I challenge you: your best argument for materialism

[Brian-M]

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

Do rivers count as conscious? They modify their interactions based on the environment (eg, changing course, becoming deeper and narrower or wider and shallower) like plants do.

You use the word "awareness". In what sense is a plant "aware"?

 

[marplots]

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.

Isn't it just as valid to say the forum is the result of human wants, needs and desires though? I don't think any of us would propose that the Internet would have arisen without intelligent beings seeking to communicate.

And indeed, how does this post of mine come about, if not as the result of a conscious process? I very much "think my post into existence." Until we can demonstrate a forum which runs on automatic, without human direction and input, it remains an artifact dependent on human consciousness to function.

Or, to put it more succinctly, "There's no need for cable in a coffin."

 

[Belz...]

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.

I disagree. First, we know that things exist absent our observation. Otherwise we must believe that they are recreated for our benefit either by ourselves or something else upon our return. And yet our machines record stuff we do not imagine in the meantime. Second, all thought displays inconsistence. If the world is thought, it should have the same problem, but it doesn't.

 

[Belz...]

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.

And yet those are all behaviours of the brain and body responding to specific realities of the outside (and inside) world. The abstraction represents a reality. No one but solipsists claim that the world is an abstraction.

 

[punshhh]

Do rivers count as conscious? They modify their interactions based on the environment (eg, changing course, becoming deeper and narrower or wider and shallower) like plants do.

The river changes shape by deflection. Plants exploit a complex environment for a purpose.

You use the word "awareness". In what sense is a plant "aware"?

The plant inhabits an environment and strategically interacts with it. It is not self consciously aware and has no sensory, or nervous apparatus. So what kind of experience it has is probably impossible for us to imagine. However as it is constituted of cells, similar to our own and is alive, it would not be ridiculous for it to have some kind of sentient experience.

 

[ehcks]

The river changes shape by deflection. Plants exploit a complex environment for a purpose.

Plants don't act with a purpose. Plants grow based on millions, even billions of years of evolutionary "training."

Roots grow toward water not because plants want water, but because their cells grow more quickly when they have access to it.

Branches, and then leaves, grow in a pattern similar to the Fibonacci sequence not because they can count, but because it's ingrained in their genetic code. It produces the greatest amount of overall light to the leaves mathematically, but the plant doesn't know that. It simply increases their chance to create more plants.

Evolution isn't conscious. It doesn't serve a purpose. It isn't aware of anything. All that matters is that either living things produce more living things, or they cease to exist.

 

[angrysoba]

I disagree. First, we know that things exist absent our observation. Otherwise we must believe that they are recreated for our benefit either by ourselves or something else upon our return. And yet our machines record stuff we do not imagine in the meantime. Second, all thought displays inconsistence. If the world is thought, it should have the same problem, but it doesn't.

Actually, I agree with you.

Although I may have misrepresented Berkeley's argument.

At the risk of doing so again, his response to both your questions is "goddidit!"

 

[punshhh]

Plants don't act with a purpose. Plants grow based on millions, even billions of years of evolutionary "training."

Along with all organisms and the plants purpose is to maximise its growth and successfully reproduce.

Roots grow toward water not because plants want water, but because their cells grow more quickly when they have access to it.

Sounds like a good strategy. I would also seek to secure a supply of water for my body.

Branches, and then leaves, grow in a pattern similar to the Fibonacci sequence not because they can count, but because it's ingrained in their genetic code. It produces the greatest amount of overall light to the leaves mathematically, but the plant doesn't know that. It simply increases their chance to create more plants.

Yes, evolution has given plants and ourselves wonderfully developed bodies.

Also, I'm not saying plants know anything. A brain would be required for that.

Evolution isn't conscious. It doesn't serve a purpose. It isn't aware of anything. All that matters is that either living things produce more living things, or they cease to exist.

I am not commenting on evolution, I'm commenting the the consciousness of living organisms. Also just to clarify, I am not suggesting that anything not alive is aware of anything.

 

[Belz...]

Along with all organisms and the plants purpose is to maximise its growth and successfully reproduce.

Careful how you use that word, however. It's not planned or anything. It's just the cumulation of a complex set of chain chemical reactions.

 

[LarryS]

Actually, I agree with you.

Although I may have misrepresented Berkeley's argument.

At the risk of doing so again, his response to both your questions is "goddidit!"

According to Materialism, things NEVER exist, even when we're looking right at them. The apparent distinct edge of a rock, it's tawny color, it's rough surface - these are fabrications of the brain. Reality is tasteless, colorless, odorless quantities of inert matter, whatever matter happens to be. Once we begin to ascribe properties to matter, such as self-organizing into structures, inherent laws or patterns . . . we are dangerously close to some variant of Idealism.

 

[tsig]

According to Materialism, things NEVER exist, even when we're looking right at them. The apparent distinct edge of a rock, it's tawny color, it's rough surface - these are fabrications of the brain. Reality is tasteless, colorless, odorless quantities of inert matter, whatever matter happens to be. Once we begin to ascribe properties to matter, such as self-organizing into structures, inherent laws or patterns . . . we are dangerously close to some variant of Idealism.

You are completely wrong:

Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all phenomena, including mental phenomena and consciousness, are the result of material interactions.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism

 

[LarryS]

You are completely wrong:

Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all phenomena, including mental phenomena and consciousness, are the result of material interactions.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism

go on . . . you're almost there

 

[Darat]

According to Materialism, things NEVER exist, even when we're looking right at them. The apparent distinct edge of a rock, it's tawny color, it's rough surface - these are fabrications of the brain. Reality is tasteless, colorless, odorless quantities of inert matter, whatever matter happens to be. Once we begin to ascribe properties to matter, such as self-organizing into structures, inherent laws or patterns . . . we are dangerously close to some variant of Idealism.

That's not even wrong.

 

[Belz...]

According to Materialism, things NEVER exist, even when we're looking right at them.

Are you joking ? Because if you are not, I have no clue what you think materialism is, but you sure are wrong 100%. NOTHING you have said about materialism so far is true. In fact, it's the exact opposite of what you say.

You are perhaps conflating the perception with the thing itself, which may be a symptom of assuming your conclusion.

Once we begin to ascribe properties to matter, such as self-organizing into structures, inherent laws or patterns . . . we are dangerously close to some variant of Idealism.

Behaviour is not a property of perception.

 

[Belz...]

That's not even wrong.

Oh, it's wrong, alright.

 

[tsig]

go on . . . you're almost there

Almost where?

Do you imagine that you are teaching some great truth here?

 

[Dancing David]

Show me energy…show me a field…show me a force…show me a dimension.

I’m not interested in anyone’s interpretation of what something is. You’re saying these things are material. So…identify them as such. What specifically differentiated form of ‘material’ is energy, a field, a force, a dimension?

They are approximate models used to describe the apparent behavior of reality

 

[Belz...]

They are approximate models used to describe the apparent behavior of reality

To an idealist, that's an admission that we don't know squat about reality.

 

[Dancing David]

But at no stage is there actual thinking going on.

Wrong there are many forms of the behaviors labelled as 'cognition', most 'thinking' is verbal cognition.

Nice strawman

 

[Dancing David]

Are you sure you are not a dualist?

I can work with that.

Everything is matter/physical
But there are different kinds

Are there different kinds of right and wrong?

Well duh, human concepts are idiomatic concepts defined personally, socially and culturally.

So there are many shades of right and wrong and contradictory definitions.