My argument against materialism

annnnoid said:
When incapable of answering a question, behave childishly and pretend the issue is irrelevant.



It is, of course, a profoundly incomprehensible mystery that this universe has somehow created a race of creatures with some manner of capacity to decide their own fate. With the ability to evaluate their own condition and take responsibility for achieving something that might be described as harmony, balance, understanding (or not). Somehow the ability to choose must come with the ability to choose incorrectly. The issue of personal responsibility/free will lies at the very heart of human nature. What it means, whether it exists, and how or if it is achieved are issues that are ultimately unanswerable. It simply becomes an individual question: how will I live my life? Religion has all the answers, but religion doesn’t know what they mean or where they come from (a broad generalization). Science has none of the answers, so there’s no need to even look there (yet). So the questions are always the same, and the answers are always the same. Choose for yourself.

Of course, you could question the morality of a universe so constructed. And who\what might you question? …when the very reality you occupy is itself a function of the immorality you dispute. When your own intelligibility is, in fact, unintelligible. Give it a try, and see where it gets you.

I personally know a number of people who love their children profoundly and would likely cut off their arm before they allowed any variety of abuse to occur. My impression of the epistemology is that it is supremely functional….under very specific conditions.
Click to expand...

You accuse others of smugness, yet it is arrogance that causes you to assert some sort of special importance in the natural order of things for your ability to derive pleasure from aesthetic concepts, like family, and love, and appreciation for elegance. You're unable to realize the Earth is not the center of the universe, metaphorically.

You seem to think because you can reason and recognize your animal instincts that they suddenly are no longer instinct and natural behavior. You love your children because animals who do not form attachments with their offspring fail to have offspring that do not die.

You are capable of making symbolic concepts, and nothing more. There is no magical importance floating around in the cosmos being important just because it is naturally and universally, important.

You are smugly asserting a special place in things for yourself, because you're able to appreciate aesthetics.

What's troubling to me is that you would somehow abandon your children and stop loving them if you were to decide it was an emotion founded on purely material means and natural behavior. Why do these things require some kind of supernatural acknowledgement to matter to you?

You accuse others of arrogance for weening themselves from this childish arrogance and for no longer tolerating it in others who seek to champion it. Being childish and naive is something all of us go through, with hope you too will bravely assert yourself and ween yourself from these needs.
 
Last edited:
And you're confusing science for empirical reason and logic, which can be applied to all things able to be understood that exist in linear temporal space, or can be described mathematically. Your magical important things which you think only can be described outside of logic, are all psychological constructs. And psychology happens to be a form of science.
 
Last edited:
annnnoid said:
I personally know a number of people who love their children profoundly and would likely cut off their arm before they allowed any variety of abuse to occur.
Click to expand...

May I kindly ask you that you carefully review how exactly you acquired this knowledge?

ETA:
annnnoid said:
Religion has all the answers, but religion doesn’t know what they mean or where they come from (a broad generalization).
Click to expand...

That is an illusion of knowledge.
 
Last edited:
annnnoid said:
When incapable of answering a question, behave childishly and pretend the issue is irrelevant.



It is, of course, a profoundly incomprehensible mystery that this universe has somehow created a race of creatures with some manner of capacity to decide their own fate. With the ability to evaluate their own condition and take responsibility for achieving something that might be described as harmony, balance, understanding (or not). Somehow the ability to choose must come with the ability to choose incorrectly. The issue of personal responsibility/free will lies at the very heart of human nature. What it means, whether it exists, and how or if it is achieved are issues that are ultimately unanswerable. It simply becomes an individual question: how will I live my life? Religion has all the answers, but religion doesn’t know what they mean or where they come from (a broad generalization). Science has none of the answers, so there’s no need to even look there (yet). So the questions are always the same, and the answers are always the same. Choose for yourself.

Of course, you could question the morality of a universe so constructed. And who\what might you question? …when the very reality you occupy is itself a function of the immorality you dispute. When your own intelligibility is, in fact, unintelligible. Give it a try, and see where it gets you.

I personally know a number of people who love their children profoundly and would likely cut off their arm before they allowed any variety of abuse to occur. My impression of the epistemology is that it is supremely functional….under very specific conditions.
Click to expand...

No.
 
annnnoid said:
When incapable of answering a question, behave childishly and pretend the issue is irrelevant.



It is, of course, a profoundly incomprehensible mystery that this universe has somehow created a race of creatures with some manner of capacity to decide their own fate. With the ability to evaluate their own condition and take responsibility for achieving something that might be described as harmony, balance, understanding (or not). Somehow the ability to choose must come with the ability to choose incorrectly. The issue of personal responsibility/free will lies at the very heart of human nature. What it means, whether it exists, and how or if it is achieved are issues that are ultimately unanswerable. It simply becomes an individual question: how will I live my life? Religion has all the answers, but religion doesn’t know what they mean or where they come from (a broad generalization). Science has none of the answers, so there’s no need to even look there (yet). So the questions are always the same, and the answers are always the same. Choose for yourself.

Of course, you could question the morality of a universe so constructed. And who\what might you question? …when the very reality you occupy is itself a function of the immorality you dispute. When your own intelligibility is, in fact, unintelligible. Give it a try, and see where it gets you.

I personally know a number of people who love their children profoundly and would likely cut off their arm before they allowed any variety of abuse to occur. My impression of the epistemology is that it is supremely functional….under very specific conditions.
Click to expand...

Annnnoid this is profoundly NOT an argument against materialism. What's the point of this? Science doesn't generally factor into the decision of morality (it can if the decider wants it to) however NONE of what you said means anything towards the argument against materialism.

Why hijack this thread?

EDIT: because I want to mention that I might as well take the bait here, because mostly I don't care what you think. Morality of a universe only factors subjectively through the lens of whoever's looking through it; the scientist is not the homeless person and their morals are different. I know parents who would cut their arm off for their child, and I myself know that I wouldn't do that for anyone ELSE'S child (depending on the situation, because simply put my values are not necessarily someone elses)

Now, you postulate that religion actually has "answers." The fact is, it doesn't. In fact, what instead happens is WE, OURSELVES interpret a religious text, interpret the TIME during the text was written, and make inference. We can't even determine validity sometimes, we just work with what we decide is right enough (and that's using the Royal "we") You say religion has moral answers, I say that religion does not, because it itself will not admit to its "knowledge" in fact Hinduism LOVES to admit how much it doesn't know! Religion offers NOTHING, not a damn thing. It can piggyback on our feelings all it wants, but take religion out of the equation and you'll get no change whatsoever. People think the same, religion offers nothing more than a conspiracy of agreement.
 
Last edited:
Halfcentaur said:
You accuse others of smugness, yet it is arrogance that causes you to assert some sort of special importance in the natural order of things for your ability to derive pleasure from aesthetic concepts, like family, and love, and appreciation for elegance. You're unable to realize the Earth is not the center of the universe, metaphorically.

You seem to think because you can reason and recognize your animal instincts that they suddenly are no longer instinct and natural behavior. You love your children because animals who do not form attachments with their offspring fail to have offspring that do not die.

You are capable of making symbolic concepts, and nothing more. There is no magical importance floating around in the cosmos being important just because it is naturally and universally, important.

You are smugly asserting a special place in things for yourself, because you're able to appreciate aesthetics.

What's troubling to me is that you would somehow abandon your children and stop loving them if you were to decide it was an emotion founded on purely material means and natural behavior. Why do these things require some kind of supernatural acknowledgement to matter to you?

You accuse others of arrogance for weening themselves from this childish arrogance and for no longer tolerating it in others who seek to champion it. Being childish and naive is something all of us go through, with hope you too will bravely assert yourself and ween yourself from these needs.
Click to expand...



....hang on a sec Halfcentaur....I've gotta go for a very very very very long piss!
 
Lowpro said:
Annnnoid this is profoundly NOT an argument against materialism. What's the point of this? Science doesn't generally factor into the decision of morality (it can if the decider wants it to) however NONE of what you said means anything towards the argument against materialism.

Why hijack this thread?

EDIT: because I want to mention that I might as well take the bait here, because mostly I don't care what you think. Morality of a universe only factors subjectively through the lens of whoever's looking through it; the scientist is not the homeless person and their morals are different. I know parents who would cut their arm off for their child, and I myself know that I wouldn't do that for anyone ELSE'S child (depending on the situation, because simply put my values are not necessarily someone elses)

Now, you postulate that religion actually has "answers." The fact is, it doesn't. In fact, what instead happens is WE, OURSELVES interpret a religious text, interpret the TIME during the text was written, and make inference. We can't even determine validity sometimes, we just work with what we decide is right enough (and that's using the Royal "we") You say religion has moral answers, I say that religion does not, because it itself will not admit to its "knowledge" in fact Hinduism LOVES to admit how much it doesn't know! Religion offers NOTHING, not a damn thing. It can piggyback on our feelings all it wants, but take religion out of the equation and you'll get no change whatsoever. People think the same, religion offers nothing more than a conspiracy of agreement.
Click to expand...


...we use an awful lot of words that we don't really know the meaning of
 
annnnoid said:
....hang on a sec Halfcentaur....I've gotta go for a very very very very long piss!
Click to expand...

As someone pointed out earlier in a similar example, you're just confusing a map with the actual world it represents. You are prone to this because you're wired to be self centered by nature, you value yourself and your place and that of your fellow species above all other things because of it. You're making a huge mistake that is costing you knowledge and understanding. I think you're intelligent and fully capable of understanding this, but you seem to have a powerful emotional attachment of some sort preventing this.

How you reprehend others for being smug and then in turn offer smugness as a response without seeing the obvious contradiction speaks of the power of this emotional attachment.
 
Halfcentaur said:
As someone pointed out earlier in a similar example, you're just confusing a map with the actual world it represents. You are prone to this because you're wired to be self centered by nature, you value yourself and your place and that of your fellow species above all other things because of it. You're making a huge mistake that is costing you knowledge and understanding. I think you're intelligent and fully capable of understanding this, but you seem to have a powerful emotional attachment of some sort preventing this.

How you reprehend others for being smug and then in turn offer smugness as a response without seeing the obvious contradiction speaks of the power of this emotional attachment.
Click to expand...


Y’know Halfcentaur…I’ll consider that. Because…as Mr. Fincher said “you’re not in control”…so, who knows???? Maybe you didn’t even write it. Like, how do you know you did? And would you even know, if you didn’t?

As for being smug….

…dude…I just finished a twenty odd page challenge to point out the massive mistake of someone’s ‘smugness’

Smug Scientism run amok.
-I post a list of every word that describes any experience any human being could ever have (and quite clearly describe it as exactly that)
-Dude says we can and have detected every single one of them (like fMRI stuff)
-Twenty odd pages later…..after dealing with multiple interventions by hostile skeptics
..and one suspension
…turns out the ‘truth’ (as in ‘non-smug-position), as explained by Professor Rees., Director of the Cognitive Science Department of University College London
…he says ‘we can handle reasonably straightforward cases in limited ways because of limited interpretive abilities and the all but infinite number of possible cognitive states’
-..so, from "everything" we end up at "limited cases"
-twenty pages later….smug-be-gone….

There’s a song up here in Canada. Kind of famous. A one-hit-wonder kind of thing. The title of it went “what’s going on”?

Simple question. Kinda weird that no one knows the answer. Sounds like a big question though. Is it ‘smug’ to ask it? Personally, I think it’s ‘smug’ to presume you’ve answered it.
 
Last edited:
annnnoid said:
…turns out the ‘truth’ (as in ‘non-smug-position), as explained by Professor Rees., Director of the Cognitive Science Department of University College London
…he says ‘we can handle reasonably straightforward cases in limited ways because of limited interpretive abilities and the all but infinite number of possible cognitive states’
Click to expand...

I don't recall anyone saying that the current science wasn't limited.

Btw, I'm still waiting to see the emails you said you were happy to show us...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom