Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist

[The Grand Nudger]

Because it doesn't "add nothing"..as you so eloquently described in your last post, Benny.  It's added a great deal, you owe every facet of your modern life to the notion (both the notions of an exterior world and the notion that this world is material), and the foundations upon which that notion is built.  If we're wrong about that..and we could be...we've been pretty damned lucky that it all works as though we were right.  Just going with the implied similarity. Your electricity doesn't work "because sky daddy" or "because idealism"...but it -does work-......"because materialism". That's the model that we've leveraged to provide the effect...even if it's wrong, inexplicably, but possibly.

-and no, again, you don't get any evidence -from- materialism when arguing -against- materialism, its fallacious reasoning cut and dry.  Did you use your google or no? If you would use -as true- what you would argue to be false, to demonstrate the truth of your proposition, to provide evidence of the truth of your proposition...you are not using logic. Stolen concept, or "indirectly self refuting idea". It's a thing, I'm not just giving you shit or trying to be difficult, lol.

I'll restate....neither QM nor QFT strain materialism, they are -built- from that position, entirely steeped in that position, and in no way arguing -against- that position....our "best observations" -as you've just called them-..are it's crowning achievement.....this is why I've always been so confused by your position and means of argumentation.

[bennyboy]

Because it doesn't "add nothing"..as you so eloquently described in your last post, Benny.  It's added a great deal, you owe every facet of your modern life to the notion (both the notions of an exterior world and the notion that this world is material), and the foundations upon which that notion is built.

We're not talking about the systematic organization of observations and ideas into a coherent scientific body. That adds a lot. However, as a philosophical world view, there's nothing about a physicalist monism that doesn't still work just fine in an idealistic monism. It doesn't matter whether we are inj a physical monist universe, or the Matrix, or the Mind of God-- you can equally well observe the effects of gravity, or of a falling apple, or of double-slit experiments, in any of those hypothetical realities. What you can't do, however, is observe them without the use of mind; that is, in essence, why I think an idealism is the more sensible default position.

-and no, again, you don't get any evidence -from- materialism when arguing -against- materialism, its fallacious reasoning cut and dry.

Again, materialism is an idea, and it applies to a certain range of our experiences and ideas. You see materialism and idealism as mutually exclusive world views, but I see materialism as a subset of ideas-- about those experiences which are common enough to make them worth categorizing and inferring rules about. Rules which are, by the way, more ideas.

 Did you use your google or no?  If you would use -as true- what you would argue to be false, to demonstrate the truth of your proposition, to provide evidence of the truth of your proposition...you are not using logic.  Stolen concept, or "indirectly self refuting idea".  It's a thing, I'm not just giving you shit or trying to be difficult, lol.

Yes, I googled it, and my last post was meant to answer it. I guess it didn't.

I'll restate....neither QM nor QFT strain materialism, they are -built- from that position, entirely steeped in that position, and in no way arguing -against- that position....our "best observations" -as you've just called them-..are it's crowning achievement.....this is why I've always been so confused by your position and means of argumentation.

Your view is that materialism has adapted with the new information, i.e. that it has evolved. My view is that all the terms and concepts associate with materialism (billiard balls + an understanding of force and energy = predictability) have been strained to breaking point, and that it is only academic tradition that makes some think that there is anything but a paradoxical empty potentiality under the hood. I do not accept undefined wave functions as "stuff," and I don't accept a materialistic world view in which "stuff" doesn't exist objectively and unambiguously in a 3D space.

[The Grand Nudger]

We're not talking about the systematic organization of observations and ideas into a coherent scientific body.  That adds a lot.  However, as a philosophical world view, there's nothing about a physicalist monism that doesn't still work just fine in an idealistic monism.

I know that you keep saying that, but repeating it doesn't make it true.  Materialism -does work-, you've yet to -begin- to explain how idealism -could do work-...and again, if you would make that attempt you might see the problem more clearly.  The things that "work" in materialism work -because- of those characteristics and attributes defined both by and -as- the material...or they work -as if- those things both defined by and as the material are true.

Again, materialism is an idea, and it applies to a certain range of our experiences and ideas.  You see materialism and idealism as mutually exclusive world views, but I see materialism as a subset of ideas-- about those experiences which are common enough to make them worth categorizing and inferring rules about.  Rules which are, by the way, more ideas.

I don't see them as mutually exclusive, I'm trying to explain an informal fallacy to you and you're attempting to respond to anything -other- than that.  Those rules...guess what...built upon our observation of what we see as a material world, how it seems to behave.  Why does it behave the way that it does....again we reference materialism.  Ideas which, again.....seem to be made of material stuff, material interactions.    

Yes, I googled it, and my last post was a response to it.

Couldn't tell...because you did it again -in- that response and this one.  You just don't get to claim any of the things you've claimed while arguing against their truth - not even indirectly. Not as proof, not as evidence.

Your view is that materialism has adapted with the new information, i.e. that it has evolved.  My view is that all the terms and concepts associate with materialism (billiard balls + an understanding of force and energy = predictability) have been strained to breaking point, and that it is only academic tradition that makes some think that there is anything but a paradoxical empty potentiality under the hood.  I do not accept undefined wave functions as "stuff."

I would find it strange and far -less- compelling if it hadn't adapted to new information.  That may be your position, but it's not QM or QFT's position.  Our best observations still indicate a material world of predictable interactions, and those observations themselves are meaningless -without- that foundation to begin with. What we'd need to do for idealism, to claim level ground with materialism, is explain things from the top down or bottom up -all over again-....without stolen concepts. We can use the same data (though perhaps even this might be tenuous) - but we'll need new explanations -of- that data.

[Redbeard The Pink]

When we're talking about anything immaterial, supernatural, metaphysical, or anything else with no demonstrable, material existence, of course the "criteria of demonstration" breaks down. There is no evidence for any of that bullshit existing, aside from what people have made up and insisted upon. That's what's so great about the supernatural; you can make up any rules you want for it and make it whatever kind of object or character you desire because there's no way to "disprove its existence" per se and "I just don't see how it could be anything else" and "you have to admit it's at least possible" and yadda yadda yadda...


Your argument revolves around the exact same kind of side-stepping that Theists use to explain how their respective Gauds could exist outside of space and time as we know it; by simply placing Jehovah/Allah/The Mind Thing/The Flying Spaghetti Monster in the realm of "immaterial" things (and therefore outside material existence and beyond material evidence) you/they dodge any responsibility for proving your claims with evidence, restricting yourselves to circular logic, false claims, and fallacious reasoning. This is why science demands evidence from people like you; your claim is not just philosophical because it's a claim about the nature and origin of material existence, and it insists on using faith/"reason" rather than evidence as a basis for belief, making it a religious claim. The nature and origin of existence is not a question for religion or philosophy, it's a question for science. You don't get to just throw anything you want in there because you think it answers a question and you like the way it sounds. Your Gaud is a god of the gaps, argued from incredulity and ignorance, just like everyone else's.


To put it bluntly, your argument is not new. You just have a different mask stapled to the god-voice in your confused little head.

[Rational AKD]

When we're talking about anything immaterial, supernatural, metaphysical, or anything else with no demonstrable, material existence, of course the "criteria of demonstration" breaks down. There is no evidence for any of that bullshit existing, aside from what people have made up and insisted upon.

like usual... you completely missed the point. you are setting a burden that, by principle alone, dismisses everything contrary to materialism... which means you have a belief based on principle rather than reason, dismissing contrary reason based on principle rather than merit.
as I said, can you demonstrate to me why empirical demonstration is the only kind of evidence? you accept empiricism on principle rather than reason... thus your criticism of the argument is likewise based on principle rather than reason.

Your argument revolves around the exact same kind of side-stepping that Theists use to explain how their respective Gauds could exist outside of space and time as we know it; by simply placing Jehovah/Allah/The Mind Thing/The Flying Spaghetti Monster in the realm of "immaterial" things (and therefore outside material existence and beyond material evidence) you/they dodge any responsibility for proving your claims with evidence,

yeah... that's why we do it...

 restricting yourselves to circular logic, false claims, and fallacious reasoning.

to which none of those are in the argument I presented.

This is why science demands evidence from people like you; your claim is not just philosophical because it's a claim about the nature and origin of material existence,

the only claim about nature is a metaphysical one... which is beyond the scope of science. don't believe me? just go ahead and look up 'metaphysical' and see what subject it's in. go ahead. do it.

and it insists on using faith/"reason"

oh yeah... because faith and reason are equivocal... just curious... do you even think?

[Reforged]

When we're talking about anything immaterial, supernatural, metaphysical, or anything else with no demonstrable, material existence, of course the "criteria of demonstration" breaks down. There is no evidence for any of that bullshit existing, aside from what people have made up and insisted upon.

like usual... you completely missed the point. you are setting a burden that, by principle alone, dismisses everything contrary to materialism... which means you have a belief based on principle rather than reason, dismissing contrary reason based on principle rather than merit.
as I said, can you demonstrate to me why empirical demonstration is the only kind of evidence? you accept empiricism on principle rather than reason... thus your criticism of the argument is likewise based on principle rather than reason.

Your argument revolves around the exact same kind of side-stepping that Theists use to explain how their respective Gauds could exist outside of space and time as we know it; by simply placing Jehovah/Allah/The Mind Thing/The Flying Spaghetti Monster in the realm of "immaterial" things (and therefore outside material existence and beyond material evidence) you/they dodge any responsibility for proving your claims with evidence,

yeah... that's why we do it...

 restricting yourselves to circular logic, false claims, and fallacious reasoning.

to which none of those are in the argument I presented.

This is why science demands evidence from people like you; your claim is not just philosophical because it's a claim about the nature and origin of material existence,

the only claim about nature is a metaphysical one... which is beyond the scope of science. don't believe me? just go ahead and look up 'metaphysical' and see what subject it's in. go ahead. do it.

and it insists on using faith/"reason"

oh yeah... because faith and reason are equivocal... just curious... do you even think?

Ultimately your entire argument falls down because you invoke the metaphysical which by definition is beyond the mind or the senses. Therefore a concept you can comprehend by definition cannot be branded a metaphysical concept. The mind is something you can comprehend. You even conceded "you can think of it as a product of material interactions or its own substance". Thats entirely accurate. Infact neuroscience outright proves this. It is the result of biological components interacting. You are creating a mystery where none exists because you want to perceive it as something more and you can't without attempting to invoke the metaphysical which as stated is an oxymoron.

[bennyboy]

The mind is something you can comprehend. You even conceded "you can think of it as a product of material interactions or its own substance". Thats entirely accurate. Infact neuroscience outright proves this. It is the result of biological components interacting.

Given the nature of the OP, I don't think this comment really gets to the salient issues.  You have to get a lot deeper to get to the philosophical arguments here.

[Redbeard The Pink]

That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. It's not that I just "assume" that materialism is correct; I've just been presented with loads of evidence to that effect and only empty talk to the contrary. Open the curtain and show me the Mind-Thing or admit that your Gaud is just as nebulous and unreasonable as the rest of them.


Your only reason for attempting to forward a metaphysical claim about physical nature is to put your questions and assertions beyond the scope of evidence because as soon as evidence is brought up, you crumble. Evidence cannot be refuted or explained away, so you have endeavored to disallow all physical evidence from the discussion and create something whose real existence can be asserted without the need for evidence. There is no such thing. If something really exists, it's possible to show it. Period. If you can't show it, you don't know it, no matter how good it sounds to you.



Evidence or gtfo.

[emjay]

@Rational AKD

Hello. I think your theories are very interesting but how are they connected with Christianity? It's one thing to say we're all figments of God's imagination and living in a simulation, but why this God and this religion rather than any other? I guess what I'm asking is which came first in you, Christianity or this theory?

[Rational AKD]

Ultimately your entire argument falls down because you invoke the metaphysical which by definition is beyond the mind or the senses.

yet again someone stating the argument is invalid on principle rather than by false premises or invalid logic... ok. i'll bite.

Therefore a concept you can comprehend by definition cannot be branded a metaphysical concept.

is that metaphysically true? if it is, then how do you know it? if it's not, then how can you say it?
just because it's beyond our senses, doesn't mean we can't use reason and deduction to infer something of it. it just means we can't use what we experience to infer something of it... because the contents of experience can only infer the contents of experience... not the nature of how and why we experience.

The mind is something you can comprehend. You even conceded "you can think of it as a product of material interactions or its own substance". Thats entirely accurate.

of course I gave that as a possibility in the definition... if I didn't then I would be question begging. the point of the argument was to deduce that possibility as false through introspection. just saying 'it's false by definition isn't a valid argument because definitions are arbitrary.

[quote-RaphielDrake] Infact neuroscience outright proves this. It is the result of biological components interacting.[/quote]
but you just said 'you can comprehend by definition cannot be branded a metaphysical concept...' yet you're using knowledge we gather from conscious experience to infer the metaphysical nature of conscious experience... IE, that it's purely physical... and second, biological components interacting only shows how materials interact... not mind... try not to refute yourself next time.

You are creating a mystery where none exists because you want to perceive it as something more and you can't without attempting to invoke the metaphysical which as stated is an oxymoron.

you do realize that denying the metaphysical is still a metaphysical claim... right? you can't deny something without inferring something about that something... if you're denying X, you're still talking about X.