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There are no material objects

Mashuna said:
My fault, this one. Although he's since deleted his opening post, Jonesboy had started another thread in the Science forum about, basically, how material objects don't really exist. I suggested a merge to the mods after the first post, but by the time they came to merge it there were a number of new posts in both threads that then just appeared in chronological order rather than thread order.
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Ouch! In this case at least, it destroyed a good thread... :(
 
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Resume said:
Explain what you mean please.
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Simple. Some members jump as soon as they (think) have spotted some "woo". Its what makes them tick, having this kind of fun bashing what woo's believe. Now, some words are special triggers for such individuals, they spot "spirit" and bang! bash whatever the post was about, the same goes for "immaterial".

Now, the interesting part here, is that I was "accused" :rolleyes: by a poor naive materialist (dafydd) of bringing "immaterial stuff" to the table. I was not, I was pointing out that the religious based debate between the material and the immaterial was no longer needed (unless dealing with really non educated woo's), and explaining that both kinds of "stuff" belong to the same category. For me... BOTH material and immaterial stuff ARE WOO.

Sure, I have no problems dealing with matter in the everyday life, I do state that the world is made of matter and that there are no immaterial things LIKE: ghosts, supernatural "forces" and the like.

Still, of course there are immaterial things around, they are simply of no interest from the sense of "supernatural stuff", like the value of a coin, and this what I have stated.
 
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Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
Do yourself a favor, stop being a joke, tackle my answers, don't talk at my back :rolleyes:
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Why so confrontational? I'd have thought you'd be a little more philosophical about people disagreeing with you and you'd make rational arguments instead of hectoring others.
 
dafydd said:
Some hope. His obtuse sesquipedal answers contain very little meaning. On ignore he goes.
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He speaks like every other philosopher I've come across, able to explain the whichness of why and how high's the sky but can't form a simple declarative sentence.:(
 
tsig said:
Why so confrontational? I'd have thought you'd be a little more philosophical about people disagreeing with you and you'd make rational arguments instead of hectoring others.
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I'm rational when people talks in a reasonable fashion. Look at my history. That said, this dafydd character has insulted me in several ocassions, how come I react to his agressions and turns out I'm the confrontational one? Come on, dufydd lacks education, is unable to state arguments (just little sentences), constantly fights straw mans and ignore relevant answers when they contradict what he was claiming before... he needs to write rationaly and stop the insults, for a start.

tsig said:
He speaks like every other philosopher I've come across, able to explain the whichness of why and how high's the sky but can't form a simple declarative sentence.:(
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Read more of my posts then.
 
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Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
Sure, I have no problems dealing with matter in the everyday life, I do state that the world is made of matter and that there are no immaterial things LIKE: ghosts, supernatural "forces" and the like.
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Yes I agree. Examining navel lint, while occasionally enjoyable, well, it just doesn't feed the Admiral's cat.
 
Twiler said:
So, to continue with the debate, while I cannot deny the possibility of non-material entities existing but being undetectable, I don't consider them to exist in any sense that is meaningful.

I don't believe that cartesian dualism can be valid, due to the impossibility of interactions between material and non-material entities.

Information consists of 'patterns' of matter, rather than something different and opposed to them.
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Exactly which is why I argue that godthought, butterfly dreams or any other ontology to explain reality is equivalent. We see what appears to be.
 
tsig said:
Why so confrontational? I'd have thought you'd be a little more philosophical about people disagreeing with you and you'd make rational arguments instead of hectoring others.
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Teenagers are often confrontational.
 
Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
Indeed, it is as simple as that. Interesting to note is that (sometimes) this turns the heat on in the JREF.
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So, how is that different from materialism?

You see, I consider what we perceive to be matter, by definition, because we can observe deterministic patterns.
 
Twiler said:
So, how is that different from materialism?

You see, I consider what we perceive to be matter, by definition, because we can observe deterministic patterns.
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Twiler, I will respectfuly ask you to read what I have answered so far, to you specifically and to other members. It is different because ontology is seen as irrelevant. Materialism takes for granted that there is a magical "final substance" called matter, that's what makes it woo.

In contrast, this position is called realism, other ways to put it is "instrumentalism", "scientific realism" or "indirect realism" (as opposed by "naive realism" the position most materialists (at least members of the JREF) simply assume. You can look at their definitions in wikipedia to clarify. Now, the patterns, the facts are real, scientific method allows us to "connect the dots" using theoretical models. That's it.
 
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Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
Twiler, I will respectfuly ask you to read what I have answered so far, to you specifically and to other members. It is different because ontology is seen as irrelevant. Materialism takes for granted that there is a magical "final substance" called matter, that's what make it woo.

In contrast, this position is called realism, other ways to put it is "instrumentalism", "scientific realism" or "indirect realism" (as opposed by "naive realism" the position most materialists (at least members of the JREF simply assume). You can look at their definitions in wikipedia to clarify. Now, the patterns, the facts are real, scientific method allows us to "connect the dots" using theoretical models. That's it.
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So, how does ontology feature in what Dancing David said?
 
Twiler said:
So, how does ontology feature in what Dancing David said?
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Err.. when the answer is evident, I tend to see hidden agendas... do you have one? He states that it is irrelevant to call reality as "made of matter" or "butterly dreams"... because, ontology is moot.
 
Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
Err.. when the answer is evident, I tend to see hidden agendas... do you have one? He states that it is irrelevant to call reality as "made of matter" or "butterly dreams"... because, ontology is moot.
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Oh, I thought you meant it the other way around.

Okay, if I roll a dice, and read a six as the result, is my belief that the dice shows a six based on blind faith?
 
Twiler said:
Oh, I thought you meant it the other way around.

Okay, if I roll a dice, and read a six as the result, is my belief that the dice shows a six based on blind faith?
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What are you talking about? Can you put an argument disclosing where do you want to get?
 
Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
What are you talking about? Can you put an argument disclosing where do you want to get?
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Fine.

Why should I consider that there is anything but material entities when I see no evidence of anything that isn't a material entity?

How it is 'blind faith' to take a materialistic stand-point when considering the existence of non-material entities makes no difference to my actions?

What is the merit of considering the unknowable?
 
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