion as I took it, some all encompassing kind of consciousness. That we are perhaps just fractions of. So technically we would already have his book but just need to pay for a super conciseness activation key.

 

[PixyMisa]

Again I ask the question - why would the stove hurt less under Idealism?

That's not an argument; it's barely even a question.

Why would the stove hurt at all under idealism? Why should anything anything?

An Idealist could equally say that a Materialist should say 'since it cannot be defined then there is no such thing as consciousness therefore this does not hurt'

They could say that. And they'd be wrong.

 

[Nonpareil]

So if I was starting with first principles and defining what a material world would be like then I could not conclude that there ought to be something like nausea, or pain or pleasure in a material world because I could not derive that from the equations.

Well, theoretically, given enough data, yes, you could.

We know that certain stimuli produce certain feelings in individuals (pain, for example), and we know that said feelings are expressed in terms of nervous impulses which are then interpreted by some mechanism in the brain. Given a complete understanding of the brain's inner workings, yes, you could calculate things like nausea; you could tell that certain stimuli result in certain negative effects within the biological system that make the brain want to get rid of them.

Not personally experiencing a feeling as you study it doesn't make that feeling less real, or mean that it doesn't have a material existence.

 

[Pup]

Can you know what nausea feels like by studying the brain waves? Or the chemistry? Or the physics?

You don't even need the hypothesis that there is something that nausea feels like in science - according to the models it would all work the same if there was nothing that nausea felt like (or can you give me an example of a chemical reaction that would not work unless there was a feeling of nausea associated with it).

We only conclude that those activities are nausea because we observe the nausea that goes with them, not because we derive nausea from the equations.

So if I was starting with first principles and defining what a material world would be like then I could not conclude that there ought to be something like nausea, or pain or pleasure in a material world because I could not derive that from the equations.

The problem is, that requires removing human behavior, and I don't think one needs to remove human behavior from a materialistic world, anymore than one needs to remove chemical behavior or other animal behavior.

Nausea is defined as the result of those equations. I take ipecac or ride a roller coaster, certain chemical/electrical things happen in my brain, and I feel nausea. I can report it verbally, or throw up, or make gagging motions, but those are all behavioral, visible, predictable results, as sure as vinegar and baking soda will make foam.

Again, it's like the old conundrum: how do I know you're seeing the same thing I'm seeing when you see the color red (assuming neither of us is color blind)? There's no way to know, but we can act as if we're seeing the same thing, and the world works. Similarly, we can act as if others are feeling the same thing that we call nausea, and the world works.

 

[PixyMisa]

It clearly isn't.

It clearly is.

To reiterate the argument I outlined, any form of idealism starts from the conscious experience of the individual and assumes further instances of a similar entity.

Wrong. Idealism assumes that mind is what exists. That leaves it to explain both the existence of matter and the existence of many independent minds.

Materialism starts from conscious experience and posits an additional entity, material, that exists independent of consciousness and causes it. Idealism: 1 entity. Materialism: 2 entities.

If matter gives rise to consciousness (which it does) then by definition that's only one entity.

In what way(s) does idealism contradict our observations?

In what way does it not?

You're not the only poster who seems to think that an idealistic universe would not be real. Nothing about idealism denies the reality of material or sensation. It simply supposes that these things exist within consciousness.

Naive idealism of the sort being discussed here does assume that consciousness is independent of the material world. This is of course false, and also would mean that the material is not real.

 

[PixyMisa]

Can you know what nausea feels like by studying the brain waves? Or the chemistry? Or the physics?

In principle, yes. In practice, your brain is too small.

 

[PixyMisa]

I could imagine the observable results of burns and so I would not necessarily be immune to them.

But then again, if I imagined the effects of a burn and others imagined the same effects of a burn and then found out later that these effects matched exactly the physics of heat and skin, then under Idealism we would have to ask who was it who was imagining the underlying physics.

The thing is, you are claiming that it is not impossible that this might happen under idealism. But what we actually observe is that it's impossible for this not to happen.

So idealism fails utterly at describing the real world; the world consistently behaves as though materialism were true.