My argument against materialism

punshhh said:
Do you accept that the understanding of nature through science moves "forward", progresses?
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Yes.

punshhh said:
If so this frontier of understanding is what I am refering to as a horizon and that which is not yet understood scientifically is by definition in a sense beyond that horizon.
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That would be the horizon of verified understanding, not the horizon of verifiable understanding. So, I ask again, what do you mean by "current horizon of verifiable understanding"?
 
punshhh said:
Do you accept that the understanding of nature through science moves "forward", progresses?
If so this frontier of understanding is what I am refering to as a horizon and that which is not yet understood scientifically is by definition in a sense beyond that horizon.

I may not be up to speed with where this horizon is, however I am aware that it exists, though perhaps is described differently by scientists.
Perhaps the frontiers of scientific discovery is more palatable.
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What's the point of asking if materialism can't explain it when you've already described it as an unknown frontier.

Isn't it more apt to say that a person who identifies themselves as a materialist would say that "Materialism is always up to the challenge" but that implies there's a motive to materialism when it is really just a product of reality.

Everything so far works under materialism that exists independent of the wishes of your mind. Whether it's up to the task of discovering the unknown frontier? I don't see why materialism can't make inferences to all things unknown.

I can definitely tell you that experiences and headaches are not part of the unknown however, reason being because experiences are all subject to the chemistry in your brain and are relatively limited to that; there's nothing that is unexpected or even unpredictable.

Chakras do not measure up to the Carl Sagan Baloney Detection kit so to speak.
 
PixyMisa said:
Define God mathematically. Then we will.
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I don't require a mathematical model of God, I use other modeling techniques.

So the answer to wether science has a way of conceptualising reality beyond the current frontiers of science is?

This looks like an indifference or an ignore to me.

Perhaps you can provide a mathematical model that explains what energy is?
 
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Lowpro said:
What's the point of asking if materialism can't explain it when you've already described it as an unknown frontier.

Isn't it more apt to say that a person who identifies themselves as a materialist would say that "Materialism is always up to the challenge" but that implies there's a motive to materialism when it is really just a product of reality.

Everything so far works under materialism that exists independent of the wishes of your mind. Whether it's up to the task of discovering the unknown frontier? I don't see why materialism can't make inferences to all things unknown.

I can definitely tell you that experiences and headaches are not part of the unknown however, reason being because experiences are all subject to the chemistry in your brain and are relatively limited to that; there's nothing that is unexpected or even unpredictable.

Chakras do not measure up to the Carl Sagan Baloney Detection kit so to speak.
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I am interested to find out if materialism is "blind".

You say inferences is this a kind of speculation?
 
punshhh said:
I don't require a mathematical model of God, I use other modeling techniques.

So the answer to wether science has a way of conceptualising reality beyond the current frontiers of science is?

This looks like an indifference or an ignore to me.

Perhaps you can provide a mathematical model that explains what energy is?
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Other modeling techniques,that does sound knowledgeable. Which techniques would these be? Reading the Upanishads? As for energy,take a physics course.
 
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A mathematical definition of God? It seems that it should be possible.

God is supposed to be:

- irreducibly simple
- have no successive states
- not part of any state that was part of a succession
- capable of being, at least indirectly, the cause of any observable phenomenon.

I am sure that someone could formalise that.
 
punshhh said:
I don't require a mathematical model of God, I use other modeling techniques.
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Yes, we know. We call it "making crap up".

punshhh said:
So the answer to wether science has a way of conceptualising reality beyond the current frontiers of science is?
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That's just an utterly stupid thing to say. When has science done anything else than looking beyond its current frontiers?

punshhh said:
This looks like an indifference or an ignore to me.
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Not enough irony meters.

punshhh said:
Perhaps you can provide a mathematical model that explains what energy is?
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Me? No. Physicists and physics books? Most certainly.

Oh, and you missed my previous post.
 
dafydd said:
What you gather has no bearing on the matter. Do you have proof that there is no such thing as mind?
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That is my claim, the mind is a blanket term of confabulation, it has as much meaning as 'consciousness', it can only be defined as an aggregate of disparate behaviors.

There is no mind, there is a brain, there are processes which get lumped together under the common usage of mind.

The problem is the we refer to external behaviors and internal behaviors under a blanket like consciousness or mind, but truly they are rubrics. And when people start to talk about Eternal Mind, they have passed the bend.
 
punshhh said:
Mathematical modeling of what can't be tested or observed is speculation.

Does materialism have a way of conceptualising reality beyond the current horizon of verifiable understanding, or is it indifferent, or does it just ignore such possibilities?
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There are such models, speculation is wonderful, as long as it is labelled as such. The problem is that with speculation when it can not be tested is that it is not productive in creating valid predictive models.

(See here is teh issue punshhh, we have been down these paths before, just not with you. We are not ignorant bashers, or at least not all of us. We have discussed tehse issues ,many times with many different people, who come in and try all sorts of bizzre arguments to trash materialism. they don't realize that it is an objective monist model in most ways and that most of us do not use it as dogma.

We even have talks about Nonoverlapping Magisteria )
 
laca said:
Why would a sane person care about something that cannot be tested or observed?
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Because there are times, like with string theory, that it might eventually be tested. Now in the case of string theory it had to pass the internal consistency test first.

In the Inflationary Universe Guth also talks about speculative models of lowest energy potential and the like.
 
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punshhh said:
You are already at your destination, you never left, you only remember this in your own way.
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Gibberish. Or not? Could you parse that for us? How could you remember in some one else's way,for example. Why should there be a destination? Are you at your destination all the time,and were you born at your destination? Occult nonsense often refers to a path,how can there be a path if you never leave? If you never leave ,how can it be called a destination?
 
punshhh said:
I don't require a mathematical model of God, I use other modeling techniques.

So the answer to wether science has a way of conceptualising reality beyond the current frontiers of science is?

This looks like an indifference or an ignore to me.

Perhaps you can provide a mathematical model that explains what energy is?
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Um, brane theory for possible reasons the universe exists, some people like the quantum fluctuations model.

Now for what mathematical models describe energy, there are many, as for what it is? Well, like Popeye, it is what it is?

If you really want to know about the mathematics of energy I recommend The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, Quantum Generations: A History of Physics in the Twentieth Century, Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics and especially Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character)
 
laca said:
Yes.



That would be the horizon of verified understanding, not the horizon of verifiable understanding. So, I ask again, what do you mean by "current horizon of verifiable understanding"?
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I use horizon specifically because I am considering those aspects of reality which constitute the framework or foundations of our physical reality.

For example physicists have described the behavior of energy very well and how our entire phenomenal world is structured and works through the action of energy through time.
But what is this energy? what is this time? what is this space? what are these laws of nature? is there any way of understanding how these laws originated or developed? are we actually what we appear to be? this can be a very long list.

This materialistic view I am being presented with does have the appearance of a boat with no sail, cast adrift in a sea of darkness with no sight of land.
Everything in the boat is fully explained and hunky dory. Don't look to hard over the side of the boat there are fantastical imaginary delusions over there.
 
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