Occams Hatchet and Is Materialism "Special"

[LadyForCamus]

Well, god botherers certainly see them as aligned, if not the same..positions.  However, god botherers see all sorts of shit.  

If there was somthing that was "made of ideas" out there - it would just be something made of a different substance, add it to the periodic table in it's own column, lol..  If everything were "made of ideas" then it's just -the- substance.  Where, in that, we find a god...is just another issue of god botherers seeing all sorts of shit.   Cups, are made of ideas, or matter. Tables, chairs, the freckles on my face. "God" as conceived is made of neither until someone can show that god -is-.

(idealists will have to forgive me for speaking in materialese, up above, it's my native language)

If the assertion of objective idealism is that the actual world consists only of a collection of ideas which are made up of another kind of "stuff"; an "immaterial substance"...then...I mean, what the fuck are we even talking about at that point? Non-stuff, stuff? Cool...Now what? [emoji848]

[The Grand Nudger]

Usually, nothing.  When asked how the non-stuff stuff works we'll get a response ala "like you think the stuff works". It's DOA.

[bennyboy]

Idealism is a good alternative to materialism.  So is good, old fashioned, "I don't know" agnosticism.  The fact is that 100% of things we experience, whatever might really be behind them, are experiences only.  There are not experiences which are movies, or tables, or whatever.
Saying "We don't know, and I don't believe we can" is only a God of the gaps argument if you are making an assertion, and attempting to use the lack of knowledge as positive support for it.  Saying, "I don't think that you can know what you claim to know" isn't a God of the gaps argument-- it's just skepticism.

But isn't philosophical idealism as much of an asserted position as materialism by the same metrics?  I'm perfectly comfortable with, "I don't know" as an answer to how the brain generates qualia.  I'm also comfortable with the idea that because our existence is experiential in nature, we will probably never have "access" to absolute truths.  But, it doesn't sound like you're simply saying:  "I don't know/we can't know".  It sounds like you're saying "we can't know, therefore materialism is eliminated as a possibility."  I don't understand how you reached that conclusion, unless I am simply misunderstanding what materialism actually is.  (Philosophy is not my niche, lol)

I've never argued that materialism isn't a possibility. My argument is that the material monist world view is unprovable and unnecessary (a la the OP). It's a philosophical choice, not the inevitable result of observation and careful inquiry.

You said:  

The fact is that 100% of things we experience, whatever might really be behind them, are experiences only.

How do you KNOW this "fact"?  That doesn't sound like an agnostic position on the nature of reality at all.

Eh? How do I know that experiences are only experiences, and not tables? I'm not sure how to process that question.

You really feel that way?  That we can't trust our faculties to give us at the very least a rudimentary representation of truth?  That we can't even come close?  I mean...why even bother with the scientific method at all at that point?  Why bother trying to learn about ANYTHING if we're just blindly bumping around in a dark sea with a broken compass?  How do you get out of bed every day with that mentality?!  [emoji39]

Because the sense of meaning and the knowledge of truth aren't the same thing. If I send flowers to a girl, and she kisses me, I don't much care if she's "really, really" there as a physically monist object or as an idea in the Matrix. In that context, I'm fine with whatever it is being whatever it is. The experience of it is sufficient.

So in context, we can say things are true simply because they're coherent in that context. In the context of my mundane life, I really did send flowers to a girl, rather than a potato to a monkey. But to go from this context to assertions that 100% of reality consists of stuff as I normally experience it it is a mistake.

[bennyboy]

He doesn't , he just expects anyone who doesn't agree with his assertions to overcome that mentality.  

eh?  What assertions?

The only assertion I've been making is that your assertions about the nature of reality are unfounded and unnecessary.  You've gone on about the wonders of science, and yet you've refused to actually produce science supporting your claim.
You: The world is material. That's what all the evidence points to.
Me: I don't think that the evidence arrives at that position. Please demonstrate its truth.
You: Science and stuff. . . it's real!
Me: Okay, show me the science supporting your position on the nature of reality
You: I've demonstrated it already, and I'm not going to do your homework for you.

[The Grand Nudger]

I told you way back I wasn't interested in trolling myself. I'm trying to help you get past your mental logjam, not review the state of nueroscience today.

You've been making many, many more assertions than that, and if you don;t realize that, then the problem is properly fucking basic, lol. In any case, the materialists position, on the only thing you actually goive a shit to dispute that position in regards to, is that brain accounts for mind. Do you want to be the guy who stands there loudly, and repeatedly, demanding to be shown science to support this position, and implying that it does not exist - while simultaneously objecting to it in the specific as though it did, as though you were aware of that position and that science? Do you understand why only one half of your objections here could possibly -be- true?

I don;t -care- whether or not you accept the science. I;m not interested in proving to you that science works and can be trusted. I;m not, and I wont. I just want to get you to stop saying self defeating things. I want to help you cease to object in illogical ways.

I'm not even trying to prove to you that materialism is true. Only to help you understand that it isn't unneccessary to what -you- refer to as fact, even as you object to it by those facts you possess....and that it is well founded on something, regardless of whether or not you think that something works or can be trusted.

Now Jorg, Jorg did a wonderful writeup. Really took the time. Didn't take though, did it? So here you are, demanding that someone else take the time. Because it's going to work this time? Gloating that you've managed to exhaust peoples patience with your requests after you;d done everything in your power to exhaust their patience. UMADBRO? Well congratulations, this must be some sort of contest in hell, and you're clearly winning.

[bennyboy]

I told you way back I wasn't interested in trolling myself.  I'm trying to help you get past your mental logjam, not review the state of nueroscience today.

You've been making many, many more assertions than that, and if you don;t realize that, then the problem is properly fucking basic, lol.  In any case, the materialists position, on the only thing you actually goive a shit to dispute that position in regards to, is that brain accounts for mind.

Yeah, I know. Hand-waving, seen it before. You could wave at my brain in order to show that my text messages come from somewhere in there. You could also wave in the general direction of Korea with the same effect-- the confident knowledge that somewhere in there, somehow, text messages are getting formed. But this is not a good explanation for the existence of the text messages, is it?

Nah. . . you'd need some kind of mechanism to explain it.

 Do you want to be the guy who stands there loudly, and repeatedly, demanding to be shown science to support this position, and implying that it does not exist - while simultaneously objecting to it in the specific as though it did, as though you were aware of that position, and it -did- exist?

You've been resorting exclusively to metacommentary about me, my manner of engaging, etc. What you haven't been resorting to is proving your assertion with science, despite being such a champion of it.

Okay I'm going to make this easy on you. I'm not going to ask you to show me science about qualia. I'm going to go infinitely easier-- show me science that demonstrates the truth of your world view, since you claim it is a rational one, and NOT a philosophical assumption.

[bennyboy]

Gloating that you've managed to exhaust peoples patience with your requests after you;d done everything in your power to exhaust their patience.  UMADBRO?  Well congratulations, this must be some sort of contest in hell, and you're clearly winning.

Oh, shit, here we go. You going AFK, bro? Reported.

[The Grand Nudger]

LOL< kids temporarily lost their shit on me.  Bedtime and all, lol.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, I know.  Hand-waving, seen it before.  You could wave at my brain in order to show that my text messages come from somewhere in there.  You could also wave in the general direction of Korea with the same effect-- the confident knowledge that somewhere in there, somehow, text messages are getting formed.  But this is not a good explanation for the existence of the text messages, is it?

Right, and hand waiving is also what you would call the science you still insist cannot be presented to you.  In fact, you have done that.  So, gaian, the science must exists, and there;s either no reason for you to ask for it again and again......or it doesn't...and your objection to it is meaningless, as are all the requests to see it.

Nah. . . you'd need some kind of mechanism to explain it.

Conveniently, there isn't just one such mechanism in the materialists camp, but many.  You know my favorite.  In fact, my favorite mechanism is the very same mechanism to which -you- defer when explaining ideas and idealism.  

You've been resorting exclusively to metacommentary about me, my manner of engaging, etc.  What you haven't been resorting to is proving your assertion with science, despite being such a champion of it.

I'm not asserting anything other than it's existence, troll.  You're the one that jkeeps vacillating between pretending it doesn't exist, and then criticizing what you think doesn;t exist as hand waiving, or non-science.  

Okay I'm going to make this easy on you.  I'm not going to ask you to show me science about qualia.  I'm going to go infinitely easier-- show me science that demonstrates the truth of your world view, since you claim it is a rational one, and NOT a philosophical assumption.

Show you the science.....that demonstrates that a table is made out of matter?  What -else- could science demonstrate?   It's necessarily materialistic.............how can this not be getting through?   

[Whateverist]

What is AFK? Urban dictionary doesn't know and I sure as hell don't know.

As for material stuff being made of material. Nuff said?