My argument against materialism

[PixyMisa]

Have I fallen "through a gap" into another discipline, are there any ontologists present?

Because you persist in asking meaningless questions.

Theology helps us to understand the nature of divinity.

Which doesn't exist.

Also if God were not to exist, considerations regarding morality and ethics. Along with some kind of context for humanity within existence.

Sure. The same as any particularly inane and self-absorbed work of fiction.

If you actually want some context for humanity within existence, read Calvin and Hobbes.

This is not the place to go down these avenues, I would prefer to concentrate on the issue in hand until and reach some kind of resolution before moving on.

Then why don't you try doing that?

 

[Belz...]

Hand waving.

No, he's answering your question, which was pretty much rhetorical.

I cant see how we can, all we can do is remain open minded and consider all possible avenues of understanding.

No, we need to do more science, and less "oh, gee, wouldn't it be kewl if reality were like [insert pet theory here] !!!1111"

I made this observation from my enquiry into what energy and atoms are.

Ah, I see. So what you meant to say was "the more I ask my nonsensical questions, the more difficult it gets FOR ME to understand reality." Sure.

Science, philosophy, theology and direct experience.

Science is the only one of those which produced RELIABLE results. The other ones lead to making stuff up. I wish you'd learn that.

 

[Belz...]

I am interested in what we don't know.

Ignoring what we DO know will not result in you learning what we don't know.

 

[Dancing David]

I thank you for your post.

If I step on a bug with my boot I'm trying to crush it so it will become something else, a splat on the floor. If something prevents me from crushing it, I can say that something is holding it together. I think the distinction you made is meaningless i.e. unnecessary.

Welcome to the JREF, 75% of the discussions are always about clarifications and defnitions.

You have now equated , resistance to deformation as holding together, which is going to declarify.

the point is to reach common grounds for discussion not insistence on personal idioms as meaningful to others.

 

[Dancing David]

I thank you for your post.

If I step on a bug with my boot I'm trying to crush it so it will become something else, a splat on the floor. If something prevents me from crushing it, I can say that something is holding it together. I think the distinction you made is meaningless i.e. unnecessary.

To simplify communications I'm going to christen this theory which is unknown to me as "Global EMF Repulsion Theory or "GEMFR."

Physicists commonly and simply explain the reason why Jupiter, for example, doesn't collapse is it doesn't have enough mass. GEMFR implies that even if you add more matter to the planet you would also get more EMF repulsion. The two would balance out & Jupiter could never collapse. There shouldn't be any stars, black holes etc.

Even if GEMFR is a real theory, I think it suffers from the aforementioned flaw and is unnecessary to explain the physics. Pure Agent you can debate my points if you like but I really need to view several references by the physics community on GEMFR. I've never even seen it in the literature nor heard it mentioned in any lecture. There are lots of fringe ideas in physics but I need to know that GEMFR or whatever it's called is accepted by the main stream and the reasons why it doesn't suffer from any flaws.

I assume you learned of GEMFR from somewhere, so please share the sources. I don't find the Roche limit reference that Pixy Misa referred to, or most anything she has said on this subject, convincing. I look forward to studying the GEMFR references.

As an aside that is a lot of straw and you should really take it to the SMT

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=5

You have mis-stated positions, you have overgeneralized and made conclusions from inference that were not posted by the others, therefore it is a straw argument and your projection rather than an actual critique. You have constructed a false dichotomy as well.

Welcome to the JREF!

 

[Dancing David]

I agree trying to get anything out of pixy, is like getting blood out of a stone.

You wait until he starts using the "no" word, he'll really tie you up in knots then.

When you have partcipated in twenty or more of these threads which mis state the position of materialism and try to straw argue about things that materialsim does not say, then you will understand.

the best critiques have to understand a theory rather than just make straw attacks,

You have been told that ontology is moot to naturalism, yet you persist in asking about it.

 

[Dancing David]

I cant see how we can, all we can do is remain open minded and consider all possible avenues of understanding.

Excuse me, the possibilities are speculative therefore moot and not about materialsim, but your personal needs.

This is speculation about things that we can not determine. Therefore outside the area of naturalism.

 

[punshhh]

Excuse me, the possibilities are speculative therefore moot and not about materialsim, but your personal needs.

This is speculation about things that we can not determine. Therefore outside the area of naturalism.

Thankyou your posts have been very informative, it was some of the other posters who were not very helpfull.

 

[punshhh]

Ignoring what we DO know will not result in you learning what we don't know.

The opposite is the case, unless one is stating that we can know nothing.

How else can we determine that science does not know of what reality is.

To the casual observer it might appear that it does.

 

[tsig]

I cant see how we can, all we can do is remain open minded and consider all possible avenues of understanding.

Even avenues that have proven to be dead ends?

 

[tsig]

Ok I can see that materialism might abandon the "concept of matter" and that matter may not be "the point" of materialism

My question was originally regarding energy, what I was looking for in the answer is what this existence we know of is "made up of".

Of what is this table I am leaning on constituted?

Alternatively through what concept is the existence of this table justified by materialism?

Concepts are putty.

 

[tsig]

Science, philosophy, theology and direct experience.

Which theo?

 

[tsig]

I don't have any.

I am interested in what we don't know.

Then first you should acquaint yourself with what we do know.

 

[tsig]

The opposite is the case, unless one is stating that we can know nothing.

How else can we determine that science does not know of what reality is.

To the casual observer it might appear that it does.

Yeah you're right. Light is a gift from god and we are held to the earth by god's will, the angels push the planets around and the sun is kept hot by the flames of hell.

 

[dafydd]

Is quark not just another particle.

What is it then?

 

[dafydd]

I cant see how we can, all we can do is remain open minded and consider all possible avenues of understanding.

Including the avenues that come out of fairy stories too?

 

[PixyMisa]

I thank you for your post.

If I step on a bug with my boot I'm trying to crush it so it will become something else, a splat on the floor. If something prevents me from crushing it, I can say that something is holding it together. I think the distinction you made is meaningless i.e. unnecessary.

And you would, of course, be entirely wrong.

You can't crush water. It is, however, trivially easy to pull it apart. And all of that depends on the electromagnetic force.

 

[Nonpareil]

If something prevents me from crushing it, I can say that something is holding it together. I think the distinction you made is meaningless i.e. unnecessary.

Every other English speaker understands the difference. If you want to say that they're the same thing, go ahead, but understand that no one else agrees with you, and your position will only lead to more meaningless semantic quibbles.

Pure Agent you can debate my points if you like but I really need to view several references by the physics community on GEMFR. I've never even seen it in the literature nor heard it mentioned in any lecture. There are lots of fringe ideas in physics but I need to know that GEMFR or whatever it's called is accepted by the main stream and the reasons why it doesn't suffer from any flaws.

I assume you learned of GEMFR from somewhere, so please share the sources. I don't find the Roche limit reference that Pixy Misa referred to, or most anything she has said on this subject, convincing. I look forward to studying the GEMFR references.

What are you banging on about now? I never talked about the physics because I don't care about the physics. The physics are irrelevant. This entire argument stems from your weird English usage, not me - or Pixy - coming up with a new physics theory.

 

[Robin]

The opposite is the case, unless one is stating that we can know nothing.

How else can we determine that science does not know of what reality is.

To the casual observer it might appear that it does.

Do you persist in saying that "what is reality?" is a meaningful question?

 

[dlorde]

I am interested in what we don't know.

It's a little dated, but this article should give you a rough idea. Note: some of the questions may have been answered since the article was published.

In another sense, pace Rumsfeld, you can never know anything about what we don't know because if you knew it, it wouldn't be unknown...