I challenge you: your best alternate to materialism

[Apathia]

With the new "Big Tent" Materialism where information and even Math is Matter, and Empiricism is tantamount to Materialism, I guess we don't really need an alternative.

BTW the root for materia is mater, mother. I don't know whether to feel warm and fuzzy or hide in the closet.

 

[The Norseman]

…and I can present at least a half dozen neuroscientists who have categorically stated that not only do we NOT know, we actually have no idea how consciousness comes about.

Then do so. By the way, since you're familiar with their works, how do they know "categorically" that we do not know?

 

[The Man]

No it isn't for the purpose of materialism vs idealism.

OK so “for the purpose of materialism vs idealism” just information isn’t fundamentally material.

It is the same fallacy you would use by saying "materislism is wrong because all is vibrating string of energy in 99.99999% void".

Well, it’s your fallacy.

For the purpose of idealism, holographic theory is NOT immaterial.

Wait, what happened to “No it isn't for the purpose of materialism vs idealism”?

You are redefining terms and idea to match materialism that you can deny.

What terms have I redefined? Where did I deny materialism?

This is about brain and thought, and how the world is formed either therefrom or in absence of. Youa re mistaking what idealism is about.

No I’m not and I’ve tried to be as specific about that as I can. That you still want to just ascribe to me augments I have not made indicates that I have failed in that endeavor.

Because this is how PHYSIC define it. You are using a pre-19th century definition. If you want to say materislism is wrong, use the definition of today.

Great got a citation for “how PHYSIC define it”? Where exactly do you think I “want to say materislism is wrong”?

Thus, matter does not have a universal definition, nor is it a fundamental concept in physics today. Matter is also used loosely as a general term for the substance that makes up all observable physical objects.

So not well defined and not even a fundamental concept in physics today.

The source…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter

And that encompass vibrating string of energy on a 2D volume i.e. information.

Wouldn't material under idealism also just be information?

 

[The Man]

With the new "Big Tent" Materialism where information and even Math is Matter, and Empiricism is tantamount to Materialism, I guess we don't really need an alternative.

BTW the root for materia is mater, mother. I don't know whether to feel warm and fuzzy or hide in the closet.

Seems that way, cast a big enough net and you get all fish. Who knows, next week even idealism will be materialism.

Oh and I do thank you for your support before.

Sorry, Darat I gave it a shot.

 

[Apathia]

Seems that way, cast a big enough net and you get all fish. Who knows, next week even idealism will be materialism.

Oh and I do thank you for your support before.

Sorry, Darat I gave it a shot.

It's gotten close to that already a couple of times over in the other thread.
But I think the popular trend of the thread will still draw a distinction based on
Materialism equals Science. Idealism equals all kinds of woo-woo.

In an attempt to communicate with people, I often let them have their pet definitions and usages of words while I try to understand their point of view.
You remember I did that with Doron Shadmi for a couple of years.
Problem there was he wasn't consistent with his own definitions, meaning leaked out of them, and communication became impossible.

At least I get the values he's trying to promote with his leaky vessel.
And I think I see the value agenda here as well. People want to secure the doors and board up any cat door that might allow the slightest excuse for any supernatural claim to gain entry.

Carry on then, friends. Keep the vermin out.

 

[Aepervius]

OK so “for the purpose of materialism vs idealism” just information isn’t fundamentally material.

It is. That's jsut ebcause you keep ignoring the definition of information and material is not as "immaterial" as you want it.

What terms have I redefined? Where did I deny materialism?

You redefined materialism in such a way that it would be the old definition of matter pre-quantum theory or even pre string theory.

You also redefined idealism in such a way that it would encompass the only definition as being immaterial.

Idealism is object and knowledge being dependent of the mind. Being immaterial as in , idea. Not being immaterial as being a vibrant string in n-dimension. That's where both redefinition are.

Well i am pretty much done for today anyway. As far as I can tell I do not expect either of us to move away from our position, whomever is right or wrong.

 

[Lowpro]

Seems that way, cast a big enough net and you get all fish. Who knows, next week even idealism will be materialism.

Oh and I do thank you for your support before.

Sorry, Darat I gave it a shot.

Heh it's probably more accurate to indict naive philosophy for the mind as the culprit. Models will be expanded since multiple plausible models necessarily must function together, otherwise they're missing something and they'll be reevaluated. However philosophy has a problem with adapting to evidence unless it indicts the epistemology of evidence. You wouldn't expect to get far that way though. They'd just see the wide net and say "That's not all the fish" they'd just have ideas for more fish

 

[The Man]

It is. That's jsut ebcause you keep ignoring the definition of information and material is not as "immaterial" as you want it.

I think you are confusing what you want me to want with what I really couldn't give a crap about.

Ok, so you were trying to say that just information is material?

You redefined materialism in such a way that it would be the old definition of matter pre-quantum theory or even pre string theory.

Nope I didn't, I'm the one that brought up the holographic principle.

You also redefined idealism in such a way that it would encompass the only definition as being immaterial.

Again, not me, "...or otherwise immaterial" was from the definition you cited.

Idealism is object and knowledge being dependent of the mind. Being immaterial as in , idea. Not being immaterial as being a vibrant string in n-dimension. That's where both redefinition are.

Where the heck did I mention "a vibrant string in n-dimension" or try to redefine it.

Well i am pretty much done for today anyway. As far as I can tell I do not expect either of us to move away from our position, whomever is right or wrong.

Well, I always have hope for actual communication, so I’ll give it another shoot.

In the holographic principle our 3 dimensional reality is information on a 2D surface. However, in our minds we still experience 3 physical dimensions. We can also effectively model 3 dimension but even that effective 3D model breaks down (or purportedly would) at higher energies and sufficiently small distances because there isn’t actually that third dimension even though we do perceive it as such. In that application the third dimension is a construct of our minds and models that ultimately fails to be reflected in physical reality.


Which is again why I say it is closer to idealism. It’s not actually idealism because consciousness is not primary nor even required for reality. Even if we extend the principle to all three spatial dimension it still would not make consciousness primary or even required. However, it would make what we experience as reality largely a construct of our own minds interpreting data that ultimately doesn’t support that construct. In this case the existence of those dimensions as indicated by (what would presumably be) the failure of the models that include them.

 

[The Man]

Heh it's probably more accurate to indict naive philosophy for the mind as the culprit. Models will be expanded since multiple plausible models necessarily must function together, otherwise they're missing something and they'll be reevaluated. However philosophy has a problem with adapting to evidence unless it indicts the epistemology of evidence. You wouldn't expect to get far that way though. They'd just see the wide net and say "That's not all the fish" they'd just have ideas for more fish

True, but it does seem (at least to me) materialism is moving closer to idealism than idealism moving closer to materialism.

I was going to bring this up in the other thread when you asked about information theory but that thread was just too much of a cacophony. When Darat started this one I thought that might be the time to bring it up and expected some discourse. Basically I'm just swinging at the fence anyway and even if I foul out at least someone might get conked on the head.

 

[PixyMisa]

Who said it would change anything "about the behaviour of our universe"?

Naive idealism asserts that the Universe is other than it is observed to be. Defining matter as information means that the Universe is still material, naive idealism is still false, and materialism is still true.

I've called this idea informational idealism, but you have to remember that it is identical in every respect to materialism. It's like interpretations in quantum mechanics: They are different ways of thinking about the numbers, not different numbers.

Hardly a useful description if changing that description of the nature of the universe doesn’t reflect some change in our understanding of the nature of the universe. Isn’t idealism also “just a change in how we describe it”?

What I've been calling naive idealism, the idea that mind is what exists? Nope. Not even remotely. It asserts a multitude of counterfactual claims. That's how we know that it's wrong.

Where does materialism assert information as its fundamental element?

It asserts that matter is what exists. If matter is information, then matter is still what exists, it's just information. It can be called idealism, or it can be called materialism, but it is identical in every respect to materialism and entirely unlike the types of naive idealism that are being offered in these threads.

 

[Lowpro]

True, but it does seem (at least to me) materialism is moving closer to idealism than idealism moving closer to materialism.

I was going to bring this up in the other thread when you asked about information theory but that thread was just too much of a cacophony. When Darat started this one I thought that might be the time to bring it up and expected some discourse. Basically I'm just swinging at the fence anyway and even if I foul out at least someone might get conked on the head.

Well if I was interpreting your earlier posts correctly you suggested that the information of an object was not the object itself. If I can draw a parallel, a cogent model is developed from experimental data collection of an object, but the model is not necessarily the object itself because it's an abstraction. I would have interpreted you and nonpariel discussing observation data and modelling.

The data is the information of an object, the model is an independent abstraction developed from the data. It sounds weird to parse "independent" and "from the data" however good models should be able to function with each other. If you were to model from the information of many object's information and the models all function with each other they're still abstractions and independent of the data; their dependency with each other is all that matters)

Now, the wrinkle from the Mathematical Universe proposal is that if we did model all information in the universe and we suppose that this information is "reality" then the models being abstract seems semantic. That wrinkle is what I am interpreting leads you to say that materialism seems moving towards idealism.

I would say however that if we were still moving materialism somewhere, it wouldn't be towards idealism. Let me say right about here that everything about information and modelling that I've said above is not really influential to either materialism or idealism since both can interpret information equally well. Materialism suggests no distinction between reality and experience; even "consciousness", whatever it is, is not abstract. Idealism (I'll stick with the monastic concept as Bernardo Kastrup suggests instead of dualistic) suggests that conscious experience is reality which necessitates that data requires consciousness (again, whatever it is).

Materialism with regards to information do not move towards this monastic idealism; that kind of monastic idealism has no ability to interpret or discriminate information to establish itself as conscious, much less reality. Deepak Chopra has this problem in his monastic idealism philosophy (one that Bernardo shares).

But there may be a funny issue that goes back to the mathematical universe wrinkle. If the abstract mathematics are no longer abstract since they model all information then "abstract" is semantic. One may wonder if monastic idealism also becomes a semantic philosophy.

 

[Fudbucker]

True, but it does seem (at least to me) materialism is moving closer to idealism than idealism moving closer to materialism.

Exactly. In an interview, Christof Koch admits to believing in panpsychism. Max Tegmark believes the universe IS math.

These guys are not cranks.

 

[Lowpro]

Exactly. In an interview, Christof Koch admits to believing in panpsychism. Max Tegmark believes the universe IS math.

These guys are not cranks.

I agree however it's one thing to say Koch believes panpsychism or Tegmark believes in the mathematical universe, and it's another to know why they believe that. Panpsychism as Koch calls it is inevitable in the IIT for consciousness; it cannot discriminate physiology in the brain, though it can be used to model it.

Tegmark's Mathematical Universe is one that shouldn't even bother people. It doesn't make math a fundamental principle or anything, it reduces the abstract concept of math to semantics in a universe that can be completely described by an abstraction (similar to the holographic principle) makes calling it an abstraction...weird.

 

[angrysoba]

I propose using "physicalism" instead of "materialism".

The term materialism also seems outdated given what we know about the universe and the nature of matter and given that it appears more inclusive of things like time, waves etc...

 

[tsig]

I propose using "physicalism" instead of "materialism".

The term materialism also seems outdated given what we know about the universe and the nature of matter and given that it appears more inclusive of things like time, waves etc...

You are free to use any meaning you want for words but if you want to actually communicate you have to use a meaning common to both parties.

Babies soon learn this and give up baby babble for some it takes longer.

 

[Fudbucker]

Tsig, you've started making sense lately. What gives?

 

[angrysoba]

Tsig, you've started making sense lately. What gives?

Well, if this is among his better posts I can safely say that I'm pleased that most of his posts only appear to me in quoted form. But, could I ask you what is so sensible about this?

You are free to use any meaning you want for words but if you want to actually communicate you have to use a meaning common to both parties.

Babies soon learn this and give up baby babble for some it takes longer.

It looks to me like nothing more than a pointless attempted insult.

There was nothing obviously outrageous about my proposal as physicalism is a well-established term:

Physicalism is closely related to materialism. Physicalism grew out of materialism with the success of the physical sciences in explaining observed phenomena. The terms are often used interchangeably, although they are sometimes distinguished, for example on the basis of physics describing more than just matter (including energy and physical law).

 

[annnnoid]

Tsig, you've started making sense lately. What gives?

...he keeps getting this thrown at him:

You don't have to declare victory because your modus operandi is to make vague, meaningless, irrelevant statements in the fond belief that they make you appear intelligent.

 

[Belz...]

but now we have a universe that, apparently, is not material...but informational.

You are hilarious.

 

[Belz...]

So my best alternative to materialism is that we don't know.