Interesting Ian
Banned
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2004
- Messages
- 7,675
There's soo much more to it than this. I'm passionately concerned about what materialists are trying to tell people. That the self is an illusion (and sometimes even consciousness!), that peoples' free will is an illusion, that we live in an inherently purposeless Universe and the only meaning in our lives is the meaning we give it. In other words there is no meaning imposed from outside as it were. That there is no "God" and we're all alone. That everything we ever see, ever hear, ever smell, ever touch is not actually constitutive of reality itself but is simply an experience generated by physical processes in the brain caused by a wholly unknown and unknowable reality.
None of these beliefs are justified and indeed we have excellent reasons to doubt all of them. I shall continue to expose the fallcious reasoning leading to such absurdities until my last dying breath.
I'm not happy to do that. I'm more interested in attacking peoples' beliefs on here.
Dualists (of the traditional variety) believe in both substantial selves and believe in an existence of a physical world deemed to be ontologically independent of our perception of it.
Allow me to quote from my forthcoming website:
We tend to think of our behaviour as being a result of our desires and intentions. Thus for example, in waking up in the morning, I might have the choice of having either porridge, or eggs and bacon for breakfast. I am immediately aware of having the power to choose which to have. I might choose eggs and bacon because I prefer the taste. Or I might choose porridge, maybe not because I prefer the taste, but because I am concerned with my weight or health. But whatever I choose it seems for all the world that it is my choice, and it is ultimately my choice even though I might be heavily influenced in making one choice or the other. Thus I may have no problems with my health and weight, have no ethical problems with eating meat, and vastly prefer the taste of eggs and bacon. Therefore it would seem I have no reason to choose to eat porridge for breakfast and every reason to eat eggs and bacon instead. Yet, notwithstanding all of this, I nevertheless still appear to have the power to choose to eat porridge. This power to choose between alternatives is what we refer to as free will.
However, if we are to consider ourselves as being the same characteristic type of thing as any other physical thing or process, then, on the face of it, we have a difficulty here. We intuitively suppose that the vast preponderance of physical processes in the Universe are not accompanied by any conscious awareness. Thus for example, we tend to suppose that a boulder rolling down a hill, the planets which orbit the Sun and so on, unlike us, do not have accompanying mental experiences. Hence there is no question of such physical processes having any free will. It merely requires the application of physical laws to completely understand their behaviour.
Take the example of the Earth orbiting the Sun. We suppose that the Sun’s gravitational field constrains the Earth to follow a circular path around the Sun. Indeed, in the absence of any other forces, we would consider it miraculous if it took any other path.
In contrast we appear to be in direct control of much of our behaviour. It might be extremely unusual indeed for me to make the choice to eat porridge for breakfast; indeed it might be unprecedented. But it would scarcely be considered to be miraculous! This underscores the notion that it seems that I am never compelled to behave or choose in a given manner. It seems I have the power to choose to eat porridge rather than eggs and bacon, even in the absence of any good reasons for so choosing, and even if inevitably I never do so.
It doesn't. But our lives are certainly purposeless if we cease to exist. WE may have a sense of purpose of course. And our lives may be meaningful, but it is a self-created meaning rather than a meaning imposed from outside.
Oh don't you concern your pretty little head about me. I've always been out of step with the rest of the human race every since my first ever memories in this world. I shall always be until the day I die, and perhaps after that too.
