My argument against materialism

The question is not meaningful.

What does it do?

Well, that's what it is.

So we don't have a thing, or "it", we only have actions.

I agree and this is inline with Dancing Davids point.

What the "it" is not addressed by materialism.

The only folk who address what "it" is are theologians and philosophers, oh and lets not forget them, mystics.
 
So we don't have a thing, or "it", we only have actions.

I agree and this is inline with Dancing Davids point.

What the "it" is not addressed by materialism.

The only folk who address what "it" is are theologians and philosophers, oh and lets not forget them, mystics.
Give me just one example of a theologian, philosopher or mystic who has ever addressed what the "it" is.

What is the "it" and what did they decide it "is"?

Just one.
 
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Not really, it just seems so to you. I was talking about a finite cube containing an infinite long rod. Obviously, this is only possible if the rod is one dimensional (or two, but I'm having a hard time imagining a rod in two dimensions). If the cube were infinite, the rod could be a real one.

theoretical infinities again, I have no argument with these.


No. You still don't understand infinities. The rod would have to be infinite in all dimensions to occupy all space. It woulds also have to be continuous according to the "granularity" of the space it occupies. Otherwise, it could be infinitely long in all dimensions but still leave an infinite amount of free space.

Wow, infinite in all directions. I like the way you visualise this, I was confining my view to a strictly 3D metal rod to remain understandable.

Clearly we are contemplating absurdities here.

My original point was there could not be any infinite things(with a physical presence) in spacetime.
 
All of 'em. What are they made out of and how do they work?

Punshhh tells us that the theologians and mystics have answered this.

My point was they had addressed "it", this does not mean they have decided what it is.

I cannot speak for philosophers on what conclusions they have drawn. Theologians are working from the assumption of the existence of God and their conclusion would be in terms of divinity. I will confine my response to how mystics have addressed this, I will post later today as it is not easy to explain.
 
My point was they had addressed "it", this does not mean they have decided what it is.
And they never will. Because if they ever decided what "it" is, then they would only have identified another "it" and have to decide what that was. And so ad infinitum
 
Give me just one example of a theologian, philosopher or mystic who has ever addressed what the "it" is.

What is the "it" and what did they decide it "is"?

Just one.

Ok, I will provide one, I will have to look it up though.

My point was not what "it" is, but rather that the substrate which the materialists universe is made of and rests upon consists of something not known other than in its observable activity.
 
So we don't have a thing, or "it", we only have actions.

[snip]

The only folk who address what "it" is are theologians and philosophers, oh and lets not forget them, mystics.
Sure. Which means that, by definition, theologians, philosophers, and mystics are always wrong.
 
Why use something as profound as this as a staging point to then go into other silly things? Why address machinations of the human mind, then proceed to bring up the chakras. I mean whether you think it's an argument against materialism or not, even a materialist realizes the stupidity of infinitely long rods, massless frictionless pulleys made of unobtanium. But we frame our conjectures on it merely to demonstrate as easily as possible between ourselves and all who are interested.

Everything you have said hasn't addressed anything against materialism, all it has been is pleading from a source you aren't willing to divulge and instead you feign victim to ignorance of our knowledge all the while feeling we are victim to the lack of knowledge you claim to be aware of. What crap is that punshhh?

Dafydd introduced chakras into this thread, I had mentioned them in another thread.
 
Ok, I will provide one, I will have to look it up though.

My point was not what "it" is, but rather that the substrate which the materialists universe is made of and rests upon consists of something not known other than in its observable activity.
So in other words they don't consider the question of what things are. Contrary to what you claimed earlier.

Will they provide a method for verifying their conclusions?

Science might discover some substrate upon which this universe subsists and which is not known by anything other than its observable activity.

But if science ever does it will also provide a method of verifying the conclusion.
 
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Thank you for offering an explanation, its a good analogy.

I agree that energy can be viewed as like money, unfortunately, there is a problem in this analogy.

As I see it, the currency or money is has a number or value say £1.50, this remains the same what ever form it comes in, paper, copper or alloy.
Perhaps the analogy could be refined - energy is more like wealth. You can have it in cash, material possessions, land, even political power & influence. One form of wealth can be converted to another, and it can be used to get things done. If I use my cash to build a house, I most of that cash is converted to material property wealth, but there are always some losses in the conversion, e.g. breakages, spoilage, trimmings (excess wages, fraud, taxes?). In this analogy, the total amount of wealth always remains the same, but high-quality wealth, like cash, becomes degraded with use, becoming less usable, until ultimately you end up with lots of undesirable, hard-to-shift wealth, like scrap, IOUs, vague promises, rubbish, etc. Like most analogies, it's the concept that is important, not the detail.

I dunno how helpful this is likely to be - you only need to read and contemplate the implications of the basic physics explanations online to understand what energy, work, force, etc., are. I suspect that punshhh is being so obtuse, if not deliberately, through lack of effort, not lack of capacity.
 
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So in other words they don't consider the question of what things are. Contrary to what you claimed earlier.

No, I am not addressing what things are.
Will they provide a method for verifying their conclusions?

There is modeling, by its nature it may not make sense to materialists. However it should be comprehensible to philosophers.

Science might discover some substrate upon which this universe subsists and which is not known by anything other than its observable activity.

But if science ever does it will also provide a method of verifying the conclusion.[/QUOTE
]

Of course.

I thought Descartes was a suitable reference, as it is a more scientific way of addressing the issue than through divinity.

http://www.ul.ie/~philos/vol1/eustac1.html
 
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Journal Entry - March 4th, 2011

We have trudged through 29 pages of wilderness, wearing out 4 pairs of shoes a man. As yet, none in our party have witnessed the rumoured-to-exist "point". We are running low on food and supplies, although we do have several boxes of "clues" to give out to any natives who might show an interest.

Yesterday, Smythe made the unfortunate error of asking one of the indigenous about the location of this prized "point"..... we have been finding pieces of him all morning. I can understand his desperation - this journey has been long and arduous and I dont believe we are any closer to this "point" than we were when we started.

Quietly I am starting to doubt this "point" ever existed at all. The map we were given seems to lead us in circles, in what I believe is an attempt to tire us to the point where we no longer care about the existence of the "point".... to what end, I cannot fathom. Morale is at an all-time low, and Im not sure I care about this "point" anymore myself.

Jones' famous stew is beckoning me, and I must source a new pair of boots. Perhaps we will be lucky enough to stumble upon Smythe's legs with boots intact.

-- END OF ENTRY --

:D Nominated.
 
It is, of course, a profoundly incomprehensible mystery that this universe has somehow created a race of creatures with some manner of capacity to decide their own fate.

"Of course" ? You speak as though it was a proven fact. It isn't. This isn't a mystery, and science has made great leaps at attempting to explain that in the last 150 years. Sorry you weren't paying attention.

....hang on a sec Halfcentaur....I've gotta go for a very very very very long piss!

Congratulations for proving his point.
 
What's troubling to me is that you would somehow abandon your children and stop loving them if you were to decide it was an emotion founded on purely material means and natural behavior. Why do these things require some kind of supernatural acknowledgement to matter to you?

This is one thing I find worrying about theists who claim atheism is the path to immorality. The assumption that without cosmic meaning chaos is the natural consequence doesn't make these people earn my trust.
 
Yes, we know what your point was. You're wrong - or at least, your argument is invalid.

Oh your going to sweep it under the carpet then.

Anyway unless you want to look into infinity again right now, perhaps we should put it to one side and return to what our entire edifice of existence is made/constituted of.

I am happy with your point that energy and matter are defined by their observable activities.

Lets have a look at extension ref' Descartes observation that matter is extension in physical space.

Perhaps this extension is part of the inflation of spacetime, matter is that "expression" or manifestation of space.
 

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