RE: Why materialists are predominantly materialists
September 16, 2016 at 9:59 pm
(This post was last modified: September 16, 2016 at 10:01 pm by bennyboy.)
(September 16, 2016 at 9:55 pm)Jesster Wrote: Believing in the material world is the starting point. If you don't start by assuming that, we can't go anywhere at all. Since I personally observe that on some level, I'm going to go ahead and leave that as a given. Anything beyond the material world doesn't even have that much to work with yet. That's where I will need more evidence.This is the "assumption that begs the question" that I was talking about. You keep talking about "more than" the material world, and now "beyond" it. You need to start with your belief in a material world at all. Is it based on your experiences? The apparent solidity of objects you interact with? If so, then do you experience them as 99.99999% empty space, and the .00000001% being only describable as a mathematical function? I'm guessing not.
So if you want to start there, you'll have to explain why you think it's the start. As I said, since anything we "know" starts with experience, then reality-as-experience must be the default position, and anything else must be supported with some pretty watertight reasoning.
