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I challenge you: your best argument for materialism

Burden of proof, "God/Woo of the Gaps", proving an negative... do any of these concepts mean anything out beyond the event horizon of the formless?
 
punshhh said:
I'm simply pointing out that just because consciousness and mind can be shown to emerge from the action of the brain, this does not mean idealism is not a possibility.
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And I'm pointing out that this is an argument from ignorance. Tons of things are never totally disproven, but that's not how it works: you have to prove the hypothesis.

Nothing is different, but we are some way off discovering the origin of our material universe, or whatever else exists.
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Nice moving the goalposts, there. We were talking about the nature of the world, not its origin. We know quite a bit about the latter, and the former is irrelevant.

And what is their origin?
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What does this have to do with it ? I said that there's nothing profound about it. If I answer "I don't know", is this significant ?
 
I'm a materialist, but I too am bothered by the almost religious adherence to objectivism on offer in this thread. The zealotry is embarrassing.
 
It's not an "adherence" much less a religious one. It's the only meaningful option to take.
 
JoeBentley said:
It's not an "adherence" much less a religious one. It's the only meaningful option to take.
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Well, maybe it isn't religious adherence. But seeing as how you are perfectly willing to dismiss an entire branch of Philosophy because you don't find it meaningful, it sure does sound like something akin to the same toxic certainty we usually find in religious circles.

Have you even considered those areas where materialism is weak? For example, time. Or having to lump energy and fields into the materialism basket, even though those "things" aren't matter. Or, perhaps the idea of relationships between material objects - should those be considered material too, or are those relationships something else altogether?

I understand the world in materialist terms. But I'd certainly admit there were other ways to understand the world, and I'd certainly never say that materialism is the "only meaningful option to take."
 
marplots said:
Well, maybe it isn't religious adherence. But seeing as how you are perfectly willing to dismiss an entire branch of Philosophy because you don't find it meaningful, it sure does sound like something akin to the same toxic certainty we usually find in religious circles.

Have you even considered those areas where materialism is weak? For example, time. Or having to lump energy and fields into the materialism basket, even though those "things" aren't matter. Or, perhaps the idea of relationships between material objects - should those be considered material too, or are those relationships something else altogether?

I understand the world in materialist terms. But I'd certainly admit there were other ways to understand the world, and I'd certainly never say that materialism is the "only meaningful option to take."
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Why are you afraid of certainty? How much evidence do you require before you conclude that rocks are real?

What other ways can we understand the world if not thru the senses?

Materialism is the only option that works, others were tried for thousands of years but all they achieved were delusions.

You seem to have a "toxic certainty" that there is no certainty.
 
marplots said:
I'm a materialist, but I too am bothered by the almost religious adherence to objectivism on offer in this thread. The zealotry is embarrassing.
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I assume you mean "objectivism" as opposed to "subjectivism", whatever the heck that might be. If so, do you rhink there is any good reason to doubt that there seems to be a reality out there that is independent of any one person's perception of it?
 
H'ethetheth said:
I assume you mean "objectivism" as opposed to "subjectivism", whatever the heck that might be. If so, do you rhink there is any good reason to doubt that there seems to be a reality out there that is independent of any one person's perception of it?
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I can entertain the idea. And I can discuss the merits of "seems to be." I'm not allergic to idealism, I just don't prefer it over materialism.
 
marplots said:
I can entertain the idea. And I can discuss the merits of "seems to be." I'm not allergic to idealism, I just don't prefer it over materialism.
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But that's not the question. Any kind of idealism in which there is an objective universe that behaves by observer independent rules is functionally empty; it is functionally a materialistic universe, where the difference is necessarily unverifiable from within the universe. It is eternally moot, just like "the matrix" or solipsism or an unmoved mover creator God etc.
 
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H'ethetheth said:
But that's not the question. Any kind of idealism in which there is an objective universe that behaves by observer independent rules is functionally empty; it is functionally a materialistic universe, where the difference is necessarily unverifiable from within the universe. It is eternally moot, just like "the matrix" or solipsism or an unmoved mover creator God etc.
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Who wins if it's a mix?
 
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