What philosophical evidence is there against believing in non-physical entities?

[Cyberman]

At least the believers on this forum are willing to challenge each other. 

Are they........lol?

Sure they are. They challenge each other to see who can come up with the most ludicrous assertions.

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I like you all, really. Mostly.

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[Cyberman]

On the point of anecdotal testimony:

[Anomalocaris]

Still no statement from OP what a useful definition of non-physical entities.

A guess?  An entity that is fervently asserted to exist because its supposed existence would serves the asserter's private desires or goals, but is clearly known to be impossible to demonstrate to exist.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

From the top of my head I would say I'm challenging atheists more often than theists, since most theists making it here aren't worth debating at all.

You're right. I've been overgeneralizing quite a bit lately. Work has been eating at me. Had to terminate a contract with a non-performing vendor and now I have to do all the work they should have been doing AND correcting all their mistakes. So I'm feeling a little piled-on lately. Not that that's an excuse. It isn't.

Maybe not an excuse, but it's a perfectly sound explanation. All the best.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Still no statement from OP what a useful definition of non-physical entities.

A guess?  An entity that is fervently asserted to exist because it serves the asserter's private desires or goals, while clearly known to be impossible to demonstrate to exist.

Alternatively: Something that someone REALLY wants to be true - wants it so badly that they're willing to accept, 'Well, you can't disprove it, so it must be real' as proof positive.

Boru

[Whateverist]

From the top of my head I would say I'm challenging atheists more often than theists, since most theists making it here aren't worth debating at all.

You're right. I've been overgeneralizing quite a bit lately. Work has been eating at me. Had to terminate a contract with a non-performing vendor and now I have to do all the work they should have been doing AND correcting all their mistakes. So I'm feeling a little piled-on lately. Not that that's an excuse. It isn't.

I like you better as an ordinary human than as a peddler of the supernatural.  Just saying.

[Panatheist]

The attribution of the experience to an altered state?  I specifically used the term altered state to describe very unusual perceptual phenomena and said that anything I am experiencing subjectively including such perceptual phenomena must have a physical correlation to a state in the brain.

Which is an awful lot of wiggle room for an altered state.  I see things in novel ways, ways that I don't normally see the them, all the time. Is this an altered state, do you feel that I would be justified in claiming that I am experiencing altered states?

I didn't say what brain state or that I knew what brain state, just that there has to be a correlate in the brain to anything I am aware of.  I don't know what else could be said about that or what an atheist who doesn't believe in the supernatural could disagree with about that, honestly.

To say that there has to be a nueral correlate is to say nothing at all (between the two of us, anyway), and you've said a great deal more than just that, cmon now.  

And I'm still not sure why day dreams are being treated differently in this discussion even though they actually fit the definition you have recently given.

Were you daydreaming?

Don't see where I'm saying there is more to any form of awareness than a neural correlate, physical explanations, period.

Basically we are arguing over words, whether altered state is an appropriate term for my experience, but you haven't used the term consistently: that's my point in mentioning that day dreams qualify as per your definition.

Call it a trippy experience rather than an altered state, whatever you prefer. My point to the OP is that one can experience all sorts of strange mental phenomena without seeking a supernatural explanation.

[The Grand Nudger]

Don't see where I'm saying there is more to any form of awareness than a neural correlate, physical explanations, period.

-and I haven't made any comment or criticism as such.  Avoiding magic isn't exactly an accomplishment.  It's not as if anyone could help it...there's no such thing.

Basically we are arguing over words, whether altered state is an appropriate term for my experience, but you haven't used the term consistently: that's my point in mentioning that day dreams qualify as per your definition.

Unless you can at least accept that it's possible that you were daydreaming, neither of us is using daydreams as an example of the sort of altered state which you're angling for.  

Call it a trippy experience rather than an altered state, whatever you prefer.  My point to the OP is that one can experience all sorts of strange mental phenomena without seeking a supernatural explanation.

Sure, and one can attribute it to all sorts of ridiculous shit....also without ever referring to the supernatural.

[Panatheist]

Don't see where I'm saying there is more to any form of awareness than a neural correlate, physical explanations, period.

-and I haven't made any comment or criticism as such.  Avoiding magic isn't exactly an accomplishment.  It's not as if anyone could help it...there's no such thing.

Basically we are arguing over words, whether altered state is an appropriate term for my experience, but you haven't used the term consistently: that's my point in mentioning that day dreams qualify as per your definition.

Unless you can at least accept that it's possible that you were daydreaming, neither of us is using daydreams as an example of the sort of altered state which you're angling for.  

Call it a trippy experience rather than an altered state, whatever you prefer.  My point to the OP is that one can experience all sorts of strange mental phenomena without seeking a supernatural explanation.

Sure, and one can attribute it to all sorts of ridiculous shit....also without ever referring to the supernatural.

I mentioned a neural correlate for any state of awareness to the OP for their benefit because they *do* believe in the supernatural.

Day dreaming DOES FIT YOUR DEFINITION OF AN ALTERED STATE. IT OCCURS IN THE THETA STATE. Caps lock for emphasis. If it was a day dream it *doesn't help your argument.*

Dude, CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT. I have already told you before, call it something else if you like. A day dream. A reindeer. Whatever. It *doesn't change* what I'm saying to the OP: even strange perceptions have natural explanations. No "ridiculous shit" required.

What the fuck.

[Pat Mustard]

Materialism is dead nowadays as a serious philosophical theory. I think the Kantian realization that the world is dependent on our senses causes us to to doubt that we can contain the world in language or our thoughts. Science has not disproved the existence of other dimensions.


Why would people be unwilling to acknowledge the possibility that spiritual entities exist? I talk to them every day and they talk back to me, using English words and language. I am sure this is real and most societies have had some sort of concept of this. Why would people be unwilling to acknowledge there could be other life besides human life?

There is no philosophical evidence ether for or against non-physical beings, mainly because philosophy doesn't deal in evidence. The best reason to not believe in a non-physical entity is that we have not devised a system where one could exist and interact with the real world (even energy based beings, the closest to non-physical beings yet hypothesised, have a physical presence).