RE: Why materialists are predominantly materialists
September 17, 2016 at 6:36 pm
(This post was last modified: September 17, 2016 at 6:42 pm by Simon Moon.)
(September 17, 2016 at 5:40 pm)Emjay Wrote: I feel like I'm at a bit of an impasse now... so much so that I don't know whether I should downgrade myself from an atheist to an agnostic.
There is no such thing as "downgrading from atheist to agnostic". Both positions are not on the same line. Agnosticism is not some happy middle ground between theism and atheism.
Agnosticism concerns positions about knowledge, and what is unknown and/or unknowable. Atheism concerns belief, or lack thereof.
Yeah, I did it! I opened that can of worms...
Quote:I'm currently reading a book about consciousness and it's mainly a summary of existing positions, rather than a new theory being posited, and it contains a lot of philosophical questioning of those ideas, along with the author's own opinions. But it's really making me think on lines I've never really thought before. It describes the terminology so though I've always held my position strongly, I've never really known what it was called until now; 'functionalist epiphenomenalism'... vs zombic materialism and non-zombic materialism. So my view is that phenomenal consciousness is an impotent by-product of psychological consciousness (i.e. the physical) and that what binds them together, as it were, is this idea of functionalism... the system that is the brain. But it's just feeling harder and harder to hold that view, given that the system is defined/interpreted in some abstract way/space... there's no way to know where it begins and ends, whether it includes the environment as well as the brain etc... those sorts of questions that this book is bringing up and which Benny routinely brings up. In the past it's always been more than enough for me; the correlation between brain and mind and function and mind, but these philosophical questions are making me question whether correlation is enough... because this functionalist level or plane between them is something a lot more slippery. So I'm not a hugely happy bunny because it feels like my worldview has taken a severe beating. Just out of interest Rhythm or Jorm, do you identify with any of the above terms; functionalist epiphenomenalist, zombic materialist, or non-zombic materialist?
All interesting stuff. What's the name of the book? I love reading that kind of stuff.
But that leads to a question. What does science's current questions about consciousness, have to do with whether or not you accept the claim that a god or gods exist, is true or not?
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
