What materialism is

[pmurray]

I'm sorry, but I think this is circular. What it amounts to is that a materialist believes that everything in the world is fundamentally made of the fundamental stuff of the world.

Which is what I was (badly) trying to avoid.

Idealism seems to be the notion that the fundamental stuff of the world is very much like the kinds of things that go on inside our own heads - ideas. Follow that, and it's only a short jump to supposing that the fundamental stuff of the universe is things very much like persons, because really only persons can have ideas. Hence, animism and then theism (poly and mono).

By contrast, science is discovering that the fundamental stuff of the universe appears to be impersonal. It does not think, or have ideas (like what we are used to). As we probe more and more deeply, the basic stuff of the universe becomes incomprehensible - outside our experience. We lack metaphors to really "understand" modern physics in the way that we understand most things.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Which is what I was (badly) trying to avoid.

Idealism seems to be the notion that the fundamental stuff of the world is very much like the kinds of things that go on inside our own heads - ideas. Follow that, and it's only a short jump to supposing that the fundamental stuff of the universe is things very much like persons, because really only persons can have ideas. Hence, animism and then theism (poly and mono).

By contrast, science is discovering that the fundamental stuff of the universe appears to be impersonal. It does not think, or have ideas (like what we are used to). As we probe more and more deeply, the basic stuff of the universe becomes incomprehensible - outside our experience. We lack metaphors to really "understand" modern physics in the way that we understand most things.

You have no idea what science is about. Science discovers nothing about any fundamental stuff of the world. It deals purely with patterns which can be explained by causes and effects. It could not possibly discover any consciousness because consciousness cannot be understood as purely cause and effect.

 

[Jeff Corey]

You have no idea what science is about. Science discovers nothing about any fundamental stuff of the world. It deals purely with patterns which can be explained by causes and effects. It could not possibly discover any consciousness because consciousness cannot be understood as purely cause and effect.

You have just conclusively demonstrated that you know nothing about science.

 

[Robin]

You have no idea what science is about. Science discovers nothing about any fundamental stuff of the world. It deals purely with patterns which can be explained by causes and effects. It could not possibly discover any consciousness because consciousness cannot be understood as purely cause and effect.

It would be news to most physicists that they deal with patterns that can be explained by causes and effects. As far as I know there is no assumption about cause and effect and that there are a number of areas investigating the possibility of acausal entities/events. It seems that you always ignore these things when they are pointed out to you - but still confidently tell others that they have no idea what science is about.

It is the very nature of science not to have assumptions. If there is anything in existence that is not explainable by science then the scientific community will not throw up their collective hands and say "Not our department". If that was so then science would have ended with the start of the twentieth century.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Hold on a minute. Ian, you were arguing about that the souls have causal relationships with matter... and that that is the only way we can know they are "real"