I challenge you: your best argument for materialism

[Pup]

Surely we'd be interested in the limits inherent in any approach, wouldn't we? Not to do so strikes me as dishonest, much like not being allowed to question the Bible.

So, what's the answer to my question?

 

[marplots]

So, what's the answer to my question?

This question?
"What problem can be solved better by assuming idealism rather than materialism?"

I don't know. I don't think it's a challenge though, since the problem-solution pair doesn't really get at much. I don't suppose I could toss out the back side of Pluto as a materialist simply because it didn't solve a problem.

On the other hand, for logic in general, the existence of paradoxes comes to mind as an indication there may be more to discover.

If there was a problem with materialism in general it would be that we don't really have a root understanding of what constitutes matter and energy at a fundamental level. We know how it works, we can describe it, but it always seems there is another layer to the onion. For a materialist, this is the expected result of discovery and theorizing about what's found. For the idealist, none of this is a problem - our conceptions are fundamental to start out with.

Personally, I don't think much of that problem, but I suppose it might answer your original question, although "better" is a bit of an add-on.

 

[tsig]

Surely we'd be interested in the limits inherent in any approach, wouldn't we? Not to do so strikes me as dishonest, much like not being allowed to question the Bible.

Not listening to the answers you are given to a question strikes me as dishonest.

No one is restricting your ability to test the limits so to imply that anyone is is dishonest.

Small children learn the power of the question "Why?" and have fun pestering eveyone with it but usually they grow out of it.

 

[tsig]

This question?
"What problem can be solved better by assuming idealism rather than materialism?"

I don't know. I don't think it's a challenge though, since the problem-solution pair doesn't really get at much. I don't suppose I could toss out the back side of Pluto as a materialist simply because it didn't solve a problem.

On the other hand, for logic in general, the existence of paradoxes comes to mind as an indication there may be more to discover.

If there was a problem with materialism in general it would be that we don't really have a root understanding of what constitutes matter and energy at a fundamental level. We know how it works, we can describe it, but it always seems there is another layer to the onion. For a materialist, this is the expected result of discovery and theorizing about what's found. For the idealist, none of this is a problem - our conceptions are fundamental to start out with. Personally, I don't think much of that problem, but I suppose it might answer your original question, although "better" is a bit of an add-on.

There's a lot of tossing out the back side going on here.

You start with conceptions then find facts to fit "em? Or are you claiming that mind creates matter?

 

[Lowpro]

This question?
"What problem can be solved better by assuming idealism rather than materialism?"

I don't know. I don't think it's a challenge though, since the problem-solution pair doesn't really get at much. I don't suppose I could toss out the back side of Pluto as a materialist simply because it didn't solve a problem.

On the other hand, for logic in general, the existence of paradoxes comes to mind as an indication there may be more to discover.

If there was a problem with materialism in general it would be that we don't really have a root understanding of what constitutes matter and energy at a fundamental level. We know how it works, we can describe it, but it always seems there is another layer to the onion. For a materialist, this is the expected result of discovery and theorizing about what's found. For the idealist, none of this is a problem - our conceptions are fundamental to start out with.

Personally, I don't think much of that problem, but I suppose it might answer your original question, although "better" is a bit of an add-on.

Here's a problem that you have. The metaphysics of materialism and idealism cannot reasonably be informed by experience. Your metaphysics must be informed by your physics. It has to be informed by data. ( I feel I have to reiterate a very significant point here. The word observation does NOT relate to the sense of observation as an experience. Observation means data collection. It comes from interaction, a measured difference.)

Whether you assume an idealistic or materialistic ontology is irrelevant to the metaphysics of either since it must be informed by data and logic. Bernardo's idealism which he claims is parsimonious is wholly inadequate in the face of the data collected. What's more, idealism must avoid solipsism by reconciling reality in the face of all individual minds. If you call them all experienced by a central "mind" as Bernardo does then you're going to need a very robust definition of the mind and to get there then you'll lose all resemblance of the mind we have discussed in consciousness.

 

[bruto]

This question?
"What problem can be solved better by assuming idealism rather than materialism?"

I don't know. I don't think it's a challenge though, since the problem-solution pair doesn't really get at much. I don't suppose I could toss out the back side of Pluto as a materialist simply because it didn't solve a problem.
On the other hand, for logic in general, the existence of paradoxes comes to mind as an indication there may be more to discover.

If there was a problem with materialism in general it would be that we don't really have a root understanding of what constitutes matter and energy at a fundamental level. We know how it works, we can describe it, but it always seems there is another layer to the onion. For a materialist, this is the expected result of discovery and theorizing about what's found. For the idealist, none of this is a problem - our conceptions are fundamental to start out with.

Personally, I don't think much of that problem, but I suppose it might answer your original question, although "better" is a bit of an add-on.

Do you not believe that a problem would arise for astronomers and physicists if we presumed that Pluto does not have a back side?

 

[marplots]

Do you not believe that a problem would arise for astronomers and physicists if we presumed that Pluto does not have a back side?

Why would my presumption have any sway over them? They'd say, "Prove it."

The point was that the material universe isn't a solution to a problem at all - it exists or it doesn't, but its existence is orthogonal to the problem-solution pair. So asking, "What problem doesn't idealism have a solution for?" doesn't really go anywhere. It's a challenge without a point. Materialism does fine as well, whether or not it solves any problems.

 

[tsig]

Why would my presumption have any sway over them? They'd say, "Prove it."

The point was that the material universe isn't a solution to a problem at all - it exists or it doesn't, but its existence is orthogonal to the problem-solution pair. So asking, "What problem doesn't idealism have a solution for?" doesn't really go anywhere. It's a challenge without a point. Materialism does fine as well, whether or not it solves any problems.

OK, what is your problem with materialism?

 

[marplots]

OK, what is your problem with materialism?

None, I'm a materialist. My problem is with bad arguments. To mischaracterize idealism as some kind of smoke and mirrors is incorrect. It's a valid philosophical position, worth considering.

 

[Belz...]

None, I'm a materialist. My problem is with bad arguments. To mischaracterize idealism as some kind of smoke and mirrors is incorrect. It's a valid philosophical position, worth considering.

Is it, now ? Mind expanding on that ? What actual differences and advantages does it have over physicalism ?

 

[Lowpro]

None, I'm a materialist. My problem is with bad arguments. To mischaracterize idealism as some kind of smoke and mirrors is incorrect. It's a valid philosophical position, worth considering.

It's validity hinges on the data from "experience" and that's what is being called into question. Idealism needs the "mind" to determine reality and the concept of what the "mind" is and is not directly affects the validity.

 

[Nonpareil]

I'd like to suggest another possibility - that the method we are using to understand the world doesn't work as well as we'd like. Perhaps the tool, logic, is wrong in some fundamental way.

It's fine to suggest that. But it doesn't actually go anywhere or mean anything unless you can show that it is so.

 

[tsig]

None, I'm a materialist. My problem is with bad arguments. To mischaracterize idealism as some kind of smoke and mirrors is incorrect. It's a valid philosophical position, worth considering.

In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial.

The idea that reality is mentally constructed is refuted by the fact that the materiel existed before there were minds and that the materiel is needed for there to be minds.

Assert

Hilited where they come from.

 

[taygatayga]

Do you agree that physicalism/materialism does not add unknown entities, unlike idealism ?

One thing that has become apparent in reading this topic is that many (not all) materialist skeptics neither understand materialism nor the definition of skepticism and that they tend to beg the question by failing to recognise that their position includes the assumption that material reality is exclusively a property of a materialist universe while anything in consciousness is not reality. You might as well assume that God exists and then start an argument about whether God exists.

Taking the most skeptical position, the one with no assumptions, the only thing which an individual can know is that they are experiencing. Everything else is assumption, including matter.

The materialist says that all our experience of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling or touching happens inside our heads, that all of those sensations are produced by the brain and that there is a real, material world outside our heads, where the sensations themselves do not exist, and which we can only know through the medium of our senses since we are trapped inside our brain. She says that there is no other way to know that world. In other words, the materialist ASSUMES a real world outside the scope of anyone’s experience as an individual self and that our impression of it relies on the fidelity of our senses (considering this is where thought experiments like The Matrix films originate). Further she ASSUMES that the experience of any individual self is a product of the assumed real world. Note this: materialism imagines that the one thing we can know is the product of something we can only imagine.

Let's be clear. These ASSUMPTIONS are components of the materialist position which comprise an imaginative leap beyond the single knowable fact of individual experience. To label them any more real than the contents of a dream, without question, is a failure of skepticism.

Furthermore, I keep seeing the assertion than an Idealist denies that reality exists. This is a straw man argument. It probably originates with some materialists' unrecognised primary assumptions above. No idealist claims that reality doesn't exist, they simply suppose that reality exists inside consciousness.

Unless we are lucid dreamers we don’t know we are dreaming until we wake up. While we are inside a dream, which exists inside our mind, it’s totally real to us no matter how bizarre. Then how do we distinguish dreams from reality? We identify two things which we say characterise the real world: 1) there are *others who we ASSUME have a similar experience to us; 2) most of the shared experience is not under our individual volition. As far as I can tell, most materialists’ rejection of idealism hinges on these 2 points.

The second of those is not as great as we imagine. Everyone is familiar with what a nightmare is: a dream which isn't going the way you want it to go. We would not suggest that nightmares are under our volition and yet we can accept that they exist entirely within our own individual consciousness. In other words, the absence of volition is not proof that something occurs outside individual consciousness.

Both materialism and idealism assume that others are having a similar experience to our own but they have different ways to view it: materialists suppose that we are separate instances of consciousness experiencing the material world in which we exist, idealists suppose that we are foci of a single consciousness in which the material world exists. A materialist’s mind is inside her head, an idealist’s head is inside her mind.

*(As an aside, does anyone recall whether, in their own dreams, they thought other people were, like their own dream character, having a conscious experience? If so, I’d suggest that there is nothing at all to distinguish ‘dreams’ from ‘reality’. If so, I’d suggest that your dream experience demonstrates that you can participate as an individual with other apparently similar individuals in an ostensible reality all of which is being created inside your own mind).

 

[Belz...]

One thing that has become apparent in reading this topic is that many (not all) materialist skeptics neither understand materialism nor the definition of skepticism and that they tend to beg the question by failing to recognise that their position includes the assumption that material reality is exclusively a property of a materialist universe while anything in consciousness is not reality.

Wait a second. You are all over the place. We have already provided a definition of material/physical. Did you read it ? And no one is begging the question: physicalism doesn't assume anything. It observes behaviour, and specifically excludes entities that cannot interact with the stuff we see interacting. The reason for that last bit is that it cannot be observed even in principle. No matter how you see the universe, you're going to have to make at least one assumption, though, in this case that something exists. Idealism makes the added leap that this thing is mind. Physicalism doesn't waste time on the nature of the thing, only on its behaviour. As to the mind, it is certainly physical, and although the unicorn you are imagining doesn't exist, the process of creating that image in your mind certainly does, so I have no idea what you mean by that last bit.

Taking the most skeptical position, the one with no assumptions, the only thing which an individual can know is that they are experiencing. Everything else is assumption, including matter.

No, see, materialism doesn't make claims about the nature of "matter", only that it can, as you say, be observed. Our observations are consistent across time and from one person to the next, so we can safely assume, for the time being, that we can draw conclusions from our observations.

Before going any further it is important that you understand your mistake.

 

[marplots]

In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial.

The idea that reality is mentally constructed is refuted by the fact that the materiel existed before there were minds and that the materiel is needed for there to be minds.

Assert

Hilited where they come from.

It's the next part, "reality as we can know it" that's being ignored. If we "know" it, then it's a mental event. I don't think you mean to assert that before minds, reality was known. Or do you mean that. Or do you mean that before we were here to know, we knew?

It's easy to show that reality is mentally constructed. Just have a dream, or look at an optical illusion, or spin around really fast, stop, and perceive the world seems to be spinning. Of course we construct the world within which we reside, the question is whether or not we can be confident that we don't do it more than we think we do.

Idealism recognizes experience and mental events as primary, that's all.

 

[LarryS]

That's my stance. There's no way to prove idealism isn't true. But since materialism seems to be the best way to understand the world, we might as well ignore idealism and proceed with the assumption that materialism is the way to proceed, unless there's evidence otherwise. What problem can be solved better by assuming idealism rather than materialism?

I should say up front that I am agnostic re the dichotomy of material vs consciousness as fundamental substrate - and that the question is likely a red-herring. The successes we've had in putting a man on the moon and finding a cure for polio (for example) are due to the methods of quantitative measurement - - and these methods are also agnostic re the dichotomy of material vs consciousness as fundamental substrate.

So, regarding not walking into walls and producing a more efficient combustion engine - quantitative measurements assuming a physical world works quite nicely.

For me the question is do we need anything more to explain the subjective experience of a subjective observer? Being skeptical in thinking we are well down the road to understanding consciousness does not make me an Idealist - just skeptical of the current paradigm. Now, if we can build a subjective observer out of electronic circuits then hell no we don't need any pixie dust - we don't even need biology.

 

[Nonpareil]

One thing that has become apparent in reading this topic is that many (not all) materialist skeptics neither understand materialism nor the definition of skepticism and that they tend to beg the question by failing to recognise that their position includes the assumption that material reality is exclusively a property of a materialist universe while anything in consciousness is not reality.

No, we understand the position just fine.

Taking the most skeptical position, the one with no assumptions, the only thing which an individual can know is that they are experiencing. Everything else is assumption, including matter.

Solipsism is not the most skeptical position. It is, in fact, the least rational position one can take regarding the nature of the universe, as, again, literally everything we interact with behaves, in every way, exactly as though it existed independently of us.

Asserting that it's all in your head leaves so many unanswered questions that the only reasonable response is to laugh at the ridiculousness of it.

In other words, the materialist ASSUMES a real world outside the scope of anyone’s experience as an individual self

No. The materialist concludes that the universe exists independently of us.

The distinction is crucial. And here's a hint: that distinction is why solipsism and idealism fail.

No idealist claims that reality doesn't exist, they simply suppose that reality exists inside consciousness.

Which is a very, very silly thing to do.

 

[tsig]

It's the next part, "reality as we can know it" that's being ignored. If we "know" it, then it's a mental event. I don't think you mean to assert that before minds, reality was known. Or do you mean that. Or do you mean that before we were here to know, we knew?

It's easy to show that reality is mentally constructed. Just have a dream, or look at an optical illusion, or spin around really fast, stop, and perceive the world seems to be spinning. Of course we construct the world within which we reside, the question is whether or not we can be confident that we don't do it more than we think we do.

Idealism recognizes experience and mental events as primary, that's all.

Reality exists independent of human knowing, it existed long before human knew of it and will exist long after.

In idealism mental events and experience precede the physical events?

 

[tsig]

One thing that has become apparent in reading this topic is that many (not all) materialist skeptics neither understand materialism nor the definition of skepticism and that they tend to beg the question by failing to recognise that their position includes the assumption that material reality is exclusively a property of a materialist universe while anything in consciousness is not reality. You might as well assume that God exists and then start an argument about whether God exists.

Taking the most skeptical position, the one with no assumptions, the only thing which an individual can know is that they are experiencing. Everything else is assumption, including matter.

The materialist says that all our experience of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling or touching happens inside our heads, that all of those sensations are produced by the brain and that there is a real, material world outside our heads, where the sensations themselves do not exist, and which we can only know through the medium of our senses since we are trapped inside our brain. She says that there is no other way to know that world. In other words, the materialist ASSUMES a real world outside the scope of anyone’s experience as an individual self and that our impression of it relies on the fidelity of our senses (considering this is where thought experiments like The Matrix films originate). Further she ASSUMES that the experience of any individual self is a product of the assumed real world. Note this: materialism imagines that the one thing we can know is the product of something we can only imagine.

Let's be clear. These ASSUMPTIONS are components of the materialist position which comprise an imaginative leap beyond the single knowable fact of individual experience. To label them any more real than the contents of a dream, without question, is a failure of skepticism.

Furthermore, I keep seeing the assertion than an Idealist denies that reality exists. This is a straw man argument. It probably originates with some materialists' unrecognised primary assumptions above. No idealist claims that reality doesn't exist, they simply suppose that reality exists inside consciousness.

Unless we are lucid dreamers we don’t know we are dreaming until we wake up. While we are inside a dream, which exists inside our mind, it’s totally real to us no matter how bizarre. Then how do we distinguish dreams from reality? We identify two things which we say characterise the real world: 1) there are *others who we ASSUME have a similar experience to us; 2) most of the shared experience is not under our individual volition. As far as I can tell, most materialists’ rejection of idealism hinges on these 2 points.

The second of those is not as great as we imagine. Everyone is familiar with what a nightmare is: a dream which isn't going the way you want it to go. We would not suggest that nightmares are under our volition and yet we can accept that they exist entirely within our own individual consciousness. In other words, the absence of volition is not proof that something occurs outside individual consciousness.

Both materialism and idealism assume that others are having a similar experience to our own but they have different ways to view it: materialists suppose that we are separate instances of consciousness experiencing the material world in which we exist, idealists suppose that we are foci of a single consciousness in which the material world exists. A materialist’s mind is inside her head, an idealist’s head is inside her mind.

*(As an aside, does anyone recall whether, in their own dreams, they thought other people were, like their own dream character, having a conscious experience? If so, I’d suggest that there is nothing at all to distinguish ‘dreams’ from ‘reality’. If so, I’d suggest that your dream experience demonstrates that you can participate as an individual with other apparently similar individuals in an ostensible reality all of which is being created inside your own mind).

No.