Naturalism, 'Materialism' vs Dualism and teh Gap

[marplots]

(good post clipped to save space)
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.

I'd like to point out a kind of solipsism-lite we run into all the time and isn't quite as distasteful as the version that moves quickly to woo.

An example is the current thread on the Steven Avery murder case. No one (as far as I can tell) doubts there is some underlying reality and correct answer as to his guilt. But no one (as far as I can tell) has any direct access to it, nor is it likely that all the loose ends will be tied up. The arguments turn on how suggestive one bit of evidence is over another.

And this parallels the situation we usually find ourselves in - some limited, biased point of view on what we believe is base reality but cannot see as clearly as we'd like. Multiple, well-reasoned arguments can be made, and so long as those arguments do not flagrantly violate natural laws, science doesn't have much to say. There is no experiment which allows us to replay history with the resolution required. We can find the possible, but not the actual.

In any case, solipsism-lite does play a role. Solipsism-lite doesn't claim reality doesn't exist, merely that our access to it is limited in certain important ways.

 

[Nonpareil]

In any case, solipsism-lite does play a role. Solipsism-lite doesn't claim reality doesn't exist, merely that our access to it is limited in certain important ways.

Which is true enough, but labeling this as "solipsism-lite" is rather pointless and serves only to muddy the waters unnecessarily.

And it still is not an issue with the conclusion of materialism. Again, pointing out that there could be things we have failed to notice or understand is true, but useless. It changes nothing about the situation unless you can actually demonstrate that there is something we have missed.

 

[LarryS]

. . . except in the case of materialism there is something we have missed - we have not found any matter, we have not found any matter outside of our being aware of it. This does not make Materialism wrong or an error, it is a description of how we see not what we see.

 

[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.

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.

No, I don't find that a gap. Saying god did it, well, from my point of view that answers nothing. I already mentioned I'd wanna know how God operates. That "it's turtles all the way down" is exciting for the scientific mind, not something scary to avoid by declaring an arbitrary stop point and calling it god, or a dualism spirit realm.

 

[Nonpareil]

. . . except in the case of materialism there is something we have missed - we have not found any matter

Except all the matter, you mean.

The only way that you can deny the existence of matter is through...

we have not found any matter outside of our being aware of it. This does not make Materialism wrong or an error, it is a description of how we see not what we see.

...pointless semantic word games, natch.

 

[ehcks]

we have not found any matter outside of our being aware of it.

You do know that's impossible, right? The instant we find something, we become aware of it. If we're not aware of it, it's because we haven't found it yet; or because it doesn't exist.

 

[Aepervius]

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/

There are known known, known unknown and unknown unknown.(*)

Any reasoning based on unknown unknown is pointless. "but there could be somewhere where we fool ourselves" is a unknown unknown and as such you may as well state "but there could be invisible dragon".

That is what non pareil is i think telling you. Therefore he ask you for an example of known unknown which we can discuss.

Otherwise you may as well state "but we could be all pixie dream".

(*) curiously credited to Rumsfeld but was using a similar turn of sentence back before 1990 during my philosophy hours for the french baccalaureate.

 

[LarryS]

You do know that's impossible, right? The instant we find something, we become aware of it. If we're not aware of it, it's because we haven't found it yet; or because it doesn't exist.

Yah reality bites, and why Materialism is an assertion, a reasonable assertion, but an assertion none the less.

 

[Aepervius]

Yah reality bites, and why Materialism is an assertion, a reasonable assertion, but an assertion none the less.

Not an assertion. It is the first basic physical "law" : something for which we found so many evidence, that at this point it would require solid evidence to change our outlook of it. But if we DID find evidence to the contrary we would change it.

This is different from an assertion. An assertion would be something for which we have no evidence, but we will simply assume.

In fact at some point we *had* something which was not material. Aether. We threw it out when it turned to not have evidence for it.

So yeah definitively not an assertion.

 

[Nonpareil]

Yah reality bites, and why Materialism is an assertion, a reasonable assertion, but an assertion none the less.

It is not an assertion. It is a conclusion, and largely just a matter of having functional definitions regardless. There is very little about materialism that requires support, since most of it is just a matter of saying "we experience something, and we call it matter".

I am not certain why so many people have issues understanding this.

 

[Aepervius]

It is not an assertion. It is a conclusion, and largely just a matter of having functional definitions regardless. There is very little about materialism that requires support, since most of it is just a matter of saying "we experience something, and we call it matter".

I am not certain why so many people have issues understanding this.

My opinion is that it is because they *wish* for it to be more than that.

 

[marplots]

Which is true enough, but labeling this as "solipsism-lite" is rather pointless and serves only to muddy the waters unnecessarily.

And it still is not an issue with the conclusion of materialism. Again, pointing out that there could be things we have failed to notice or understand is true, but useless. It changes nothing about the situation unless you can actually demonstrate that there is something we have missed.

Every time you discover something new you are demonstrating there was something you missed. And, to make it even more convincing, it's a repeatable experiment. If it weren't we'd have to stop discovering stuff.

 

[LarryS]

Not an assertion. It is the first basic physical "law" : something for which we found so many evidence, that at this point it would require solid evidence to change our outlook of it. But if we DID find evidence to the contrary we would change it.

This is different from an assertion. An assertion would be something for which we have no evidence, but we will simply assume.

In fact at some point we *had* something which was not material. Aether. We threw it out when it turned to not have evidence for it.

So yeah definitively not an assertion.

there is no evidence of matter . . . as nonpariel suggests: "we experience something, and we call it matter" . . . it's a description of how we see, not what we see. Also as nonpariel says "I am not certain why so many people have issues understanding this." - - - this cuts both ways.

 

[Nonpareil]

Every time you discover something new you are demonstrating there was something you missed. And, to make it even more convincing, it's a repeatable experiment. If it weren't we'd have to stop discovering stuff.

Read my previous posts.

 

[Nonpareil]

there is no evidence of matter

Except for all the matter.

it's a description of how we see, not what we see.

Exactly wrong.

Read my posts.

 

[marplots]

That is what non pareil is i think telling you. Therefore he ask you for an example of known unknown which we can discuss.

I'm not sure that was the ask, but here's a list of more than a hundred from some good thinkers: https://edge.org/responses/what-do-you-believe-is-true-even-though-you-cannot-prove-it

One presumes that a "known unknown" is a question folks feel there ought to be an answer to but cannot yet produce it.

 

[marplots]

Read my previous posts.

Pay me.

 

[JoeMorgue]

There is no evidence of matter.

*Reaches up, rubs the bridge of my nose and groans*

This sentence does not make sense.

You're typing on a computer. What do you think the computer is made of dreams and unicorn farts?

 

[Nonpareil]

Pay me.

To re-read a painfully simple concept, laid out quite plainly and in multiple posts?

Not worth it. If you cannot grasp the difference between baseless speculation and an actual argument, or understand that unanswered questions in other fields are not in any way an indication that materialism is or could be flawed, that is your problem, not mine.

 

[tsig]

there is no evidence of matter . . . as nonpariel suggests: "we experience something, and we call it matter" . . . it's a description of how we see, not what we see. Also as nonpariel says "I am not certain why so many people have issues understanding this." - - - this cuts both ways.

If I swing a baseball bat at you head will you duck?