Idealists: What does 'physical' mean to you?

[paximperium]

To argue that it is in principle impossible to know what is the fundamental nature of reality, is to assume your own omniscience.. which is a condition you repeatedly state to be impossible. So you´re arguing against yourself.
When and how did you become omniscient?

What complete nonsense. Your hypocrisy is so blatant it is most amusing.

Pixy never once said it is impossible to know what is the fundamental nature of reality so your entire line of ad hominem, strawman garbage is irrelevant BS.

All anyone has said is that WE DON"T KNOW. No omnicient needed to make such a statement.

 

[PixyMisa]

To argue that it is in principle impossible to know what is the fundamental nature of reality, is to assume your own omniscience.. which is a condition you repeatedly state to be impossible. So you´re arguing against yourself.

Try addressing the point for once, rather than just making up patently spurious arguments.

You cannot know the fundamental nature of reality, because you can never know that there is not some more fundamental nature.

Nor do you have to be omnisicient to know that there are things you cannot know. Godel proved precisely that.

When and how did you become omniscient?

See above.

 

[PixyMisa]

What complete nonsense. Your hypocrisy is so blatant it is most amusing.

Pixy never once said it is impossible to know what is the fundamental nature of reality

I pretty much did.

so your entire line of ad hominem, strawman garbage is irrelevant BS.

But that's still true.

 

[athon]

To argue that it is in principle impossible to know what is the fundamental nature of reality, is to assume your own omniscience..

To describe the nature of something, it demands a more fundamental context. That's not out of 'omniscience' - it's axiomatic. The very process of describing a 'thing' demands it. Try to describe something without deferring to a more fundamental context; I won't hold my breath that you'll even bother trying.

Hence when it comes to 'the ultimate' foundation of reality, you find you'll simply need something more fundamental in order to describe its nature. In the end, all we can do is describe what 'something' does, without an ability to go the next step down. That's why science gave up attempting to go straight to the bottom, and instead opted for describing each subsequent layer of increasingly fundamental properties without attempting to speculate what any potential 'final layer' might be. It is, by definition, impossible.

That's why materialism currently only goes as far as describing the rules which account for our observations, as if it is all external.

Athon

 

[Dancing David]

Malerin, here is the deal, you assume, and HammeGK pointed out that this is a mistake, that because you have a thought, that somehow that explains away the issues that arise from thoughtialism. Even if you have a thought based universe 9which looks exactly like a thoughtial one), why do pieces of thought arrange themselves to create consciousness. You just sweep it all under the rug and pronounce ‘because I say so.
The following as much meaning as what you said, if you don’t assume that thought can just magically do what you think it does.



Speaking of parsimony, I'm glad to see we're all using the commonly understood meaning of the term and not some made-up crap

Also, speaking parsimoniously, idealism/thoughtism makes a huge assumption (nay, leap of faith) regarding consciousess. We are supposed to believe that reality is made up of thought stuff that takes up space and can be observed/weighed/measured/felt, etc. Ok, let's assume that's true. How is it then that a bunch of thought thought can be arranged in such a way as to create a completely non-thought phenemenon- consciousness? Does concsciousness take up space? How much does a consciousness weigh? How many joules does it put out? What does a consciousness look like or feel like? If you break apart consciousness in an thought smasher, what do the pieces look like? Consciousness has none of the properties that thought thought supposedly has. Why should there be anything like consciousness in a purely thought universe?

Consciouesness is totally outside the realm of thoughtity, and when thoughtialists claim that consciousness comes from thought, they are creating a fairy tale much more unparsimonious than anything a theist can come up with. The theist at least knows the mind exists, and so their claim that God (as a sort of super-mind) exists at least rests on a foundation of mind, however shaky it may be.

The thoughtialist is bereft of even the shakiest foundation. There is no evidence at all that thought thought exists, AND the idea that a non-thought phenemenon (consciousness) can arise from just putting pieces of thought together in the right way is more than a fairy tale, because even fairy tales are logically coherent. It is a completely ad-hoc non-sensical theory that the thoughtialist must believe in order to keep the whole house-of-cards that is idealism from collapsing.



Other than that your statement is a bunch of straw waving.

 

[Dancing David]

I find this a bizarre position. I thought we were supposed to be enquiring minds here, trying to understand reality. So it makes no difference at all to you whether the underlying fundamental reality is dead matter or Universal Consciousness?

Can you tell the difference?
How would you tell the difference?

If not then why does it matter?

 

[Dancing David]

-Materialism posits that there is a fundamental underlying 'substance' and that this 'substance' is what sustains existence.

Or in the version some of us are promoting

'The universe behaves as though there is a fundamental underlying 'substance' and that this 'substance' is what sustains existence.'

We can not know the ultimate root of this alleged substance, it could be quanta of energy, it could be godthought, individual thought or butterfly dreams. It could all be fairies and monkeys on motor scooters.

 

[Dancing David]

No. Essentially, as in the essence of objective phenomena, the atheist believes that reality is somehow self-causing and/or self-perpetuating and self-generating. (This is true even if they believe it's all parent and baby universes all the way down.)

Even if you say it's causeless you are still believing it is self-perpetuating.

That is obviously very different from theism.

~
HypnoPsi

How can you tell the difference?

The same applies exactly in the same way to a thea/theo.

The thea-ist believes that theo is 'self-perpetuating and self-generating'.

Still no way to tell the difference between the two.

 

[Dancing David]

No.

We merely observe that reality is. It can hardly not be, after all.

To nitpick, it appears to be.

It could be the Great Trickster and the Fairy Horde, after all.

 

[Dancing David]

Nope. Can't think of anything.

Chump chimp champ.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Just to interject.. this misunderstands the nature of explanation.
We only explain things by invoking other things and their interrelationships. At the fundamental level of reality there will be no further things, plus their interrelationships, which we can invoke in order to provide explanation.
In short, if we can explain something then that something is not fundamental.
What is fundamental will be, in principle, inexplicable.
It just is. All we can do is accept that.

Possibly so. However, don't go 'round saying that your baroque concept is fundamental without some serious research to determine whether it really is (think atom). And don't go 'round saying it's simpler than some other idea just because you think it's fundamental. Lumping all the hard stuff into a fundamental and then walking away is not a convincing argument.

~~ Paul

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

So now the ´natural consequence of monism´ is that you are left with no interest whatsoever in which particular monism is the case? This is getting a bit Orwellian.
It´s like doing a sum and claiming not to be interested in what the result is, due to the fact that you know it´s going to be a number. Another analogy would involve an ostrich and some sand.

I don't think you quite understand the consequences. How does it make sense to care about what you fundamentaly cannot possibly know?

Speaking of different types of monism thoroyghly misses the mark. If there is one thing, we cannot know precisely what it is in itself, so it makes no sense to speak of what type of monism it is. There cannot be more than one "thing". If you speak of different types of monism, then you are not discussing the fundamental existent but one of its attributes.

How so? These guys, like you, claimed to have no interest in whether fundamental reality is dead matter or Universal Consciousness?

No, they realized that we cannot know fundamental reality. Calling it matter, consciousness, whatever you want is either affixing a meaningless label to it -- in a confused and confusing process -- or describing an attribute of fundamental reality and not that reality in itself. This is pretty standard ontology-speak.

Like I said before, in the face of experience, reliance on argument is rather a damp squib. It is bowing to the lessons of experience which gives science its main strength. If people see a Magnificent Frigatebird in the Australian outback then no kind of argument that they didn´t actually see it is going to hold much sway with them.

Aristotle might have a bone to pick with you on that, since to him experience was only the fodder for knowledge. Knowledge depends on thought, reflection, argument, and a framework in which we makes sense of experience. As he was fond of saying, animals experience, man knows.

Spinoza was a philosopher (argumentation), not a mystic (experience), so see my previous reply.

Theresa of Avila was a mystic. She said the divine is blue. Was she factually correct? Maybe John of the Cross was wrong and Theresa's concern that the devil was fooling her was correct?

Youcan't seriously be arguing, using reason, that reason is essentially worthless in this situation. Why are you here, then, to gain converts?

More assumptions based only on argumentation rather than experience. Why would anyone who had experienced fundamental reality be swayed by your arguments?

Doesn't matter to me if you bother with reason or not. If your position is that reason doesn't matter, then that's fine. But don't argue it, since you can't be reasonable. You can say only -- I know the truth and you don't, nah, nah.

Unless you might be amenable to the realization that experience is simply experience and must be interpreted within some framework for it to be meaningful. What if you interpret from the wrong framework? That is the proepr place for reason and other experience. Traditionally, that is what is called wisdom.

Yet more assumptions. The fact that up to now you have personally only experienced ´things´ i.e. parts of reality, in no way prejudices the prospect that it may be possible to experience all of reality.

What assumption? I assume you have an argument against Spinoza. I would like to hear it.

Likewise your arguments about supposed limits to experience do not bring those limits into existence.

I'm sorry, but do you know how cognition works? Have you looked at how thought and experience work? Do you know how perception is even possible? If you want to argue that cognition and the ability to experience is limitless then I would like to hear how this is possible. Please provide your argument, along with the critique of Spinoza in your next post if you wish to continue, since you seem to be working under the misconception that he began with wild assumptions. Like anyone who thinks he began with premises. If you want to argue against a thinker, though, it doesn't work to claim -- assumption -- without showing where the problem might lie.

ould apply to all experience, including drinking a cup of coffee and the like.

Um, no. Fundamentals are not equal to the world of attributes of the fundamentals.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

You seem to have missed my point about the nature of, and the consequent limits to, explanation. Explanation consists of invoking further parts and their interrelationships. When you get to true fundamentality there will be no further parts, plus their interrelationships, which you can invoke in order to continue in the explanatory mode.. and you will be forced to switch into a mode of acceptance.
If further parts do become available then you know that you have not yet reached fundamentality.

To argue that it is in principle impossible to know what is the fundamental nature of reality, is to assume your own omniscience.. which is a condition you repeatedly state to be impossible. So you´re arguing against yourself.
When and how did you become omniscient?

So, which is it? We cannot explain fundamental reality or we are omnicient if we realize that we cannot fundamentally explain fundamental reality?

We can't know the nature of fundamental reality because to know it (or explain it so that we can say we know it) would require that it be compared to something else. There is nothing else to which it can be compared, so explanation is impossible. That is not a claim to omniscience. It is a claim of limitation.

When it comes to "reality" we describe only the attributes of fundamental reality. That's all we can do. The same is true of our experiences, since experience itself depends on limits that frame the experience.

Accept it or not, but the only other option is "I'm right, you're wrong, and we can't discuss this using reason" which fairly obviously brings an end to the conversation.

 

[PixyMisa]

To nitpick, it appears to be.

It could be the Great Trickster and the Fairy Horde, after all.

Ah, but even then, reality would be what it is.

That we observe anything at all tells us that there is a reality. Our observations may or may not accurately reflect the nature of reality, but it is indisputable that there is a reality.

I don't even remember now why I needed to make that point... Oh, yes, it was HypnoPsi telling us what atheists really believe.

 

[AkuManiMani]

My point was that there is no true 'fundamental', no final answer.

You base this on what?(Aside from just assuming it to be so)

I implicitly know it in much the same way a person knows that there is no last number and no smallest number. One can count indefinitely, divide without end, and not reach an 'ultimate' number. For the same reasons one can deduce and inquire indefinitely and not come upon an 'ultimate' explanation.

You seem to have missed my point about the nature of, and the consequent limits to, explanation. Explanation consists of invoking further parts and their interrelationships. When you get to true fundamentality there will be no further parts, plus their interrelationships, which you can invoke in order to continue in the explanatory mode.. and you will be forced to switch into a mode of acceptance.
If further parts do become available then you know that you have not yet reached fundamentality.

My point is that true 'fundamentality' will never be reached because of one simple word: why. Every answer, every explanation -- without exception -- is tentative and inherently incomplete. The idea of arriving at THE ultimate explanation is as absurd as counting to the 'last' number or catching the horizon.

 

[HypnoPsi]

The point is what theory is the stronger regarding the essence of phenomenal objects. Why are they there when, as modern physics has confirmed, they are nothing but information. What sustains them?

Well, one idea might be that natural selection dictates that we experience an "object orientated" world. The brain's sensory systems will have been created through evolution and so can be expected to render a phenomenology that best helps the organism to survive and replicate.

Nominated.

You know nick. This is are actually extremely good points. During infancy we do indeed go through an important phase(s) of development related to concrete and abstract thinking.

This coupled with the fact that we are evolutionarily primed to be concrete thinkers (you won't have much luck as a tree swinger if you can't judge distances) really does make us all "materialists" whether we want to be or not.

My being an amaterialist on an intellectual/philosophical level makes very little difference to my perception of such things as distance, weight, volume and time being "real" rather than just the mere information that modern physics teaches us - unequivocally - that they are.

eta: relating to this it could of course be that our experience of the world is so driven by natural selection that actually we have no possibility to carry out meaningful science or philosophy.

Nick

As pessimistic as this is, there is unquestionably a grain of truth in it.

Cheers,
HypnoPsi

 

[HypnoPsi]

You think you can escape incompleteness somehow, if only you think about it hard enough.

Nope. I don't think that either theism or materialism provides any sense of completeness. Instead, both theories only open up new questions and avenues for investigation, as is the way (and some would argue purpose) of the scientific habit of theorising.

Real materialists, like Pixy, Paul, and myself (to list a few) fully accept that there is a hard limit to what we can know.

I never suggested you didn't - nor would I.

When pixy says he does not believe in a fundamental existent that is self-generating and self-perpetuating, he means it. And the reason he doesn't believe in such a thing is because it is fundamentally unknowable to a human.

That is about as far from my point as you can get. Scientific thinking involves considerably more than just being skeptical of the other guys theory. That's the easy part of science. (I could sit here all day poking fun at thinking thermostats and computer consciousness.)

But that is not what makes science a noble pursuit.

The real test of someone's character lies in thesis defence. Which is why, traditionally, it has always been the completion of that task that makes someone a scientist (or, at the very least, recognised as scientific in their thinking).

And, to be concise, that means constructing a theory that is both parsimonious and testable (even if just in principle and not in practice) and actively defending it.

Are you saying you are incapable of this? Why? Are you embarrased about the fact that there is no evidence that the Universe is self-sustaining/self-generating and that there is absolutely no evidence for such things as computer consciousness, etc.,? In otherwords, are you embarrased about the fact that it's all just faith?

You can't begin to fathom what "self-generating" must mean -- no human can.

That is not the point. A theory (a proposition that is maintained by argument), be it presented as a single statement or lengthy tract in a dissertation, wouldn't be a theory if we knew how it worked. It would be "fact".

All you seem to be doing here is trying desparately to avoid being in a position where you actually have to defend some claim or other. That's hardly very scientific, is it?

~
HypnoPsi

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

And, to be concise, that means constructing a theory that is both parsimonious and testable (even if just in principle and not in practice) and actively defending it.

I await your active defense of my objection that you are extending your analogy too far.

Are you saying you are incapable of this? Why? Are you embarrased about the fact that there is no evidence that the Universe is self-sustaining/self-generating and that there is absolutely no evidence for such things as computer consciousness, etc.,? In otherwords, are you embarrased about the fact that it's all just faith?

Why do you keep repeating that there is no evidence for a self-sustaining universe? The trees in my yard are self-sustaining. My consciousness is not sustaining them and either is any perceivable god, except by disanalogy to my own consciousness that is not sustaining them. Your rant against self-generation applies equally to your own model.

You're doing an awful lot of armchair pyschoanalyzing of everyone else.

~~ Paul

 

[plumjam]

To describe the nature of something, it demands a more fundamental context. That's not out of 'omniscience' - it's axiomatic. The very process of describing a 'thing' demands it. Try to describe something without deferring to a more fundamental context; I won't hold my breath that you'll even bother trying.

Hence when it comes to 'the ultimate' foundation of reality, you find you'll simply need something more fundamental in order to describe its nature. In the end, all we can do is describe what 'something' does, without an ability to go the next step down. That's why science gave up attempting to go straight to the bottom, and instead opted for describing each subsequent layer of increasingly fundamental properties without attempting to speculate what any potential 'final layer' might be. It is, by definition, impossible.

That's why materialism currently only goes as far as describing the rules which account for our observations, as if it is all external.

Athon

This is rather amusing, because it is very similar to what I stated twice in recent posts in this thread to Akumanimani.
Please note that with Pixy I was talking about knowing. Not describing.
Knowing and explaining (describing if you prefer) are two very different things.

 

[plumjam]

Try addressing the point for once, rather than just making up patently spurious arguments.

You cannot know the fundamental nature of reality, because you can never know that there is not some more fundamental nature.

Again, all you are doing is restating your omniscience. How do you know that you cannot know that you can know something?

Nor do you have to be omnisicient to know that there are things you cannot know. Godel proved precisely that.

Godel was omniscient? Well, just two letters out. Godel was talking about all finite systems having to rely upon assumptions external to the system itself. That would not apply to omniscience.