Has anyone seen my neutral pointer?

[The Grand Nudger]

Yep, and ideas are made of stuff....was there some ambiguity?

Okay, so ideas are made of ideas.  We are agreed, then.

Sure, if the terms are interchangeable..in your estimation.  That's your call, not mine. We could dance all day, I'd love the practice...but...at some point we'll both have the acknowledge that neither of us uses either term interchangeably with the other.

[Losty]

Dreams are imaginary and the imagination is made up of brain chemistry which is wholly physical and material.

For fuck's sake it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work that one out.

It EXACTLY takes a scientist to work that one out, actually.

What you've just done is stated your position as a fact.  You don't get to do that-- you have to demonstrate that your position IS a fact.  Go ahead.  Show that there's a material world, and that the imagination is nothing more than brain chemistry.  Demonstrate the truth of your assertion.

* Losty throws imaginary apple at Benny.

Meh

* Losty throws material apple at Benny.

[Angrboda]

If you want to say "material" is "things as we experience them," that's fine.  I experience stuff in dreams, and in that context, I suppose you could say that apples "exist."  But I don't think you'd call those apples "material," since in fact your world view goes beyond merely labeling experiences in this way.

A cosmogonic or cosmologic "-ism" probably is about more than that-- it's more likely to be a position on the true nature of reality.  And the nature of reality according to science is that what we experience doesn't exist objectively such as we experience it: there really isn't redness "out there" anywhere, for example, or even form.  Show me how the experience of redness "reduces down" to QM, and I'll give you a free apple.

You must be free basing. Nowhere did I say anything of the sort. I simply pointed out that you were conflating how data from our sensory receptors can be explained in terms of the underlying quantum phenomena with how the quantum phenomena themselves are described. How you got that from what I wrote is a mystery. No, what we experience does not objectively exist in the way that we experience it. The color red as a quality of light as it impinges upon our photoreceptors does exist. Your complaint was that our experience of the world doesn't make sense because of QM. That would be a big surprise to most physicists. You're simply retreating to the "physics can't explain qualia" argument, which is nothing but an argument from ignorance, and bears no relation to anything I said. It's just your "go to argument" for everything. Raising it here is nothing but a red herring.

[Joods]

If you say "that" and point to an apple..Imma get it.  If you think that it is or could be a spirit apple full of world peace (or that it;s useful, somehow, to leave that door open by pedantically describing a "neutral") then maybe, just maybe, it's your belief that needs elaboration rather than the materialistic underpinnings, as you see them, of everyday speech patterns.  

I don't think he's saying reality is neutral. I think he's saying the right position to take on things whose underlying framework you can't really know is a neutral position. So maybe you see an apple and say it's material stuff. I see an apple and say it's a collection of ideas: a particular shape, color, glossiness etc. He seems (unless I'm reading it wrong) to think both those positions are pointless. He'd rather dump the guesses and just say, "Nah. . . just an apple."

So, if I understand this correctly, why can't we just say, "we don't know" instead of saying it's neutral?

I still don't get the whole apple analogy.

[bennyboy]

Okay, so ideas are made of ideas.  We are agreed, then.

In the same way that bicycles are made of bicycle.

You missed the context.  I said "stuff" is an idea, and Rhythm said ideas are made of stuff.  So you're basically responding to Rhythm with this comment.

[bennyboy]

* Losty throws imaginary apple at Benny.

Meh

* Losty throws material apple at Benny.

Hmmm. I felt exactly nothing.

[Losty]

* Losty throws imaginary apple at Benny.

Meh

* Losty throws material apple at Benny.

Hmmm.  I felt exactly nothing.

If I had thrown a real material apple at you you'd have also felt nothing, I have terrible aim.

[bennyboy]

Okay, so ideas are made of ideas.  We are agreed, then.

Sure, if the terms are interchangeable..in your estimation.  That's your call, not mine.  We could dance all day, I'd love the practice...but...at some point we'll both have the acknowledge that neither of us uses either term interchangeably with the other.

I think we have a pretty neat little inversion, though.  I see "stuff" as a category of idea.  You see "idea" as a category of stuff, I think.

[ApeNotKillApe]

https://youtu.be/zsLOVYTLt90

[Joods]

I don't think he's saying reality is neutral. I think he's saying the right position to take on things whose underlying framework you can't really know is a neutral position. So maybe you see an apple and say it's material stuff. I see an apple and say it's a collection of ideas: a particular shape, color, glossiness etc. He seems (unless I'm reading it wrong) to think both those positions are pointless. He'd rather dump the guesses and just say, "Nah. . . just an apple."

So, if I understand this correctly, why can't we just say, "we don't know" instead of saying it's neutral?

I still don't get the whole apple analogy.

Anyone care to help me understand?