Occams Hatchet and Is Materialism "Special"

[Bunburryist]

First thing – Is there anything wrong with using the default text settings with which we are all familiar?

Is there something “special” about the materialist brain-mind theory … or can we assume that, like virtually every other scientific theory, will it in the future be replaced by a theory in a different paradigm… Try showing a person whose very thinking embodies the materialist worldview the flaws in that worldview!

It seems that on AF materialism and physicalism are terms of art. As such, debates about whether these theories are outdated or have been overturned quickly get bogged down in arguments over semantics. Recently someone found my use of the term ‘reductionism’ objectionable. I believe the tenacity of materialism/physicalism has very little to do with sound metaphysics or contemporary scientific confirmation; but rather, the lingering influence of post-Enlightenment industrial culture. In Western societies, people habitually rely on the metaphors of machine production and interchangeable parts to make sense of themselves and the world around them. This mechanistic bias informs the thinking of seemingly everyone from accountants to zoologists. Sadly, I find myself less and less interested in debating philosophy on AF.  Questioning the philosophical moves of Descartes, Hume and Kant is something unthinkable to anyone who is either unwilling or unable to consider how the larger culture channels their thinking toward the mechanistic assumptions that inform their commitments to materialism/physicalism.

I can already here one objection. What about religion? Theology is not immune to industrial metaphors. It can be found in contemporary creationism and textual criticism, but I think that is beyond the scope of the OP.

Sorry about the text - I pasted it over from Word.  I'm still learning how this world works!  As for the "metaphors of machine production," I see that in today's idea that our minds are "programs running in computer brains."  I know it's hard to get across, but my main point is that we are not "things in a world," that we really don't know what we are.  I'd rather believe not know what I am - and know it - than believe I'm something I'm not.  But at least I'm aware of these ideas I learned to believe as a kid.  For most people, uninterested is such things, it's just there in the background forming their implicit conception of what they are.  Because of the material worldview nature of human language, pasted over by what we learn to be scientific ideas (my mind happens in a thing called a brain, etc.), the average person, who often never even thinks about these things, just takes on this whole worldview.  Believe me - I know that these ideas of mine aren't going to really change people's minds, but it's something I find interesting, and I believe important - and so here I am.  Thanks for the thoughts.

[The Grand Nudger]

We currently propose that (brain as biological computer) because it's something we know.  We know how one type of thing works, how and why it's capable of manipulating information.  We want to explain how another thing works, the brain, how it does it...so, naturally and rationally, we look to what we know in order to explain the unknown.

[Bunburryist]

The point of my disclaimer was to head off any assumptions that I'm saying that "brains have nothing to do with it."  As for the earth not going around the sun - it actually doesn't.  The sun, the earth, and the other planets orbit a common center of gravity.  If the earth orbited the sun - if the sun just sat there (which it doesn't - it actually wiggles a little) - we'd need a whole new physics, in which the sun would somehow be "special."

[The Grand Nudger]

I understand why you put the disclaimer in there, but again....obviously learning about nuerotransmitters, for example, tells us something about experience.   The progress you claimed was non-existent.  We didn't know shit not too long ago.  Did you know that for most of human history the heart was thought to be the "thinking" organ?  That's where all of those colorful idioms like "I feel it in my heart, my heart knows" come from.  Point is, it's obvious that the science you object to is actually meeting the metrics you stated...so that's a pisspoor reason, by your own metrics, to object to it.

As to the earth and the sun. It does. I'm aware of the system com, but saying that the earth goes round the sun is true, it does do that. Both the earth and the sun orbit the system com. That's not the relationship we're describing with the phrase, though, so I fail to see the relevance.

[Tangra]

Are you serious?  If you don't pretend to know what happens after we die why do you say:

"We" are certainly not the body because if we were then a dead body should still be us were that the case.

What exactly do you know about what happens to us after we die that permits you to rule out the possibility that we aren't also our body?

Is a dead body a person?

[Whateverist]

Are you serious?  If you don't pretend to know what happens after we die why do you say:


What exactly do you know about what happens to us after we die that permits you to rule out the possibility that we aren't also our body?

Is a dead body a person?

Point of clarification: are we talking about the dead body of a person?

[Tangra]

I don't know what happens when we die. I don't pretend to either. Do you know what happens when we die?

Yeah, the cessation of biological function.  If it happened on a thursday, what happens next is friday.  

What do you define as biological function?

I was alluding to the fact that you and I are people, not bodies. That a body is not a person and a person is not just a body.

You must mean legally, or something, lol.

I'll ask you the same question: Is a cadaver a person?

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, a dead one.

[Tangra]

Is a dead body a person?

Point of clarification: are we talking about the dead body of a person?

I try not to ask trick questions.

---

Yeah, a dead one.

Then what is the difference between the dead and the living?

[The Grand Nudger]

........beyond the fact that one is dead and one is living?