I challenge you: your best argument for materialism

[LarryS]

The rock is reality, our observations are of the reality of the rock, the rock in no way depends on our observation.

wrong

Depends on the scale you use whether you see a rock or an atom.

Right

 

[Belz...]

wrong

No, it's right. We know that things exist independant of our observation.

Why do you persist in speaking nonsense ?

 

[LarryS]

When people see materialism for what it is then they see it as nonsense

 

[PixyMisa]

You: I define good as A and not B.
Me: I define good as B and not A.

What now, PixyMisa? How do you resolve that one using science?

I don't. It doesn't matter. We are speaking different languages. This has zero impact on subjective opinion, objective fact, or the scientific method.

 

[Belz...]

When people see materialism for what it is then they see it as nonsense

Really, after all the posts in this thread, that's the best you can come up with ?

Let me tell you again: materialism is simply seeing the world for what it appears to be, namely a bunch of interacting things that we call physical, or material. Things that interact with each other are all part of this set. We observe these things happen and classify them accordingly.

Now, tell me: how is it nonsense ?

Or were you frustrated by my calling your own arguments nonsense and decided to turn it back onto materialism without justification ?

 

[PixyMisa]

Are all three of those material objects?

Awareness is a process, not an object.

 

[PixyMisa]

When people see materialism for what it is then they see it as nonsense

You just posted that on a web forum, the end result of hundreds of years of materialist* scientific research.

The day you think a post into existence without technological intermediaries, we will grant you may have a point. In the meantime, though, you are simply wrong.


* Yes, methodological naturalism, which means that science works on the basis that the Universe behaves as though it were material. But since that's all we can possibly know, it makes no difference to any practical argument - only to impractical ones.

 

[Hawk one]

When people see materialism for what it is then they see it as nonsense

Except of course, that you still don't understand what materialism is, and pretty much has it completely backwards. I mean, claiming that things don't exist outside of observation... That's a form of idealism, not materialism.

And as such, if you think that "Take away consciousness and the observations, and the summary of those observations do not exist." is nonsensical, then you're arguing against idealism (because that's an idealistic idea), and you're showing us how nonsensical idealism is.

 

[LarryS]

Really, after all the posts in this thread, that's the best you can come up with ?

Let me tell you again: materialism is simply seeing the world for what it appears to be, namely a bunch of interacting things that we call physical, or material. Things that interact with each other are all part of this set. We observe these things happen and classify them accordingly.

Now, tell me: how is it nonsense ?

Or were you frustrated by my calling your own arguments nonsense and decided to turn it back onto materialism without justification ?[/QUOTE

Because you are miximg materialism with a dose of some variant of idealism. Look at your use of the word. Appears

 

[PixyMisa]

Because you are miximg materialism with a dose of some variant of idealism. Look at your use of the word. Appears

Material process.

 

[Belz...]

Because you are miximg materialism with a dose of some variant of idealism. Look at your use of the word. Appears

You are hopelessly confused, but there's still a chance to annul that with the proper effort, so I'll give it one more try. I guess I'm an eternal optimist.

We CANNOT study the world without observation. That much is a given. However, the world we observe has the appearance of total consistency, as opposed to any world we imagine, create or hallucinate. This would suggest that the world is independent of the observation, even if our knowledge of it is dependant on observation. This is a critical distinction that you are not making. Every single scientific breakthrough and discovery in history confirms this consistency, and confirms the world's independance from the observer. Materialism is NOT what you claim it is.

 

[angrysoba]

No, it's right. We know that things exist independant of our observation.

Why do you persist in speaking nonsense ?

You are hopelessly confused, but there's still a chance to annul that with the proper effort, so I'll give it one more try. I guess I'm an eternal optimist.

We CANNOT study the world without observation. That much is a given. However, the world we observe has the appearance of total consistency, as opposed to any world we imagine, create or hallucinate. This would suggest that the world is independent of the observation, even if our knowledge of it is dependant on observation. This is a critical distinction that you are not making. Every single scientific breakthrough and discovery in history confirms this consistency, and confirms the world's independance from the observer. Materialism is NOT what you claim it is.

I hold no brief for idealism, but just to let you know, the argument for idealism as made by George Berkeley considers both points - that things exist without our observation and that things behave with consistency and argues that in the first case, we simply have no direct evidence for that, and in the second case he argues that the consistency of the natural world is not inconsistent with idealism.

For Berkeley, however, was a believer in God and a believer that the consistency of the natural world was evidence of the existence of God.

I don't think it is a very good argument, but your assumption that idealism must result in an inconsistent world is also false. Of course, how the idealist accounts for consistency is an important matter.

 

[Brian-M]

We can say that the concepts for molecules and rocks exist, but only as artifacts of human consciousness.

FTFY

The material structures that we currently refer to as molecules and rocks would still exist without us.

 

[LarryS]

FTFY

The material structures that we currently refer to as molecules and rocks would still exist without us.

Materialists agree, and I'm sure the materialists here would agree; that color, taste, smell - these are fabrications of reality by our brains. The solid feel and appearance of an object, and even the distinction of that object from that which is not that object, is fabricated by the brain. Reality is only abstract quantities of energy/matter - there are no boundaries (of objects), only degrees of density. Given degrees of density, consciousness 'creates' objects.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Pretty much the truth anyway.

Yes, it is cognitive relativism

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

I don't. It doesn't matter. We are speaking different languages. This has zero impact on subjective opinion, objective fact, or the scientific method.

No, we are thinking differently. It is called cognitive relativism. The definition depends on and is a result of thinking/feeling/computation.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Well you sure con't resolve it using religion or philosophy.
I tend to use game theory myself.

Well, yes, that is one way to do it.

 

[punshhh]

I think it's fine, myself. Rocks interact with their environment, but they are not conscious.

Ok, I wouldn't want to impose an alternative definition.

Rocks don't modify their interaction based on awareness of their environment, plants do.

 

[punshhh]

Chordates, generally, yes. Simpler animals, plants, and single-celled life-forms, no.

As I expected, you are thinking of nervous material.Fine, but I suggest that this is not the extent of consciousness. Rather it emerges through cellular metabolism, this does not require nervous material.

Awareness is the construction of a symbolic model of some part of the world. Many animals do this. Plants don't.

This is a strategic nervous response to the environment. The plant is aware in a simple way of its environment, it just doesn't deploy a strategic nervous response to it.

 

[punshhh]

I regard consciousness as a property of a mind.



What else is there which we could reasonably regard as having the property of consciousness?



There's nothing misleading about it. The mind is the processes performed by a brain, and consciousness is a property that many (but not all) minds possess.

I would agree with you if the word "consciousness" is replaced with the phrase "self consciously aware".

This is the essence of the point I am making regarding consciousness. That the consciousness referred to by scientists, materialists and to a certain degree philosophers. Is a highly sophisticated and integrated form of consciousness. It should not be taken as the only form of consciousness and reduced to a simple byproduct of the material action of the body. This is a naive approach.