Why materialists are predominantly materialists

[Joods]

Seems like our OP has abandoned his thread.

Nope it's been moved.

Clearly you don't remember saying this.

[bennyboy]

Nope it's been moved.

Clearly you don't remember saying this.

Does it matter?  The point is that people were saying he abandoned the original thread, and I was indicating that there was a new one.  Do the exact mechanics of how that happened matter?  No.

[bennyboy]

Whether what we experience exists outside of our minds or not is a moot point. Whether it does, or it doesn't, we will never know and we have no reason to believe it would make any difference either way. 

I agree.

Reality is there. We have to describe it somehow. The best way to describe it is as physical and/or material.

Ideas are real, too, are they not. And describing them in terms of particular brain arrangements or function is not only impossible, it would be pointless. We talk about experiences in subjective terms all the time.

To claim there's some other plane beyond that is to delve into stupidity. Just so, matter is simply an idea used to explain certain phenomena. Unless you scientifically arive at a better way to describe these things, you're doing nothing but circling the drain of intellectual bedrock.

There's nothing wrong with how we describe these things. However, the source attribution we make about the SOURCE of the experiences we are describing is not only unprovable, it is unnecessary either to the process of description, or of doing good science. We don't have to cling to an outdated billiard-balls view of reality in order to have an interest in reality and in its investigation.

[Excited Penguin]

Whether what we experience exists outside of our minds or not is a moot point. Whether it does, or it doesn't, we will never know and we have no reason to believe it would make any difference either way. 

I agree.

Reality is there. We have to describe it somehow. The best way to describe it is as physical and/or material.

Ideas are real, too, are they not.  And describing them in terms of particular brain arrangements or function is not only impossible, it would be pointless.  We talk about experiences in subjective terms all the time.

To claim there's some other plane beyond that is to delve into stupidity. Just so, matter is simply an idea used to explain certain phenomena. Unless you scientifically arive at a better way to describe these things, you're doing nothing but circling the drain of intellectual bedrock.

There's nothing wrong with how we describe these things.  However, the source attribution we make about the SOURCE of the experiences we are describing is not only unprovable, it is unnecessary either to the process of description, or of doing good science.  We don't have to cling to an outdated billiard-balls view of reality in order to have an interest in reality and in its investigation.

It's not impossible, it's just hard. We already do describe them in that way, we're just not yet very good at it.

Which source attribution are you referring to, exactly?

[The Grand Nudger]

Reality is there. We have to describe it somehow. The best way to describe it is as physical and/or material.

Ideas are real, too, are they not.  And describing them in terms of particular brain arrangements or function is not only impossible, it would be pointless.  We talk about experiences in subjective terms all the time.

There you go again, calling something impossible, and then pointless.....while you do it to your very own thoughts.  Your ideas, ironically even on -this- issue..are obviously transferable and now sit as another form of physical arrangement being spooled out by the functions of yet another machine.  It will happen three times, at least, just for us to be able to discuss them.  First on your pc, then on the server, then on my pc.  Clearly, ideas can be described by physical arrangements and functions.  

There's nothing wrong with how we describe these things.  However, the source attribution we make about the SOURCE of the experiences we are describing is not only unprovable, it is unnecessary either to the process of description, or of doing good science.  We don't have to cling to an outdated billiard-balls view of reality in order to have an interest in reality and in its investigation.

Who do you think it is that's clinging to billiards balls?  You, or materialists? That's a pretty constant criticism -of- materialism you realize (from idealists, no less)? That it's incorporated so many things and gone so far -from- billiards balls. That we, as it's been put in thread, discover something and call it material. People point out that qm, for example...despite being thoroughly materialistic...is not at all like the billiards balls of yore (and high school physics). I can;t figure out what the problem is. That materialism has come to incorporate new discoveries and refined data, that;s it;s become too inclusive...or that it;s hanging on some centuries old description - that it's stagnant. They can't both be true.

[Angrboda]

Chomsky once said something like, 'Before you start asking questions about 'physical' and 'non-physical', you have to define what physical even means.'

It's a good question.  Did he provide an answer?

My answer is that whatever is or isn't "out there," the human experience of it is purely experiential/idealistic.  In other words, the study of physics is a category of idea-- about the nature of and relationship among objects.  It doesn't really require a position on the underlying nature of reality.

Of course it does. Ideas as a something is opposed to ideas as nothing. That's taking a position. Only by contrasting the world of ideas with the world of things do you come up with the notion of "what ideas are." Relationships among objects is a category of idea but it doesn't explain what an idea is. Our experience is completely noninformative about the nature of ideas. The only non-position position about their reality is pure agnosticism. They could be material. They could be a substance in and of themselves. They could be illusions. By describing them as a substance in and of themselves, you're taking a metaphysical view about them as sure as materialism is. What's worse, you're defining them as the negation of the material. That's borrowing the concept of the material in defining the idea. It's an example of the use of the stolen concept.

[Angrboda]

Benny, that's like asking us to prove that no god exists. Of course we can't do that. The rational response is to not accept it until the evidence for it is there, though. I'm not even saying that there isn't more to existence than materialism. I just don't have any reason to believe otherwise yet.

Reason to "believe otherwise"?  I think you're skipping an important step-- the reason to believe that there IS a material world at all.  I know everyone feels very confident about the reality of things, but who here has an experience of the material world that is in accord with modern scientific views?  Nobody.

You're conflating a description of the micro world with the result of having macro-level granularity of senses. "The quantum world is spooky" doesn't undermine that our experiences are built upon sensory apparatus with a macro granularity, and the macro experience is fully reducible to the micro world. You're just confusing levels and talking a bunch of bollocks.

I'd also suggest that since all knowledge is collected by way of subjective experience, that experience itself is the only thing we know to be real.  And the world view that best represents this would be an idealistic monism, not a material one.

Horse hockey. We know from studies of brain trauma that there are modular components to our experience. We don't know "the experience itself", we know what we tell ourselves about the experience. Idealistic monism is no less a "just so story" that consciousness tells itself than any other. Tell me how you know that you actually experience anything, as opposed to just believing that you experience things? It could just as easily be the latter rather than the former. You don't know. You're just so enamored with the appearance of consciousness that you can't see straight. I think consciousness is just an illusion. Do you have any actual evidence that it isn't?

[emjay]

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. 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?

[bennyboy]

Ideas are real, too, are they not.  And describing them in terms of particular brain arrangements or function is not only impossible, it would be pointless.  We talk about experiences in subjective terms all the time.

There you go again, calling something impossible, and then pointless.....while you do it to your very own thoughts.

Pretty sure I'm not describing anything in terms of particular brain arrangements or function.

Your ideas, ironically even on -this- issue..are obviously transferable and now sit as another form of physical arrangement being spooled out by the functions of yet another machine.  It will happen three times, at least, just for us to be able to discuss them.  First on your pc, then on the server, then on my pc.  Clearly, ideas can be described by physical arrangements and functions.

Really, that's how it works?  Holy shit, Donald Trump is trapped in my TV!

Oh wait, no. . . a representation of a thing is not the same as thing thing. Shucks, I thought I might get the chance to touch his hair.

There's nothing wrong with how we describe these things.  However, the source attribution we make about the SOURCE of the experiences we are describing is not only unprovable, it is unnecessary either to the process of description, or of doing good science.  We don't have to cling to an outdated billiard-balls view of reality in order to have an interest in reality and in its investigation.

Who do you think it is that's clinging to billiards balls?  You, or materialists?  That's a pretty constant criticism -of- materialism you realize (from idealists, no less)?  That it's incorporated so many things and gone so far -from- billiards balls.  That we, as it's been put in thread, discover something and call it material.  People point out that qm, for example...despite being thoroughly materialistic...is not at all like the billiards balls of yore (and high school physics).  I can;t figure out what the problem is.  That materialism has come to incorporate new discoveries and refined data, that;s it;s become too inclusive...or that it;s hanging on some centuries old description - that it's stagnant.  They can't both be true.

If you say, "whatever is true is material by definition," that's not a very useful definition. If, for example, you'd call a photon, which cannot be represented unambiguously in 3D space or said to have a material volume, "matter," then I'd just say you are saying math is matter, which is a nonsensical conflation.

[bennyboy]

You're conflating a description of the micro world with the result of having macro-level granularity of senses.  "The quantum world is spooky" doesn't undermine that our experiences are built upon sensory apparatus with a macro granularity, and the macro experience is fully reducible to the micro world.  You're just confusing levels and talking a bunch of bollocks.

Ohhhh. . . okay now I see why in that other thread you quoted yourself. I answered this comment in that post.

I'd also suggest that since all knowledge is collected by way of subjective experience, that experience itself is the only thing we know to be real.  And the world view that best represents this would be an idealistic monism, not a material one.

Horse hockey.  We know from studies of brain trauma that there are modular components to our experience.

Really? And how, pray tell, did we manage to study brain trauma without collecting our knowledge exclusively by way of subjective experience?

We don't know "the experience itself", we know what we tell ourselves about the experience.  Idealistic monism is no less a "just so story" that consciousness tells itself than any other.

I'm tempted to call it an "experiential monism," to be honest. But since we experience things like form, color, smell, etc. as ideas, then no narrative is required-- clearly experience is real, or I wouldn't be thinking about it.

 Tell me how you know that you actually experience anything, as opposed to just believing that you experience things?  It could just as easily be the latter rather than the former.  You don't know.  You're just so enamored with the appearance of consciousness that you can't see straight.  I think consciousness is just an illusion.  Do you have any actual evidence that it isn't?

The act of believing IS an experience-- the knowledge of what it's like to believe.

As for evidence-- my own consciousness is self-evident. Consciousness is the "what it's like" to think and be aware, and that I am thinking about consciousness makes it real by definition. Your consciousness, on the other hand, is not evident-- I assume it.