Materialism and Immaterialism
- Thread starter Wrath of the Swarm
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If you have 'faith in science', then one of your main guiding principles is to doubt everything. Doubt is the thing that drives science forwards. hammegk seems to think scientists are certain in their beliefs. In my opinion, anyone possessing such certainty would make a poor scientist.
There is a whole spectrum of doubt though. Some things are so well understood that the doubt approaches zero - so we can predict the movement of planets and other bodies with virtually 100% certainty. Other things are much less certain - for example when it comes to questions like, "Why does the proton have the mass and charge that it does?" the best answer, at present, is probably just, "We have no idea." We may have a theory in the future, or we may never know - there may not even be a reason why it does.
If someone came up with a theory that predicted the mass of a proton accurate to 6 or 7 decimal places, scientists would be pleased. But they would keep checking it for accuracy as much as possible actually hoping to find a discrepancy. If a discrepancy were to be found at the twentieth decimal place, it might open the door to a new, more accurate, theory giving an even deeper understanding.
As the scientific method has proven so successful - giving us PCs, the Internet, medicines and so on, it is only natural that people come to rely on it and apply it as widely as possible. This is where the incompatibility between science and religious and other paranormal belief comes in. When you have made such successful progress by doubting everything, it is only natural to shine that doubt on every belief. And if beliefs are found wanting of any reliable evidence, then they had better be discarded.
There is a whole spectrum of doubt though. Some things are so well understood that the doubt approaches zero - so we can predict the movement of planets and other bodies with virtually 100% certainty. Other things are much less certain - for example when it comes to questions like, "Why does the proton have the mass and charge that it does?" the best answer, at present, is probably just, "We have no idea." We may have a theory in the future, or we may never know - there may not even be a reason why it does.
If someone came up with a theory that predicted the mass of a proton accurate to 6 or 7 decimal places, scientists would be pleased. But they would keep checking it for accuracy as much as possible actually hoping to find a discrepancy. If a discrepancy were to be found at the twentieth decimal place, it might open the door to a new, more accurate, theory giving an even deeper understanding.
As the scientific method has proven so successful - giving us PCs, the Internet, medicines and so on, it is only natural that people come to rely on it and apply it as widely as possible. This is where the incompatibility between science and religious and other paranormal belief comes in. When you have made such successful progress by doubting everything, it is only natural to shine that doubt on every belief. And if beliefs are found wanting of any reliable evidence, then they had better be discarded.
I'm stating that it's a journey rather than a destination. Highly intelligent people can get bogged down in what the meaning of "is" is.apoger said:
That's why philosophy continues to this day as a pastime.
So true. Note the "approaches" and "virtually"; that's my point. If you are not at 100% certainty god does not exist, are you an idealist, a dualist, or kidding yourself? Do you use f*cking retards much when you label people who disagree with you if you are not at 100% certainty on the point in question?ceptimus said:
Also recall that objective idealism agrees fully with all findings of the scientific method to date. Paranormal and supernatural are words people who at one time agreed they were "materialists" use to blur discourse.
for Paul & apie
"what-is" ... you must be joking. This is the physics 101 question "define the universe & give 3 examples".
god=atman=brahman
hammegk said:
Can you please define "god" as you use it in the above question?
Stimpson J. Cat
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Hammegk,
That's a rather broad generalization, wouldn't you say? What specific implications of my position do you think I do not understand?
I think you misunderstood my position, and my argument against dualism.
My argument against dualism, which you make reference to so often, is an argument against epistemological dualism, not metaphysical dualism.
If somebody claims that there are two types of substances in the world, and that one kind can be understood scientifically, and the other cannot, and they also claim that these two substances interact with each other, then that is self-contradictory.
If they claim both substances can be understood scientifically, then their position is epistemologically the same as mine. No problem there.
If they claim that neither of the substances can be completely understood scientifically (for example, the brain cannot be completely scientifically understood due to the influences on it from the spirit), then that is just supernaturalism. There is nothing self-contradictory about that position.
The metaphysical claims are not relevant to that argument. You can assert that there is only one substance, or that there are many. You can assert that the one substance is somehow "mental", or that it is somehow "physical". I don't care. All such metaphysical claims are equally vacuous.
No. I do think that science can provide an accurate description for everything we observe, but I am not 100% certain. I do think that it is extraordinarily unlikely that any sort of God will ever be needed to do so, but I am not 100% certain.
No. Please point it out for me. Be specific.
Dr. Stupid
That's a rather broad generalization, wouldn't you say? What specific implications of my position do you think I do not understand?
I think you misunderstood my position, and my argument against dualism.
My argument against dualism, which you make reference to so often, is an argument against epistemological dualism, not metaphysical dualism.
If somebody claims that there are two types of substances in the world, and that one kind can be understood scientifically, and the other cannot, and they also claim that these two substances interact with each other, then that is self-contradictory.
If they claim both substances can be understood scientifically, then their position is epistemologically the same as mine. No problem there.
If they claim that neither of the substances can be completely understood scientifically (for example, the brain cannot be completely scientifically understood due to the influences on it from the spirit), then that is just supernaturalism. There is nothing self-contradictory about that position.
The metaphysical claims are not relevant to that argument. You can assert that there is only one substance, or that there are many. You can assert that the one substance is somehow "mental", or that it is somehow "physical". I don't care. All such metaphysical claims are equally vacuous.
No. I do think that science can provide an accurate description for everything we observe, but I am not 100% certain. I do think that it is extraordinarily unlikely that any sort of God will ever be needed to do so, but I am not 100% certain.
No. Please point it out for me. Be specific.
Dr. Stupid
ceptimus said:
Your example may even be an even more apt example then you realised.
It could be that although we know how the planets do move or behave they may be (like so much of the universe seems to be) impossible to predict with 100% certainty. If this is the case then it is yet another real-world example of a deterministic system not being 100% predictable.
Interesting Ian
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ceptimus said:
People only doubt that which they choose to doubt in. Skeptics are no better than anyone else in this regard. That which they like to doubt they will arbitrarily declare there is no "reliable" evidence for.
Interesting Ian
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Stimpson J. Cat said:
Stimp,
When are you going to realise that your logical positivism is an untenable position?
Interesting Ian
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Darat said:
"Deterministic system"? What does that mean? Stimp seems to think it simply means predictable. I would have thought it meant determined by something, typically determined by physical laws.
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I find it persuasive enough. In order for my brain and body to do the things they normally do I have to exert my will. But I shouldn't need to because my will is causally inefficacious. The Earth doesn't have to exert its will in order to orbit the Sun.
The will is the same as physical processes in the brain you say! Or it doesn't exist!
The plain fact of the matter though is that I have intentions and immediately experience my ability to act upon my intentions. Whether or not this is just the same thing as brain processes, intentions and such physical processes are conceptually distinct. The vast majority of physical objects in the Universe do not have intentions, but yet they still happily obey physical laws. Moreover, even in the case of sentient creatures such as ourselves, we need pay no attention to private experiences in order to understand our behaviour.
What this means is that intentions are simply not required. Even if they are the same thing as brain processes, but viewed from the "inside" as it were, it is the case that the objective brain processes are that which are deterministically implied, with intentions simply "following" such processes. To say I actually act upon my intentions is contradictory to materialism.
Stimpson J. Cat
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Ian,
1) My position is not Logical Positivism, although there are many similarities.
2) I will realize that my position is untenable when somebody is able to coherently explain to me why it is untenable. For some strange reason, I do not find people telling me that my position is Logical Positivism (which it isn't), and then saying that Logical Positivism has been rejected by most philosophers, to be very compelling.
Why on Earth would you think that determinism claims that the will is causally inefficacious? That does not even make any sense! A determinist would be the last person to make such a claim!
The Earth does not have a will. The Earth is not a complex decision making machine, like the brain is. The Earth does not make decisions at all. The brain does.
The will is a concept we use to intuitively describe aspects of our decision making process. Please do not attach your naive anti-materialistic strawmen to my position.
So what? Those concepts, and more specifically, the manner in which you have chosen to conceptualize consciousness, has no bearing on how those things actually work.
Again, so what? The vast majority of physical objects in the universe also do not have properties like computation, or pattern matching, associated with them. Does that mean that computers and neural networks have an immaterial self associated with them, to do these things? Of course not. It just means that complex systems are capable of doing things that simple systems cannot do. I am dumbfounded that you would not recognize the naivety of this line of argumentation.
That is simply not true. Contrary to your repeated assertions, it is a simple fact that psychology and neuroscience (which are the methodologies we use to understand our behavior), do take into account phenomenal experiences. The notion that human behavior can be explained in anything more than an extremely superficial manner, without taking phenomenal experience into consideration, is simply not tenable.
No, it is contrary to epiphenomenalism, which is itself contrary to materialism. You are attacking a strawman. That is not my position, nor it is the position of anybody who calls themselves a materialist.
Dr. Stupid
1) My position is not Logical Positivism, although there are many similarities.
2) I will realize that my position is untenable when somebody is able to coherently explain to me why it is untenable. For some strange reason, I do not find people telling me that my position is Logical Positivism (which it isn't), and then saying that Logical Positivism has been rejected by most philosophers, to be very compelling.
Why on Earth would you think that determinism claims that the will is causally inefficacious? That does not even make any sense! A determinist would be the last person to make such a claim!
The Earth does not have a will. The Earth is not a complex decision making machine, like the brain is. The Earth does not make decisions at all. The brain does.
The will is a concept we use to intuitively describe aspects of our decision making process. Please do not attach your naive anti-materialistic strawmen to my position.
So what? Those concepts, and more specifically, the manner in which you have chosen to conceptualize consciousness, has no bearing on how those things actually work.
Again, so what? The vast majority of physical objects in the universe also do not have properties like computation, or pattern matching, associated with them. Does that mean that computers and neural networks have an immaterial self associated with them, to do these things? Of course not. It just means that complex systems are capable of doing things that simple systems cannot do. I am dumbfounded that you would not recognize the naivety of this line of argumentation.
That is simply not true. Contrary to your repeated assertions, it is a simple fact that psychology and neuroscience (which are the methodologies we use to understand our behavior), do take into account phenomenal experiences. The notion that human behavior can be explained in anything more than an extremely superficial manner, without taking phenomenal experience into consideration, is simply not tenable.
No, it is contrary to epiphenomenalism, which is itself contrary to materialism. You are attacking a strawman. That is not my position, nor it is the position of anybody who calls themselves a materialist.
Dr. Stupid
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
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Is there some reason, unfathomable to me, why you won't define your terms? I have absolutely no idea what you mean by what-is. Honest. Really. I swear I am not making that up. Your statements are not made more profound by using vapid terms.
~~ Paul
Interesting Ian said:
I did use it slightly incorrectly as a deterministic system should be 100% predictable. What I should have made clear is that here is a system that we believed we could (within the limits of measurement) predict 100% i.e. deterministic however this system itself may turn out in the long run to be non-deterministic.
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Stimpson J. Cat said:
I'm sick of doing so. You just ignore all my arguments. You've just done so again below.
A physical determinist would which is what we are discussing. The world proceeds according to objective facts; to the actual objective processes occurring in the brain, or wherever. We do not need to refer to a will, just as we do not need to refer to a will for the Earth orbiting the Sun.
What relevance has this got?? Clearly our Will is not required, otherwise you are denying materialism (and indeed naturalism).
How can the will be a description of a physical process. The will is utterly conceptually distinct from any physical processes, and it is not needed.
I have never done this, not do I have any intention of ever doing so.
But I've already provided my argument to show that it is crucial for how things work. I need to exercise my will in order to get out of bed. Thus physical determinism, and materialism, and naturalism, and epiphenomenalism are refuted.
Therefore a causally efficacious will is not required for any object. A p-zombie will do everything that I do. But a p-zombie does not have intentions. So how come a p-zombie would get out of bed, but when not exercising my will, I stay in bed??
These are all physical processes. A computer is no different in type from the Earth orbiting the Sun.
My argument appears to me to be watertight. If most objects do not require a will, why not all objects? If you claim that objective facts are not sufficient to explain our behaviour, but we need a will as well, this then refutes materialism.
It is according to materialism because it asserts only the physical exists, and all that is physical can be discerned from the third person perspective. Private experiences do not get a look in.
Are you seriously claiming that one cannot understand a person's behaviour purely from facts gleamed from the third person perspective??
Then they are presupposing materialism is false.
Good, then you have denied materialism.
It's contrary to materialism as well. Both epiphenomenalists and materialists agree that behaviour can be understood by considering objective (3rd person) facts exclusively. Otherwise why would the Earth orbit around the Sun without you needing to introduce the Earth's intention of doing so?
Interesting Ian
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Darat said:
But determinism must mean more than predictable!
There are many things that are, however human discussion needs "destinations" in order to be of practical use.
However without common language we cannot communicate at all. There needs to be some level of agreement. At the very least the parties involves must be willing to attempt to communicate. When one party refuses to communicate the whole process fails.
Are you really making the argument that the definition of "what-is" is so simple that you find yourself unable to explain it?
Wrath of the Swarm
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'Is' refers to "the state of being" or "that which interacts with whatever is being discussed". If the set of "the universe" contains it, it "is".
There. That wasn't so bad, was it?
There. That wasn't so bad, was it?