Naturalism, 'Materialism' vs Dualism and teh Gap

[Dancing David]

Hello,
Please no snarky drive by posts.

From many years of reading the materialism threads here I have come to many conclusions:

1. Naturalism is the stance of most posters at the JREF/ISF, the world is at it appears

2. Regardless of the ontology butterfly dreams, godthought, brains in vats or dancing energy we only have the appearance of the universe as it seems

3. It seems as though the universe acts as though it is dancing energy and so 'materialism' seems to follow from naturalism

Most who oppose materialism seem to suggest a hidden system of events, which leads to the paradox of Dualism.

If the hidden system acts in our universe then it falls back into monism and revisions to naturalism/materialism.

 

[Beerina]

Yes. The subjective conscious experience is a real phenomena, and must therefore arise out of real-world physics somehow. We may very well be missing something, the atoms of consciousness so to speak, but there is no magical spirit world to instantiate our consciousness.

And if there were, I would claim it is just another realm of physics to explore. If there were a god, I would want to know how it operates and is constructed.

 

[marplots]

There's a nuance though. To what extent can we reliably access the suspected naturalistic grounding, and to what extent are we just fooling ourselves?

It's not just "dualism of the gaps" but the existence of gaps and their resistance to being cognitively patched. How significant are the ambiguities? Is it enough to describe them and be done with it, or should their existence disturb us?

 

[Nonpareil]

There's a nuance though. To what extent can we reliably access the suspected naturalistic grounding

Irrelevant. Failing to understand something does not indicate the existence of the supernatural.

and to what extent are we just fooling ourselves?

This is not actually a question. It is an attempt to create doubt where there is no grounds for it.

In order for this question to be compelling, it must be accompanied by an example of an instance in which we are "fooling ourselves".

It's not just "dualism of the gaps" but the existence of gaps and their resistance to being cognitively patched.

Thus far, we have yet to find any actual resistance. Or, at least, none that indicates that it cannot be patched. Just that it is difficult to.

How significant are the ambiguities?

As there really aren't any, not very.

 

[marplots]

This is not actually a question. It is an attempt to create doubt where there is no grounds for it.

In order for this question to be compelling, it must be accompanied by an example of an instance in which we are "fooling ourselves".

Nice one. Because as soon as we identify somewhere where we were fooling ourselves we are no longer fooling ourselves and the damage is repaired. But even better, if I present something that we disagree is a case of "fooling ourselves" then it doesn't answer the request.

Every answer goes into one of two bins:
1) Historical mistake - it's historical and is no longer a mistake, otherwise we wouldn't have the correct version available to identify it as a mistake.
2) Not currently viewed as an error, so doesn't count as a mistake.

Is it enough to know there have been cases where we misunderstood something and infer that whatever generated those errors is still part of our nature? Because that's the only thing we can do without falling into one or the other bin.

 

[Nonpareil]

Is it enough to know there have been cases where we misunderstood something and infer that whatever generated those errors is still part of our nature?

No.

Stating that errors are possible is perfectly accurate, but pointless. It means nothing unless you can actually identify an error.

 

[marplots]

No.

Stating that errors are possible is perfectly accurate, but pointless. It means nothing unless you can actually identify an error.

I don't think it's pointless. I'd very much like to know how error prone some process may be, where errors are likely to occur, and how they may have happened before. It helps me set limits on what I might use that process for, and to what extent I should trust it.

For example, I thought this was interesting:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...es-and-fewer-half-got-same-results-180956426/

 

[Nonpareil]

I don't think it's pointless. I'd very much like to know how error prone some process may be, where errors are likely to occur, and how they may have happened before.

In order to know this, you have necessarily identified errors. No errors can be found in the processes which led to the conclusion of materialism.

In large part, this is due to the fact that the conclusion of materialism is the only such position that has any sort of semantic value; "alternatives" such as solipsism, idealism and so on all become utterly incoherent if you actually examine them. They are simply word games, and are meaningless at their base. The universe they describe is indistinguishable from that of a materialistic model. They are just redefining and obscuring the meaning of various terms in order to sound impressive while signifying nothing.

Dualism, meanwhile, does attempt to describe some means by which the universe can be differentiated from a wholly materialistic one, but fails to actually do so; dualists simply end up waving their hands and saying "magic" rather than laying out the actual mechanics of such a universe. Even if they had, literally everything we have ever experienced, ever, whether in a formal scientific setting or otherwise, has utterly failed to indicate that there is any value whatsoever in dualism.

There is no coherent argument against materialism. There isn't even a coherent argument about how there might be a coherent argument against materialism.

There are no gaps to close.

 

[tsig]

I don't think it's pointless. I'd very much like to know how error prone some process may be, where errors are likely to occur, and how they may have happened before. It helps me set limits on what I might use that process for, and to what extent I should trust it.

For example, I thought this was interesting:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...es-and-fewer-half-got-same-results-180956426/

From the link:

According to work presented today in Science, fewer than half of 100 studies published in 2008 in three top psychology journals could be replicated successfully. The international effort included 270 scientists who re-ran other people's studies as part of The Reproducibility Project: Psychology, led by Brian Nosek of the Univer


Problems in psychology do not indicate a widespread problem for science.


If you don't trust that your senses are reliably reporting reality how do you cross a busy street?

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Problems in psychology do not indicate a widespread problem for science.

But science does suffer from similar widespread problems; mostly attributable to exaggeration of data interpretation in order to increase impact factor. Anything you read in Nature or Science these days is at least half BS, and usually much more.

However, that's a problem for science, not its underlying assumption of materialism. The data is real; what it means is up for argument.

 

[Dancing David]

There's a nuance though. To what extent can we reliably access the suspected naturalistic grounding, and to what extent are we just fooling ourselves?

It's not just "dualism of the gaps" but the existence of gaps and their resistance to being cognitively patched. How significant are the ambiguities? Is it enough to describe them and be done with it, or should their existence disturb us?

Maybe not disturb, but be aware of. Which is why data and metrics are essential.

 

[Dancing David]

From the link:

According to work presented today in Science, fewer than half of 100 studies published in 2008 in three top psychology journals could be replicated successfully. The international effort included 270 scientists who re-ran other people's studies as part of The Reproducibility Project: Psychology, led by Brian Nosek of the Univer


Problems in psychology do not indicate a widespread problem for science.


If you don't trust that your senses are reliably reporting reality how do you cross a busy street?

And it demonstrates that an unreplicated study is not really meaningful

Sigh, the bane of psychology the one off study cited endlessly by others.

 

[Lorentz]

And if there were, I would claim it is just another realm of physics to explore. If there were a god, I would want to know how it operates and is constructed.

Oh oh! Dibs on the first Lego God kit!

 

[tsig]

But science does suffer from similar widespread problems; mostly attributable to exaggeration of data interpretation in order to increase impact factor. Anything you read in Nature or Science these days is at least half BS, and usually much more.

However, that's a problem for science, not its underlying assumption of materialism. The data is real; what it means is up for argument.

We all have the same date it's our worldview that differs?

 

[marplots]

If you don't trust that your senses are reliably reporting reality how do you cross a busy street?

I do trust my senses, but not 100%. For example, sometimes I smell things that I have no reason to think are actually there. So, I may suspect an error of my sense of smell. I might ask someone else if they smell the same thing as a double check. So, in the end, I am not only playing some of my senses against others, but also trying to recruit other people's senses as well.

Further, since I am aware that my sense of smell sometimes goes wanky, I am much more likely to distrust it than, say, my sense of touch.

In the same way, I might come to trust or distrust other, odd senses. If I were to have a sense of foreboding about crossing the street, and a car suddenly appeared unexpectedly, I would count that as a confirmation. The opposite case would count against such hunches.

 

[Fudbucker]

People who are convinced reality is a certain way (JW's, materialists, dualists, immaterialists, theists, panpsychics, computationalists, etc.) are usually talking out of their ass.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Alright since I'm often times one of the people pretty dismissive of any variation on the old "Prove reality is real" argument, I guess I layout my problem with it, but hopefully with some context.

Believe it or not I do not think that the following topics are inherently unreasonable or "Woo."

- Base questions as to the nature of our reality.
- Questions as to what degree our senses or indeed our very mental capacity limits our access to certain knowledge (i.e. Are certain facets of reality inherently problematic to the point of practical unknowability due to being too complicated or esoteric for our neurology.)

My issue comes about, and when ever any solipsistic arguments are introduced on this board this issue is nearly universal, whenever it is obvious that what is being presented is not an honest question as to nature of reality and/or our ability to interact with it, but the classic, age old "XXX therefore Woo."

This is why I've always considered hard core solipsism an inconsistent to the point of hypocritical argument. If one truly and honestly doubts reality or our ability to perceive it that asterisks has to fall over every arguments of all types, not just brought out as a trump card to scorch the argument of any concept of knowledge when ever you get argued into a corner.

No one runs into political arguments going "Voting is stupid, you can't prove the candidates objectively exist." If someone starts a thread about what model of toaster to buy no one demands the conversation come to a screeching halt until such time as the a priori existence of the concept of "toasters" is proven to some hypothetical Nth metaphysical degree. But almost without fail if reasonable skepticism to a claim is made in the traditional "skeptical" topics like pseudoscience, mysticism, religion or so forth it won't be long before someone is in there doing exactly that, countering reasonable skepticism of a claim with some across the board demand to prove the base concept of reality to an impossible degree and using that to add legitimacy to an extraordinary claim, with is makes no sense. If Ted tells Bob there is no evidence for UFOs or Bigfoot Bob countering that Ted can't prove he isn't a brain in a jar or that there isn't an evil demon whispering it all in his ear doesn't add credence to his extraordinary claim, but that always seems to be the tactic they seem to be trying to use and we see surface level variations on this same core cop out argument with high levels of regularity on this board.

If one honestly believes there is some universal, across the board level of doubt that effects the very nature of existence one can't pick and choose when to apply it and if one does I will not have much patience for being taken to task for pointing it out.

We all live in reality. None of us lives our day to day life under any illusions that reality is anything but real. So discussions should be allowed to operate on that same level except when the discussion is actually about that.

And when Poster X starts a bunch of topics in a row about a specific Woo topic and gets argued into a corner in every one of them and then[/] starts yet another "XXXXX therefore science doesn't work / science is flawed" thread which has happened all the time on this board... I'm sorry I'm not gonna follow their script where I am carefully word gamed into their pre-made "You can't prove everything to absolute metaphysical certainty, therefore believing in highly unreasonable thing X is perfectly justifiable" conclusion trap like I'm obviously supposed to.

So if anyone actually wants to discuss base level reality, fine. I can't promise I'll agree with you (while I consider it a fair question my own personal opinion is that the question is essentially meaningless, a counter-truism and nothing more) if the goal of the OP is tsk tsk members of the board over not playing along with the "XXXX therefore Woo" crowd, not gonna happen.

 

[annnnoid]

Hello,
Please no snarky drive by posts.

From many years of reading the materialism threads here I have come to many conclusions:

1. Naturalism is the stance of most posters at the JREF/ISF, the world is at it appears

2. Regardless of the ontology butterfly dreams, godthought, brains in vats or dancing energy we only have the appearance of the universe as it seems

3. It seems as though the universe acts as though it is dancing energy and so 'materialism' seems to follow from naturalism

Most who oppose materialism seem to suggest a hidden system of events, which leads to the paradox of Dualism.

If the hidden system acts in our universe then it falls back into monism and revisions to naturalism/materialism.

Always back to this false dichotomy of ‘dualism opposes materialism… is teh devil, evil incarnate, self-evident chaos…all who argue in its favor are life-denied!’. I’m beginning to think that materialists continually brandish this whipping-boy cause they just can’t handle the fact that the alternative to conventional materialism is simply becoming more plausible (it’s not dualism).

…but it’s all monism anyway. Doesn’t make any difference.

Actually, materialism itself opposes materialism. It can’t explain its own existence anymore than anything else can. I suppose idealism comes closest since it posits some manner of ‘meaning’…which science seems to be finding some evidence of (in science terms, it’s called ‘information’). How peculiar. An entire universe made up of nothing but ‘meaning’. What could that possibly…mean?

Yes. The subjective conscious experience is a real phenomena, and must therefore arise out of real-world physics somehow. We may very well be missing something, the atoms of consciousness so to speak, but there is no magical spirit world to instantiate our consciousness.

And if there were, I would claim it is just another realm of physics to explore. If there were a god, I would want to know how it operates and is constructed.

Do you know how you operate and are constructed? Since you, yourself, are 100% composed of that which there is absolutely no understanding of (basically…quantum this and that)…there would seem to be a rather significant gap in your identity…dontcha think?

I once encountered a five year-old boy who spoke thus: ‘God has all our dreams in mind.’ Assuming this boy is not insane…what do you suppose this five year-old boy knows that you do not?

Hypothetically speaking of course.

But science does suffer from similar widespread problems; mostly attributable to exaggeration of data interpretation in order to increase impact factor. Anything you read in Nature or Science these days is at least half BS, and usually much more.

However, that's a problem for science, not its underlying assumption of materialism. The data is real; what it means is up for argument.

Wow! Problems in science. Who would have thunk it!

BTW…can I quote you on that ‘at least half BS’ remark? I’m thinking of doing a study to see how accurate it is (my study would, of course, be at least…etc. etc.).

And it demonstrates that an unreplicated study is not really meaningful

Sigh, the bane of psychology the one off study cited endlessly by others.

Perhaps some ‘one-off studies’ are somewhat less half-BS than other one-off studies? Is that a possibility?

People who are convinced reality is a certain way (JW's, materialists, dualists, immaterialists, theists, panpsychics, computationalists, etc.) are usually talking out of their ass.

…an appropriate ‘ist’ might be anal-ists! Those who are convinced that ‘reality’ emerges from the nether sphincter of the divine. You heard it here first folks. A brand new ‘ism’. Anal-ism (the philosophy…as opposed to the actual practice of being as anal as can possibly be…which could be the first commandment).

 

[Nonpareil]

I’m beginning to think that materialists continually brandish this whipping-boy cause they just can’t handle the fact that the alternative to conventional materialism is simply becoming more plausible (it’s not dualism).

I assume that you are referring to idealism.

It is not, in any way, becoming more plausible. Or coherent.

Actually, materialism itself opposes materialism. It can’t explain its own existence anymore than anything else can.

Of course it doesn't. That isn't what it is meant to do.

Materialism is a description, not a motivation.

I suppose idealism comes closest since it posits some manner of ‘meaning’…

No, it doesn't.

which science seems to be finding some evidence of (in science terms, it’s called ‘information’). How peculiar. An entire universe made up of nothing but ‘meaning’. What could that possibly…mean?

Information has a very strict and clear definition in scientific terms. It deals with the number of possible states of a certain entity and the actual state of said entity. "Meaning" is inherently subjective and dependent upon interpretation; information content is not.

 

[tsig]

People who are convinced reality is a certain way (JW's, materialists, dualists, immaterialists, theists, panpsychics, computationalists, etc.) are usually talking out of their ass.

People who are convinced reality is not a certain way (JW's, materialists, dualists, immaterialists, theists, panpsychics, computationalists, etc.) are usually talking out of their ass.


ETA: If our senses do not perceive reality then how do we avoid tigers?