My argument against materialism

laca said:
Someone said that ridicule is not an inappropriate answer to the ridiculous. I agree.



What is an "absolute infinity"? What does it mean to be "the other polarity" of "nothing"?
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"everything"
 
punshhh said:
I am open to new ideas when ever they come along, I have picked up a few here, which have made this worthwhile already.
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That is good to hear. That's what the forum is for, after all.

punshhh said:
Let me state my position regarding materialism again;

I am in complete agreement in respect of current knowledge and understanding in materialism regarding matter and other physical processes. I reserve judgement in the areas of consciousness and its contents.
This is of course while remaining open minded to other thoughts which may have some bearing on materialism.
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OK.

punshhh said:
Please give me the names of some kooks sounds interesting.
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You've got to find them yourself. It is subjective. ;)
 
punshhh said:
Sorry, it came out the wrong way round.

I would follow by asking Belz if Pi would remain the same if nothing existed.

But I think it is best I don't as we clearly disagree.
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We don't "disagree". You simply don't understand. If there is NOTHING, there can't be ANYTHING. It's simple logic, here.
 
punshhh said:
I am aware of this, I am trying to engage other posters in a consideration of these ideas, with remarkably little success.
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I'm sorry, but this is because your thinking about this whole thing wrong. I think you're just not grasping the subject matter very well, which prevents you from understanding our answers to your questions, which leads to more nonsensical questions, etc.
 
punshhh said:
I am aware of this, I am trying to engage other posters in a consideration of these ideas, with remarkably little success.
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Yes; that's because your ideas are extremely vague.

These materialists really do not like to discuss this, perhaps even to acknowledge such considerations.
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Discuss what? What considerations?

In your consideration of nothing, could there be a something in existence aswell?
and if not would Pi remain?
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Your questions make no sense.
 
punshhh said:
Sorry, it came out the wrong way round.

I would follow by asking Belz if Pi would remain the same if nothing existed.

But I think it is best I don't as we clearly disagree.
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As pi is a concept held in our thoughts, where does it live?

Next to e and i?

There are no Platonic transcendants, the concept exists when someone uses it.

Now yes the concepts can be derived by different people at different times, but they don't exist outside of thoughts in people's heads.
 
punshhh said:
I am aware of this, I am trying to engage other posters in a consideration of these ideas, with remarkably little success.
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You may find that some of us have already considered these concepts at length. Seriously, that is part of critique, you explore the concepts to critique them. I has a college philosophy class in 1976. :)
In your consideration of nothing, could there be a something in existence aswell?
and if not would Pi remain?
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In consideration of nothing, there is nothing.
 
punshhh said:
Now perhaps we will be able to consider an absolute infinity as the other polarity.
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Now this is about 75% of the JREF , the clarification of idiomatic usage.

First off, polarity? Really, there is no polarity in conceptual; reality, the opposite of nothing is something and somethings is a continuum of things.

Then you go way idiomatic with 'absolute infinity', that have private meaning to you. But not to any of us.

What do you think you mean by that?

Infinity and nothing are concepts.
Yes, I have also had similar problems with maths.
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It is an issue with language, it only takes meaning from external refferents.

You are using solely you internal self refernce which we do not have access to.

There is infinity as a concept, but absolute infinity is not understandable.

A set of one object is also not-nothing.
You are right regarding metaphysics, presumably when you say "demonstrating it is true" you are refering to logical testing of the idea?

Ah, I don't know if you have read any of my posts in other threads, but I have stated that I don't "believe" anything already.
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I disagree, you have expressed a wide variety of beliefs (as we all have). One seems to be that mathematical concepts exist in meta space.

:)
I consider all angles/perspectives regarding an idea. I don't always know that I understand something, it generally becomes obvious after a while.
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punshhh said:
"everything"
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That is again a conceptual error, if the universe is fintite, then that everything is finite.

Everything make no opposite to nothing, again not-nothing is a spectrum of possible things.

Surely you are aware of the stone age concepts expressed by many cultures?

not,
not limit, (limitless)
not limit light (limitless light)

The issue is that 'not' is a negation, 'not'-'not' means anything that 'is' therefore it includes any set that is not null, of all those possible sets they are all 'not-not', any one of them statisfies the construction.


In other words any member that is a set that is not a null set meets the construction of 'not-not' therefore one set will do, it does not imply all not null sets.
 
punshhh said:
Do you consider an infinitude of matter?
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Just so you know the considered number of energy waves in the universe is 1072-1087, so no not an infinitude of matter.
Do you consider an infinitude of some other form?
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Depends upon the meaning here, some conceptions of space tace are infinte, some are not.
like the contents of consciousness for example,
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Um the contents are infinite how?
or numbers.
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PixyMisa;6904094]An infinite amount of matter is an infinite amount of matter.
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I agree, do you consider that such a thing may exist?

Sorry, but I have no idea what you are talking about.
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Sorry I should define "form", I use it so much I sometimes assume others know what I mean.

By "form" I mean;

something finite, ie; something which has a "form" as apposed to being "formless".

(something "formless" may not be finite or identifiable in any way).

Anything which is a thing has a form,rather than "nothing" which has no form.

The contents of consciousness can be described as having forms of various kinds.

Numbers can be described as having forms of various kinds.
 
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Belz... said:
I'm sorry, but this is because your thinking about this whole thing wrong. I think you're just not grasping the subject matter very well, which prevents you from understanding our answers to your questions, which leads to more nonsensical questions, etc.
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I'm also sorry that I don't agree.

I do understand most of what you guys are saying, however I am saying(or trying to say) something else.

I will describe what I am saying as a(for lack of a better word) "metaphysical" position.

My point in this thread is that materialism does not address the position I am adopting.

I will state my position in my reply to Dancing David.
 
punshhh said:
Does anyone think they know what infinity means in addressing/discussing "matter", or something "real"?

Please no mathematical descriptions of infinity, that is already well documented.
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If we describe an actual thing as "finite" we are using the mathematical meaning of "finite".

So if we described an actual thing as "infinite" then we would also be using the mathematical meaning of "infinite".

If we are not using the mathematical meaning of either term then our statement would have no precise meaning.
 
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