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Materialism and Immaterialism

Your mis-understanding of my position apparently knows no bounds. Enough for me, here, now.

If you ever figure out the subject, let's chat.
 
hammegk said:
Your mis-understanding of my position apparently knows no bounds. Enough for me, here, now.

If you ever figure out the subject, let's chat.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah...
I'll work on my delivery and see if I can get some fresh material.
 
hammegk said:
Again, a good statement as to lack of merit for any form of interactive dualism.

Try this one. Reality is not a local phenomena; that is, where is coordinate point x,y,z,t,0 where 6 or 7 "0 "dimensions are needed by some current thinking.
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I don't see where a ~material is a needed thing. The 'material' electron is not defined totaly as a point is spce, it is defined as a wave form limited by the speed of light and the HIP and QED. So the 'non-local' aspects of an electron's behavior are a part of it's 'material' nature.
I am assuming this is true of all 'non-local' phenomena.
 
And I reply, I don't see why ~~material (that is, material) is a needed thing. OTOH, Thought Exists.

And, your non-local just described has naught to do with non-local in the statement "Reality is not a local phenomena".



And DrMatt, I'm sorry that your diatribe smashes dualism into it's illogical pieces, but has no-thing to do with your statement "immaterialism is illogical". I (and Loki IIRC) hoped for better. But, such is life.
 
hammegk,

And DrMatt, I'm sorry that your diatribe smashes dualism into it's illogical pieces, but has no-thing to do with your statement "immaterialism is illogical". I (and Loki IIRC) hoped for better. But, such is life.
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Hoped for better? Probably, yes. I agree with DrMatt that immaterialism seems "unnecessary".

I still don't understand why you favour this 'mental monism' hammegk - it's inherently unknownable, and "solves" one mystery (HPC) by substituting several others ("why", "how"). Overall, it seems to be a losing proposition. I can see why people like Ian (and good old UCE and Franko) find such concepts "necessary" - but I still haven't heard anything from you that adequately explains (to me) your "monism preference".
 
Hummpph. I've said every way I can think of going on 2 years now.

I agree that under an assumption of the monism being matter, all can be rationalized, with a couple of 'emergent properties', "life" being the most interesting, although HPC is obviously most communicative for you & me.

I've said I arrived here as a dualist (although it wasn't something I'd given much consideration to). Once dualism is demonstrated -- by now by many here in many ways -- to be illogical, I again ask why has the choice of monism, call it non-alive vs alive, or non-sentient vs sentient, been erased? Or, what other possible alternatives exist?

A couple of the science types here aver that making the choice is meaningless, since no answer can be provided one way or the other by the epistemology of scientific inquiry. What makes this stance more palatable than making a choice? Again at our level either it's "all material body" or "all 'something else' "; I choose to call 'something else' immaterial, or ~material.
 
hammegk,

I've said every way I can think of going on 2 years now.
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And I've read each and every one of those 'ways' over the past 2 years I think. And yet, I find it so frustrating that your reasons are still unclear to me. Either your language or your concepts escape my understanding, on a regular basis.

What makes this stance more palatable than making a choice?
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Because the choice is unsubstatiated either way? So I call it a 'preference', not a choice, and I 'prefer' materialism, while still understanding that it (a) is unprovable and (b) doesn't ultimately make any differnece.

Again at our level either it's "all material body" or "all 'something else' "; I choose to call 'something else' immaterial, or ~material.
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And you've probably heard me say this for the past 2 years - I find the issue of "why" to be the 'kicker' when stating a preference. Ian, UCE and Franko all had a clear "WHY" that leads them to immaterialism - even though each has a wildly different "why". I still can't see the logic behind a philosophy that says "the 'WHY" is the most important thing of all" and simultaneously "the 'WHY" is unknown and unknowable". And I can't see any point in choosing immaterialism if you think "there is no why, or it's not important"
 
At our level, *I* think (well, something thinks) ... matter, or ~matter?


One, single, solitary, known-to-me-absolutely, datapoint.
 
hammegk,

One, single, solitary, known-to-me-absolutely, datapoint.
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But a single datapoint that is compatible with both alternatives - so to choose an alternative (or prefer one), you need something more.

At our level, *I* think (well, something thinks) ... matter, or ~matter?
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The key phrase here is "At our level".

Materialism says "there is no other level".

Immaterialism says "there are higher levels, and the PURPOSE of this level is known only at these higher levels, which are unknownable".
 
Not so. Our (terracentric, anthropomorphic) level, shall we say HPC, is the highest on the chain due to brain complexity that we as a species are now aware of.

Is higher possible? Darned if my ~materialism knows. Are we, in some sense, more sentient/aware than less complex entities? Yes so far as we have been able to tell.


And I agree the single datapoint has 2 possible, logical, solutions; Cogito ergo sum being one of them, Materialism the other. Body the epiphenomena or Mind(sentience/life) the epiphenomena.
 
The assumption that the world is composed of 'thought' or 'meta-mind' does not resolve HPC from what I can think about it. Does a neuron have thought because it is part of the brain, which it would be irregardless.

The issues for the construction of thought and cosniousness and awareness are the same even if the building blocks are mind blocks instead of energy blocks.

That is what I seem to think, if the world is made out of observable pieces(a big if) and there is an issue for how those pieces can be constructed to make awareness then the same problem applies to eityher set of pieces mind or matter.
 
It may be tilting at windmills to point out that physics is completely neutral on questions of Ultimate Existence, dealing instead with less ivory-towered subjects like motion, forces, and interactions of things in the real world regardless of whether they really exist in some ultimate philosophical sense; and mathematics is completely neutral on matters outside of mathematics, though mathematics is used as a tool for clearly expressing physical ideas among others.

But hey, I'm just a musician, right?
 
Dancing David said:
The assumption that the world is composed of 'thought' or 'meta-mind' does not resolve HPC from what I can think about it. Does a neuron have thought because it is part of the brain, which it would be irregardless.

The issues for the construction of thought and cosniousness and awareness are the same even if the building blocks are mind blocks instead of energy blocks.
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I agree. The thing materialism denies is any, slightest, chance that *you* are anything other than a randomly programmed Maximum Perceived Benefit algorythm, and "consciousness" at best an epiphenomena.

Should I assume "meta-mind" is your codeword for Reality-as-it-actually-is?

DrMatt said:

physics is completely neutral on questions of Ultimate Existence
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I agree that is True for the epistemology of the scientific method, and have so stipulated many times,
 
hammegk said:

I agree. The thing materialism denies is any, slightest, chance that *you* are anything other than a randomly programmed Maximum Perceived Benefit algorythm, and "consciousness" at best an epiphenomena.

Should I assume "meta-mind" is your codeword for Reality-as-it-actually-is?
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I would disagree to the first point, materialism would state that there is no evidence that there is anything more to the world than contructs built from the blocks. And consiousness is not an epiphenomena, it is a pasrticular bunch of constructs interacting.

More on the first point, even the alogorithim of natural selection allows for non-random constructs to occur and perpetuate. And therefore the end results of the long potential process of natural selection is mostly not a random aggregate.

Many materialists will concede that it is possible that there are 'forces that we don't percieve' and that there could be a soul or god or whatever. Just that observational evidence is lacking.(However there are those on this VB who are rather hidebound and lacking in imagination)

I would say that meta mind is a code word for an ontological construct which is related to mental monism.
 
hammegk said:
I agree that is True for the epistemology of the scientific method, and have so stipulated many times,
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Citing physics in support of metaphysics is a bit like citing breakfast in support of linear algebra. Both can be accomplished grandeloquently but tend to look a bit humorous.
 
If you found that overly recondite, may I say materialists must act as though any question that cannot be effectively addressed by Science is not worth asking?

What I stated is that metaphysics exists even though Scientists pretend it doesn't.
 
So true. Now if we were just sure that atheism added some positive to the mix, ya'all would be doing social & cultural groups a great service.

Time will tell how useful short-term decisions are. To date, atheism has not been demonstrated to be a survival characteristic.
 
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