materialism

This is kind of abstract. Maybe it will get firmed up. I raise it now because of a long, relatively coherent dream I had where all kinds of imagery came up. Great dryness of mouth but ice cubes turned to dusty pebbles in my mouth and full water bottles went empty as I picked them up. Masses of...

[All impolite comments will be ignored.] ;)

I've been arguing that I think that modern physical theories are moving towards absurdity. Computer Simulation or Multiverse is no better than religion; Religion even trumps those theories in evidence! Islam, for example, did stabilize a society for a very long time and even ushered in a Golden...

Some threads in this forum relate materialism with science. The concepts of materialism and science are not homogeneous. Materialism is a philosophical theory. Therefore they cannot be matched. Even worse, “materialism” is a confusing word. At least, this is what Ulises Moulines (University of...

Does materialism spell the end for scientific method? I've been pondering this question for some time. It looks like this... * At least 99% of modern scientific research into the brain points directly to it being the sole source of consciousness. Pretty much every aspect of conscious experience...

As some of you know, I think materialism is baloney. I subscribe to the much more parsimonious and skeptical notion that reality is in a trans-personal form of consciousness, of which we are localizations -- like whirlpools in a stream. This ontology is often called monistic idealism. My books...

First of all: let me apologize for any mistakes I made in grammar or style (English is not my first language). The traditional atheistic worldview regarding personal identity: YOU are a distinct person. There might be some (unknown) unique property that constitutes YOU and clearly distinguishes...

Objects do not set their own physical limits. An object is a set of physical limits that we alone have drawn upon materials and space. For example, only the concept of entertainment distinguishes a TV from the carpet it stands on. While this doen't rule out materiality, it rules out material...

Spiritualists and Materialists I still do not know what can be done to eliminate endless conflicts between materialists and spiritualists. But comments collected at several websites prompted me to compose a short on-line paper at: http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/theo_sci.html It...

Well, at least that is one of the claims in the book "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist" by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek. Many of you should know of this book as it is the focus of my Evidence thread in the History Forum. The book says this on page 129. "...if materialism is true...

My argument against materialism (=matter is all that primarily exists, everything else are configurations thereof) is really simple: 1. All empirical observations are dependent upon consciousness. 2. Materialism claims that there is something independent of consciousness (matter). 3...

The same conclusion that leads to atheism should also lead to materialism? If not, why not?

I would think that this speech won't go down very well on this forum: http://www.forum2000.cz/en/projects/forum-2000-conferences/2010/speeches/remarks-by-vaclav-havel-at-the-opening-ceremony/ Below The Guardian's take on it...

Thread discussion elsewhere has raised the question of what percentage of atheists are actually strong material atheists. It's clear from an Australian poll that lots of atheists have weird beliefs and the comment was made that everyone has an irrational belief. I believe that's BS myself...

Why materialism ? Well, a few days back our esteemed member UndercoverElephant implied that I cannot accept this dualistic ideas because I'm a materialist. Well, that's tautological, but what he actually said is that I cannot accept the idea that there is something as "free will" because I'm a...

Please no insults, even from me. Malerin, what difference does it make. Idealism and materialism are the same thing. There is no difference between the two. You assert that it may be that sensations and external reality does not exist, and that may be we may all be -Brains in Vats -butterfly...

It seems to me indisputable that science is a useful thing for changing the shape of our world, making life easier and creating exciting TV. But can it actually tell us anything about the nature of reality? I would consider both materialism and evolution theory as pointing toward science being...

It seems to me that dualism and theism are subsets of materialism (and in general, physicalism). Consider: Materialism -- the only thing we can know exists is matter, of one form or another. Regarding things we cannot know about, there is nothing we can say at this time. Theism -- the only...

Apparently all people have a precise idea of what constitutes "the final subtance" that the universe is "made of". Some believe that it is mind (idealists), some believe that it is god (pantheists) some others believe that it is matter (materialists). Extreme oversimplifications of course. I...

Reading through the thread about how negative atheism is supposed to be, plumjam asserts several times that every atheist he has ever met in this forum is a materialist and a believer in "Exclusive materialism. A materialism which denies the possibility of supposedly non physically verifiable...

Hi I'm probably stepping into the lion's den with this one. Maybe it's been discussed here before. I would like to know what people make of the problem of subjectivity. I could have said 'consciousness', but I said 'subjectivity' to make the point that our experience of consciousness is...

The Consumer Paradox: Scientists Find that Low Self-Esteem and Materialism Goes Hand in Hand So is increasing the economy always a good thing? I have long joked that it everyone became frugal to gain financial security our economy would collapse. I have heard it argued many times that the...

This is a question that I asked incidentally on another thread and that was not answered. I am still interested in any answers. Can you offer an item of scientific evidence that contradicts the hypothesis of a life force (a.k.a. chi, a.k.a. elan vital)? Please do not post that it's not...

"The estimated number of genes in the human genome has been repeatedly revised downward since the completion of the Human Genome Project; current estimates place the human genome at just under 3 billion base pairs and about 20,000–25,000 genes. A recent Science article gives a final number of...

I don't think it does. Do you?

http://www.freeworldacademy.com/spiritualodyssey/matwrong.htm materialism is wrong!

From the Dawkin's Thread Ah, the age old question, "Where is fancy bred? In the heart, or in the head?" --Willy Wonka and apologies to Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice but I prefer Wonka's version. Is logic not possible without a soul (homunculus) or at least some other force or something else...

Say we have a horse and a photo of a horse: Q1 for materialists) Does the horse exist independently of our photograph of it? A: Yes Q2 for materialists) Can we photograph the external horse? A: Yes If you try to answer yes to both questions then you are saying we can photograph a horse which is...

http://www.2think.org/2think.shtml And that is the truth of the matter. In ALL situations. It applies to belief in materialism every bit as much as it does to Islam.

This is prompted by a PM exchange with Tricky What I want to know is this: I have heard it stated before, by a professional philosopher, that "Logical arguments cannot convince us that physicalism is not true." He was basically saying that he believed that not-physicalist explanations of...