Poll: Can logical arguments disprove materialism at all

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

There's hundreds of them, and many of them have been widely accepted for centuries. That is why I am asking whether people believe ANY argument could convince them. If they don't, then there is no point in telling people there aren't any because even if they'd seen one, they would fail to recognise it.

So could you give us a link to the Philosophy Wastebasket web site? I'd like to see a list of all the trashed metaphysics. If I find materialism in there, then I'll know how to vote.

~~ Paul

 

[chriswl]

I am also saying that this belief is so powerful that even some people who do philosophy for a job have admitted that no argument would ever be enough to convince them. For him, there were just too many other reasons for him to continue believing. I wish I could locate the actual quote.

Why do you think this kind of argument is convincing? What about all the philosophers who are physicalists? You have to convince me why I should take the arguments of one set of philosophers over another.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

A logical argument can't disprove anything. It can prove something. But it can't prove a negative. So no, no logical argument can disprove materialism. Nor can it disprove idealism, or Cthulhuism or anything else.

 

[cyborg]

However, I have not seen a proof that such an argument is impossible, so I'm open to suggestions.

Well I would suggest that if someone could construct a philsopohy that is not ontological then it would be possible. However since all logic systems must contain at least one axiom they are all by definition ontological and hence I cannot see that this is possible at all.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

So could you give us a link to the Philosophy Wastebasket web site? I'd like to see a list of all the trashed metaphysics. If I find materialism in there, then I'll know how to vote.

~~ Paul

What this boils down to is very simple, and it's not actually about materialism per se. It is about our natural tendency to believe that the objects we percieve are part of a self-existing world that is external to our perceptions of it. However, the sentence in bold appears to contain a contradiction. This was first noticed by philosophers in 500BC but all the people here who are defending materialism either haven't noticed it, don't believe it or haven't figured out the consequences.

Q1 for materialists) Does the physical world exist independently of mind? A: Yes
Q2 for materialists) Can we perceive the physical world? A: Yes

Philosophers have spent a very long time trying to find a way to show how it could be possible to answer YES to both these questions at the same time. To my knowledge, nobody has so far found an answer. The latest person to claim to have solved the problem published a book claiming to contain the solution in 2003:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674008413/104-8084046-7214354?v=glance&n=283155

Book Description

In a major contribution to the theory of perception, A. D. Smith presents a truly original defense of direct realism--the view that in perception we are directly aware of things in the physical world.

The Problem of Perception offers two arguments against direct realism--one concerning illusion, and one concerning hallucination--that no current theory of perception can adequately rebut. Smith then develops a theory of perception that does succeed in answering these arguments; and because these arguments are the only two that present direct realism with serious problems arising from the nature of perception, direct realism emerges here for the first time as an ultimately tenable position within the philosophy of perception.

If A.D.Smith is correct, then maybe you can answer yes to both questions. I don't really understand his solution.

Geoff

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Why do you think this kind of argument is convincing? What about all the philosophers who are physicalists? You have to convince me why I should take the arguments of one set of philosophers over another.

Only you can decide which set of philosophers are right.

 

[Melendwyr]

Only you can decide which set of philosophers are right.

If that's the case, then stop telling us which set of philosophers are wrong.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

If that's the case, then stop telling us which set of philosophers are wrong.

If nobody ever claimed anything was right or wrong, nobody would have a position at all.

 

[Upchurch]

Only you can decide which set of philosophers are right.

Am I missing something here? Or have you changed your mind since you wrote this:

Sounds like you are saying the same thing as cosmo. There are serious implications from such a stance. Science can't disprove physicalism - it's not equipped to do so. So if logical arguments can't convince you either, then nothing will - and it has taken on the status of a quasi-religious belief. It just happens to be a quasi-religious belief you are very very very sure is true.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Am I missing something here? Or have you changed your mind since you wrote this:

I think you might be missing something. Where's the contradiction?

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Sure, if the proof were good and did not involve a set of false assumptions.

The world is as it is, not as we want it to be. What we see out there is not exactly what is really out there anyway. "Perceiving" is a construction constrained by the energy that activates receptors among other things.

 

[Upchurch]

I think you might be missing something. Where's the contradiction?

Well, in the first quote, you seem to be acknowledging that logical arguments (i.e. philosophical arguments) are ultimately subjectively right or wrong. In the second quote, you seem to be complaining that Roboramma is being closed minded because a logical argument can't convince him that physicalism is wrong. This second one implies that you think that a logical argument can be objectively right or wrong and, thus, physicalism can be objectively right or wrong.

 

[Earthborn]

Q1 for materialists) Does the physical world exist independently of mind? A: Yes
Q2 for materialists) Can we perceive the physical world? A: Yes

I think the answer to that little conundrum lies in the fact that Q1 asks the wrong question. I don't think mind and physical world are independent from eachother, but I would rather ask: "Is the mind independent of the physical world?" The answer is quite obviously 'no'. For one thing the mind is influenced by its perceptions of the physical world.

So is the physical world independent of the mind while the mind is dependent on it? No, of course not as that would lead to a contradiction. The physical world really is partly dependent on the mind. Through engineering, art and architecture, human minds have shaped part of the physical world. It is just that in the grand scheme of things, human minds are just tiny little things, only influencing the physical world in a very limited way. So the correct answer to question 1 is actually: "No, not entirely", but the mind depends on the physical world much more than vice versa.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I think the answer to that little conundrum lies in the fact that Q1 asks the wrong question. I don't think mind and physical world are independent from eachother, but I would rather ask: "Is the mind independent of the physical world?" The answer is quite obviously 'no'. For one thing the mind is influenced by its perceptions of the physical world.

So is the physical world independent of the mind while the mind is dependent on it? No, of course not as that would lead to a contradiction. The physical world really is partly dependent on the mind. Through engineering, art and architecture, human minds have shaped part of the physical world. It is just that in the grand scheme of things, human minds are just tiny little things, only influencing the physical world in a very limited way. So the correct answer to question 1 is actually: "No, not entirely", but the mind depends on the physical world much more than vice versa.

I just started a new thread on this. please repost it in that one.

 

[Tricky]

This is prompted by a PM exchange with Tricky

What I want to know is this: I have heard it stated before, by a professional philosopher, that "Logical arguments cannot convince us that physicalism is not true." He was basically saying that he believed that not-physicalist explanations of reality were so hard for him to stomach that no logical argument could ever convince him it to abandon physicalism.

How do people here feel about that?

What I said (in essence) is that logic is based on assumptions. You can have perfect logic, and yet your conclusions are incorrect because your assumptions are not supported. For example:

Premise 1: All Alabamians are good-looking
Premise2: Tricky is an Alabamian
Conclusion: Tricky is good looking.

The logic is perfect but the conclusion is horribly wrong because of the basic flaw in premise 1. Any small amount of research will demonstrate that not all Alabamians are pretty and in fact, much the contrary.

So my comparison to this was that in order to assume that metaphysical things exist, there must be a good reason to accept the premise of a non-physical plane. But by all appearances, no amount of research can provide us with this evidence, in fact many believers in metaphysical things insist that it cannot be shown by evidence. Yet without evidence, logic alone cannot provide us with an answer. Logic only shows if something is consistant within the boudaries of its premises.

Or, GIGO, to be succinct.

 

[hammegk]

I doubt there is a logical argument that could destroy materialism, idealism, or many other -isms.

My first thought is that every logically consistent 'ism' will eventually track back to either materialism or idealism, body or mind, etc.

My choice of objective idealism is the result of examining, within my worldview and experience, the consequences of either monism followed to the extremes. For example under each choice, consider life vs non-life, HPC, physics and cosmology results to date, etcetc.

 

[Giz]

I think you have a tendency to fall into a similar trap to that which you accuse scientists of doing (i.e. forgetting that their mathematical models are a description of reality and not reality itself).

Philosophers using sophistry and word games to try and determine the ultimate nature of things... do they remember that language is a tool and not the universe itself?

No response Geoff? Remember, even if you ignore me I still exist!

 

[chriswl]

This was first noticed by philosophers in 500BC but all the people here who are defending materialism either haven't noticed it, don't believe it or haven't figured out the consequences.

Q1 for materialists) Does the physical world exist independently of mind? A: Yes
Q2 for materialists) Can we perceive the physical world? A: Yes

As you have phrased it here it's not a problem. It's a problem for dualism. It's not a problem for eliminativist materialists (mind, what's mind?). Nor for supervenience materialists, for whom the physical world is independent of mind but mind is not independent of the physical world.