Anti-Materialism

[Windwalker]

BTW, I want to reiterate. I do not subscribe to philosophical materialism. But I do accept relativism. These have nothing to do with each other. You seem confused about both, actually.

 

[LuisDantas]

It's more like he first established why it is he has philosophical disagreements with materialism and then went on to say what, in his opinion, its ethical implications are. We may disagree with him on the latter, of course, but it doesn't mean it is necessarily a strawman.

I guess I saw a lot more boldness in the OP than you did.

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

I believe that, just like the anti-theists against theism and anti-immaterialists against spirituality, the anti-materialists are narrow minded, biased and bigoted in their views against materialism.

For one, worldviews can be wrong or incomplete without being irrational or immoral. For example classical mechanics is only partially correct without being irrational while alchemy is wrong without being immoral. So each part of the three part thesis has to be conclusively demonstrated before one can claim an intellectual-rational-moral right to be anti-X.

Classical Mechanics is not a worldview or a metaphysical ontological position. It is a models of physics. It makes no ontological claims. It is physics, not metaphysics. Metaphysics makes claims to what really exists and based on what really exists certain ethical implications do follow. I was absolutely correct to say materialism leads to amorality(I did not say immortality) because there are no such things as morals in matter, morals are not a property of matter) The statements are logical

1. All the universe is matter
2. Matter has no moral properties
3. Therefore the universe has no moral properties​

Argument from incredulity.

The OP provided a very dangerous argument here, for this kind of thinking can be so easily refuted in the future by scientists creating a conscious AI (which I am certain they will)

What a ridiculous argument, you are refuting my argument by the possibility that scientists may one day in the future create a conscious AI. Well then, then the refutation would have to wait until they do that aye I can refute your argument right now by saying they might never be able to do it.

The progressive refutations of such arguments from incredulity (how can mere matter be alive, how can mere matter do logical and mathematical analysis, how can mere matter organize into complex systems....) should caution us against the kind of argument that is being advanced.

It is not an argument from incredulity, an argument from incredulity is when you give as a reason not believe something is possible because it cant be, and not when you show something is illogical. If you said to me 2+2 = 5 and I said it doesn't, it doesn't mean I am being incredulous that 2+2 = 5 it means I know it is not mathematical. Similarly, my argument which is actually a formalised problem in Modern Philosophy of Mind and is taken seriously even by materialist philosophers, is the hard problem of consciousness. How and why could any matter which has no mental properties originate mental properties? You are asking me to believe in in the possibility of something which is illogical and then telling me I am being incredulous?

Indeed, my reading of the Upanisads show that consciousness, mind, intellect, ego-self etc. are all products of matter (either atomic or Samkhya guna-s) and hence the questions of consciousness etc. will have a material and scientific answer. (See Chandayoga upanisad part 6 which clearly states that mind, memory, verbal thinking and speech etc are products of matter). So Upanisadic ideas would be falsified if consciousness, mind, memory, perception etc. are not found to be explainable by scientific materialism eventually. Furthermore, Gita and Upanisads clearly states that self (purusha/atman) cannot be created and destroyed, only its awareness manifests itself under certain conditions within the field of nama-rupa. Hence once again, its entirely possible to create a self-aware AI if humans manage to replicate such conditions, and nothing in Hindu philosophy says something like this cannot happen.

Wrong thread, take this to the thread you bowed out of "Can Hindus be atheist" This thread is not whether Hindu scriptures supports materialism, whether it does or doesn't is irrelevant to materialists. This thread is about what is wrong with materialism(hence anti materialism)

Anyway you have clearly misread the Upanishads if you think it is saying that consciousness etc are all products of matter, anyone with even the equivalent of first grade knowledge of Vedanta would know that. You take out of context what the Upanishads says, I can show you several other parts that say otherwise.

the poster humbly entreats all readers to stop mixing up Cartesian immaterialism with upanisadic immaterialism.

This poster believes in two of his past lives and has experienced God since birth.

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

1. All the universe is matter
2. Matter has no moral properties
3. Therefore the universe has no moral properties​

Well, this logic is valid, I will give you that. Unfortunately neither of the premises are true, so it isn't sound.

The universe is matter and energy, it is also all of the resultant emergent properties of said things.

Morality is one of said emergent properties.

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

Morality is one of said emergent properties.

LOL

Good one.

 

[viole]

I have noticed there are quite a few people who self-identify as anti-theists, expressing a strong hatred for theists and religion in general.

I don't think anti-teists hate theists. Probably they love the believer, but hate the belief.

I reject this worldview on several grounds

1. It is illogical. How does matter having no mental properties originate mental properties i.e. hard problem of consciousness. How can and why would any arrangement of matter suddenly become self-aware? If this is not a fairy tale like Pinocchio coming alive, then I don't know what is
​

How can an ant colony exist, if the single ant does not have enough brain to plan anything that complex?​

2. It is narrow minded and self-contradictory: Materialists only accept as a valid epistemology sense perception or extensions to the senses like telescopes as their way of knowing reality, ignoring that we have other ways of knowing reality, through inference(those things which cannot be sensed or cannot currently be sensed, we can know through inferring from their effects.) And those materialists who accept inferences, like for atoms and gravity etc, then are selective about which inferences they select so that it does not breach their materialist paradigm e.g inferences to establish God, soul, reincarnation, other realms and PSI they reject.
​

They also deny other means of knowledge like intuition, revelation, psychic perception. Hence, they are myopic.
​

Psychic perception? Revelation?

We are not myopic. We just do not see things that do not exist. Or things that are claimed to be existing without a shred of evidence.

Can you see that invisible monster, whose name is Bob, sitting on your shoulder and inspiring your posts? If not, you are myopic.

Does it sound convincing?​

3. It is amoral. Materialists do not believe in a moral law and/or an enforcer of moral law. Hence, they are free to do whatever they want. They can do good things, but they can do equally bad thing i.e., they are forced to moral relativism or morality as a purely subjective interpretation. Sure, the majority of them have some sense of "conscience" but there is nothing stopping a materialist from being selfish, hedonistic and cruel. They are not morally accountable to anything outside of them. They are themselves the police, the judge, the jury and the accused. As such, they can constantly justify everything they do.
​

Amoral does not entail false.​

4. It is nihilistic. There is no real purpose in life, life is just an accident of material processes, of atoms colliding with one another. Hence, they make up whatever purpose they want, with only subjective meaning and no objective meaning. If one decides their purpose is to help as many people as they can, another purpose can be to hurt as many people as they can. If one wants to dress up as a cow and graze in the field, another can be to do scientific research. They are both equally valid interpretations. They are after all are accident of matter and what purpose does an accident have? Their individuals lives have as much meaning as a cow grazing a field i.e., no meaning.
​

Nihilist does not entail false.

5. It is dark depressing. In the end they all believe in the same outcome: they will die and cease to exist. How they get to that final outcome each carries equal justification by natural causes, by an accident, by suicide or by murder. Some die before conception, some a few years after, some in their childhood, some in teens, some early adult years, some midlife, some elderly. They behave like death is not going to come anc go about pursuing all sort of things as if they have any real importance at all, and then either they are in the wrong place and time and they get gunned down or stabbed to death, get hit a bus or have a sudden heart attack. In fact they are already dead, just a bunch of skeletons walking about covered with flesh. If you had x-ray vision all you would see are skeletons walking about.

Dark depressing does not entail false.

Disease is another depressing fact of life. Some are born with diseases, like paralysis, and are severely limited in what they can do in life. Diseases can strike at point in life, but by the age of 30-40 the body goes into accelerated decay and a host of diseases attack the body increasing discomfort and pain in life and limiting ones ability to enjoy it.

Inequality is another depressing fact of life. Life sucks, it is unfair. It is unfair from the very start some are born weak, some strong; some stupid, some intelligent; some with rich parents and some with poor parents; some in developed countries and some in developing countries. Then it is unfair through life as we see from school itself, how certain fortunate kids get popular and other unfortunate kids are bullied, some to the point of suicide. Then we see unfairness in society at every level at the work place, in government and in law. We see criminals get away with crimes and innocent people punished. We read in history of the horrible things humans do to each other(slavery, genocide) and are still doing to each other(Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria etc)

If this is the only world that exists, then it is depressing.

Overall: The materialist worldview is illogical, narrow minded, self contradictory, amoral/cold and dark and depressing. It disenchants life.

Who else here would consider themselves an anti-materialist and those who consider themselves materialists how do you plead to the above allegations?

Do you choose your beliefs based on the comfort they give you? Or because they give you a meaning?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Koldo]

I have noticed there are quite a few people who self-identify as anti-theists, expressing a strong hatred for theists and religion in general. So, I thought why not self-identify as an anti-materialist, expressing my strong hatred for the view that all is just matter. That mind and consciousness is just the product of the brain, or for those materialists who like to play semantic games, "dependent on and arising from material processes" They do not generally believe in the survival of mind and consciousness after the death of the body, life after death, souls, gods, heaven and hell, moral law or that there is real purpose to life.

I reject this worldview on several grounds

1. It is illogical. How does matter having no mental properties originate mental properties i.e. hard problem of consciousness. How can and why would any arrangement of matter suddenly become self-aware? If this is not a fairy tale like Pinocchio coming alive, then I don't know what is​

2. It is narrow minded and self-contradictory: Materialists only accept as a valid epistemology sense perception or extensions to the senses like telescopes as their way of knowing reality, ignoring that we have other ways of knowing reality, through inference(those things which cannot be sensed or cannot currently be sensed, we can know through inferring from their effects.) And those materialists who accept inferences, like for atoms and gravity etc, then are selective about which inferences they select so that it does not breach their materialist paradigm e.g inferences to establish God, soul, reincarnation, other realms and PSI they reject.​

They also deny other means of knowledge like intuition, revelation, psychic perception. Hence, they are myopic.​

3. It is amoral. Materialists do not believe in a moral law and/or an enforcer of moral law. Hence, they are free to do whatever they want. They can do good things, but they can do equally bad thing i.e., they are forced to moral relativism or morality as a purely subjective interpretation. Sure, the majority of them have some sense of "conscience" but there is nothing stopping a materialist from being selfish, hedonistic and cruel. They are not morally accountable to anything outside of them. They are themselves the police, the judge, the jury and the accused. As such, they can constantly justify everything they do.​

4. It is nihilistic. There is no real purpose in life, life is just an accident of material processes, of atoms colliding with one another. Hence, they make up whatever purpose they want, with only subjective meaning and no objective meaning. If one decides their purpose is to help as many people as they can, another purpose can be to hurt as many people as they can. If one wants to dress up as a cow and graze in the field, another can be to do scientific research. They are both equally valid interpretations. They are after all are accident of matter and what purpose does an accident have? Their individuals lives have as much meaning as a cow grazing a field i.e., no meaning.

5. It is dark depressing. In the end they all believe in the same outcome: they will die and cease to exist. How they get to that final outcome each carries equal justification by natural causes, by an accident, by suicide or by murder. Some die before conception, some a few years after, some in their childhood, some in teens, some early adult years, some midlife, some elderly. They behave like death is not going to come anc go about pursuing all sort of things as if they have any real importance at all, and then either they are in the wrong place and time and they get gunned down or stabbed to death, get hit a bus or have a sudden heart attack. In fact they are already dead, just a bunch of skeletons walking about covered with flesh. If you had x-ray vision all you would see are skeletons walking about.

Disease is another depressing fact of life. Some are born with diseases, like paralysis, and are severely limited in what they can do in life. Diseases can strike at point in life, but by the age of 30-40 the body goes into accelerated decay and a host of diseases attack the body increasing discomfort and pain in life and limiting ones ability to enjoy it.

Inequality is another depressing fact of life. Life sucks, it is unfair. It is unfair from the very start some are born weak, some strong; some stupid, some intelligent; some with rich parents and some with poor parents; some in developed countries and some in developing countries. Then it is unfair through life as we see from school itself, how certain fortunate kids get popular and other unfortunate kids are bullied, some to the point of suicide. Then we see unfairness in society at every level at the work place, in government and in law. We see criminals get away with crimes and innocent people punished. We read in history of the horrible things humans do to each other(slavery, genocide) and are still doing to each other(Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria etc)

If this is the only world that exists, then it is depressing.​

Overall: The materialist worldview is illogical, narrow minded, self contradictory, amoral/cold and dark and depressing. It disenchants life.

Who else here would consider themselves an anti-materialist and those who consider themselves materialists how do you plead to the above allegations?

#1 - This is like asking why water gets solid at certain temperatures.

#2 - I have never heard of a materialist rejecting inference as a mean to acquire knowledge. Why, though, would I or anyone else have to agree with your conclusions ? This feels like a rant on your part merely because others don't agree with you.

#3 - Where do I start ?

For starters, there is nothing that prevents a materialist from subscribing to some sort of moral realism. Second, there is one little thing called 'empathy', which I assume that most of us have to some degree, that would prevent us from being 'cruel'. Third, a lot of criminals believe in some kind of supernatural god. Fourth, a materialist can be an humanist. Fifth, ISIL.

#4 - How do you derive an 'ought' from an 'is' ? To be more clear, let's assume that my real purpose in life is to behave in a given particular way. Why do I ought to do that if I don't want to ? At the end of the day, we will all just do whatever we want ( as long as nobody prevents us from doing so ).

#5 - This issue, in my opinion, arises mostly of the way that religions have been pervasive in our cultures. We have been left with few resources to deal with the harsh reality of the world other than hoping that someday divine justice will shine upon us all and alleviate our wounds. Being fixated with this idea in your mind will do you no good though. You should rather focus on what you can do to improve the world right here and now. I think the most important point of the typical materialistic worldview is that we don't have time to waste. This is in strikingly contrast with the typical afterlife views that hold that we will have extra time eventually.

 

[Windwalker]

I disagree, because you are making an assumption here that knowledge derived from different means of knowledge is all equally valid.

Speaking of making assumptions.... Never have I claimed all truths are equally valid. That is a form of relativism I was quite clear that I do not accept. You are in error.

Similarly, we make a distinction in indirect knowledge(paroksha jnana) and direct knowledge(aporkasha jnana) in classical Indian epistemology. Indirect knowledge is exactly that materialist/atheist knowledge you are indicating here, it is indirect because it is through the instruments of the senses and the mind and is akin to seeing something through a lens and the attributes of the lens get mixed with it. Direct knowledge is being able to directly apprehend something without using the senses or the mind and it is considered not only superior knowledge, but true knowledge.

You are conflating many things here. Where to begin? First, while I most certainly an advocate of moving beyond the illusion of the senses to see and experience Reality beyond thoughts and ideas, that does not negate that knowledge that we do apprehend with the sense. These are two different types of knowledge, and hence why I say I embrace an epistimological pluralism: The eye of the flesh (the senses); the eye of mind (reason and logic); and the eye of contemplation or Spirit (meditation, Gnosis). As far as direct knowledge, science is direct. Even though this reality is a mediated reality through our senses, we have and use and function in this life through those senses. You cannot ignore them, for if you do you will become nonfunctional as a human.

The error you make is that you are railing against those who claim the material world is the only truth, but you are countering that the divine is the only truth. You are doing the exact same thing they are! You are making the exact same error they are. Yes, our ideas of reality using the senses is in fact, an illusion of the mind when it assume it is seeing actual Reality. That's a given. And if it's important to jettison that illusion in order to attain Enlightenment, then its a good exercise to loosen you from your assumptions of truth itself. Several traditions take a path of deconstruction truth to get to Truth beyond all these.... relative truths. And this is something you should understand between the Absolute and the relative. But even though this is ultimately a reality we inhabit as humans, it is in fact our reality we as humans live within. As such, you cannot dismiss it. You need to take the best tools we have available to us as humans through our sciences and penetrate in what ways we can this physical material world and model it in such ways that we can talk about it to ourselves and others in ways that further deepen our appreciation of this reality, and the Reality beyond it.

Did you read what I posted from Sri Aurobindo? Do you not understand who he was and what he was saying? You should thank the atheist for what he offers and surer footing for us in service to the Divine. Do they fall short? Yes. Do you, yes... the same as them. You may wish to read that again.

It is necessary, therefore, that advancing Knowledge should base herself on a clear, pure and disciplined intellect. It is necessary, too, that she should correct her errors sometimes by a return to the restraint of sensible fact, the concrete realities of the physical world. The touch of Earth is always reinvigorating to the son of Earth, even when he seeks a supraphysical Knowledge. It may even be said that the supraphysical can only be really mastered in its fullness – to its heights we can always search– when we keep our feet firmly on the physical. “Earth is His footing,” says the Upanishad whenever it images the Self that manifests in the universe. And it is certainly the fact the wider we extend and the surer we make our knowledge of the physical world, the wider and surer becomes our foundation for the higher knowledge, even for the highest, even for the Brahmavidya.

In emerging, therefore, out of the materialistic period of human Knowledge we must be careful that we do not rashly condemn what we are leaving or throw away even one tittle of its gains, before we can summon perceptions and powers that are well grasped and secure, to occupy their place. Rather we shall observe with respect and wonder the work that Atheism has done for the Divine and admire the services that Agnosticism has rendered in preparing the illimitable increase of knowledge. In our world error is continually the handmaid and pathfinder of Truth; for error is really a half-truth that stumbles because of its limitations; often it is Truth that wears a disguise in order to arrive unobserved near to its goal. Well, if it could always be, as it has been in the great period we are leaving, the faithful handmaid, severe, conscientious, clean-handed, luminous within its limits, a half-truth and not a reckless and presumptuous aberration."


Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, pg 13,14
​

A bit about Sri Aurobindo: Sri Aurobindo - A Life Sketch

Sri Aurobindo began his practice of Yoga in 1904. At first gathering into it the essential elements of spiritual experience that are gained by the paths of divine communion and spiritual realisation followed till now in India, he passed on in search of a more complete experience uniting and harmonising the two ends of existence, Spirit and Matter. Most ways of Yoga are paths to the Beyond leading to the Spirit and, in the end, away from life; Sri Aurobindo's rises to the Spirit to redescend with its gains bringing the light and power and bliss of the Spirit into life to transform it. Man's present existence in the material world is in this view or vision of things a life in the Ignorance with the Inconscient at its base, but even in its darkness and nescience there are involved the presence and possibilities of the Divine. The created world is not a mistake or a vanity and illusion to be cast aside by the soul returning to heaven or Nirvana, but the scene of a spiritual evolution by which out of this material inconscience is to be manifested progressively the Divine Consciousness in things.​

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

Exactly as you cannot show one shred of evidence for a deity and yet make the giant leap to "it created all things", or "is powerful beyond measure" or "influences our daily lives." Where is the real difference? The difference is not held in the realm of "logic", I can assure you.

So you are you admitting to me your argument that you don't know how matter somehow give to consciousness is similar to the argument that we don't how and when and why the universe was created but we know it has a creator

Actually, there is more validity to the cosmological argument than your argument, because the cosmological argument at least is based on a possibility that we can observe is true. A pot does not come into being by itself, it requires a potter to make it. Therefore this universe, everything in it, life could not have into being by itself, it requites a creator to make it.

The argument from design is also based on a possibility we can see. Complex functional systems do not just come into being by itself, they require an intelligence that designs them and supervises them e.g. If I landed on an alien planet and I saw a watch in the desert, I would never think "The watch came into being by itself" I would infer a designer. Similarly, the whole universe functions as such that life can exist, therefore there must be an intelligence. There is evidence for this and that is the human body itself. The human body functions as a single functional system, through it made up of network of millions and billions of processes, but the intelligence that coordinates the body ensures it all runs coherently and orderly, but when the intelligence departs from the body at death, the body immediately decays and falls apart. Similarly, the universe is made up innumerable processes, therefore there must be an intelligence that coordinates the universe. If not, what is stopping the universe from collapsing in on itself? Why doesn't gravity stop functioning? Why doesn't the spin of atoms change even by a minuscule fraction?

Your arguments, on the other hand, rests on an impossibility that nobody has ever seen of matter which is unconscious like rocks become self-aware. It is a fairy tale.

In the end we don't know the reality.

I know you don't because it a fairy tale based on wrong understanding of properties of substances and mistaking them the properties of one thing to belong to another. I illustrated this earlier with the example of sweet water. This is an example where two substances are superimposed on one another, where one is visible and one invisible. If we use the materialists faulty logic, then sweetness is the property of the water. Yet we will find in any another examples of pure water sweetness. So a rational person likes me has to come along and tell the materialist that the sweetness is NOT the property of the water, but belongs to another invisible substance called sugar. Similarly, we only see consciousness in living matter and not in non-living matter like rocks, though the non-living and living matter is made up of exactly the same stuff, because consciousness is NOT the property of matter, but belongs to an invisible substance called soul.

There are other arguments to show why I am not the body.

-- The body is something I know separate from, hence I say "my body, my head, my brain"
-- The body is something I control, it does not control me
-- The body changes, but I don't change I remain constant

All of these are inferences that convince rational people that mind and consciousness is not in the body. Hence, materialists are irrational people.

You're still stuck without the faintest idea what may have gone on. You expect... even demand... that consciousness be a one-shot addition. "Boom!" and it's there. You're the one whose thinking is in error here. Guaranteed.

You yourself are telling me at some point matter becomes conscious. So of course then this implies it happens at some point. What is that point? At what point does your compound of chemicals become self-aware? Yeah of course you don't know, because it is fairy tale.

As I was reading all this I sort of had this obvious thought coming to mind again and again. What you're describing is called "instinct." The idea that our chemical composition and DNA-driven traits are so complex and so intricate, that even fore-born thoughts and ideas are baked in. Understanding where our appendages are at, spatially,for example. What constitutes a an attractive/viable mate. What is "beautiful" to us. All built-in in order to instruct us on how to have that edge that will allow for greater likelihood of survival.

Your just adding more stuff to your fairy tale or what we call multiplying quantities. First you say a certain arrangement of compounds become self-aware. Then you say they develop ideas, then go in search of "attractive" beautiful compounds LOL

Mate, you should be a cartoonist.

It is so patently clear you materialists believe in fairy tales and you have audacity to accuse religious people of believing in unicorns?

Well, I do believe that we are made up of matter and energy alone - and do not have a "spirit" component. However, I very much deny that every "moral claim" is equivalent. Whether that disqualifies me from being considered a "materialist"... I couldn't care much less. The label is what it is, and I don't care if it exists or not, describes some portion of my ideas and beliefs or not... or even whether it is applied to me or not. The mind DOES exist - obviously.

Hence, why I argue you can never be a consistent materialist. Of course you do not believe every moral claim s equivalent, but you have no way of settling a moral dispute or coming to a moral agreement because your onology does not allow it. So you are left with making it all up as you go. Hence, my charge of hypocrisy. Not only do you have no consistent standard of truth, you have no consistent ethic.

As evidence all you have to do is look at anyone who has suffered physical injury and has come out of it with a reduced mental capacity - an injured "mind". Physical damage affects the mind. The mind is not immune to physical dependency - that is fact, and has been seen to be true millions upon millions of times. What happens when you have a high-grade fever, and the temperature of your blood rises dangerously as it runs to your brain? I know from first hand experience... I stood up, dazed and in a state of confusion. I was mumbling incoherently, trying to tell someone that something was wrong, but unable to express myself. My head felt huge, and I couldn't gauge the location of my extremities. I had to look at my hands to use them. What is the "mind"? Not magic, I can tell you that.

This is a naive, obsolete and well refuted argument. It is not just one way. The physical affects the mind and the mind affects the physical. You gave me an example of how the physical affects the mind such physical damage, I can add more to that food and drugs you consume also affect the mind, magnetic and electrical field also affect the mind, directly stimulating certain areas of the brain also affects the mind. Conversely, thinking negative thoughts affects the body, thinking positive thoughts affects the body, willing to move your arm makes your arm move. Placebo effect can affect the body, in some cases it can cause tumours to spontaneously vanish or bones to regrow. It is a two way street, not a one way street.

I guess I am not all materialist then. Because emotions do exist, and they do so more than just being chemical processes or reactions. The "mind", as I said, is real. It is an abstract - part of the body, and yet not of it. We are free to do with it as we please, and finding something like "happiness" is a pursuit of the mind, not the body. I understand this. Doesn't change the fact that the mind has nowhere else to go but the body.

Again, you cannot be a consistent materialist. Although your ontology tells you that emotions are nothing more than chemical reactions in your body, you don't want to believe that.

So... foraging for food is "suffering", are you serious? you do what you have to do to survive. ALL animals do. If I had to rummage through trash cans to get the job done... so be it. For goodness sake... do you think that animals in the wild feel that they are "suffering?" Are you delusional?

You are telling me somebody starving to death so that they are forced to rummage through trash cans for leftovers or resort to cannibalism is not "suffering"? And you ask if I am delusional? You clearly have no compassion for hungry and starving people and kids. Your worldview is betrayed by how you think living like an animal does for survival is how it all is. And this is why I call your view dark and depressing. If it is all about survival, then it is as I said about selfishness, hedonism and cruelty. Because that is exactly how animals live, they are selfish pleasure seekers, they are ruthless to one another(law of the jungle) If this is how you think humans should also live, then it vindicates my position that materialism is an abhorrent worldview. It is not a worldview that promotes love, compassion, charity, peace etc.

 

[Koldo]

It is not an argument from incredulity, an argument from incredulity is when you give as a reason not believe something is possible because it cant be, and not when you show something is illogical. If you said to me 2+2 = 5 and I said it doesn't, it doesn't mean I am being incredulous that 2+2 = 5 it means I know it is not mathematical. Similarly, my argument which is actually a formalised problem in Modern Philosophy of Mind and is taken seriously even by materialist philosophers, is the hard problem of consciousness. How and why could any matter which has no mental properties originate mental properties? You are asking me to believe in in the possibility of something which is illogical and then telling me I am being incredulous?

The way you have formulated these sentences makes me think you don't actually know what is the hard problem of consciousness.
Could you perhaps quote your source, since you mention philosophers I don't think that would be an issue, and then reconcile what they say with what you are saying ?

 

[sayak83]

In the first part of my reply I have laid out the proposition that anti-materialism itself is a product of irrational bias (just like anti-theism) as it has no solid intellectual, rational or moral ground to base itself on.
Anti-Materialism

I had said:-
Each part of the three part thesis below has to be conclusively demonstrated before one can claim an intellectual-rational-moral right to be anti-X.

1) One has to show that X is conclusively wrong so that no future evidence can change this assessment.
(eg. X is a belief that the earth is flat). one gains an intellectual right to be anti-X
AND
2) X is irrational and hence one cannot lead a rational life with a commitment to X.
(eg. X is a belief that both 2+2=4 and 2+2=5 are true) One gains a rational right to be anti-X
AND
3) X is immoral and/or unethical so that one cannot logically lead a moral life with a commitment to X.
(eg. X is a belief that causing suffering to other beings is the supreme goal of life). One gains a moral right to be anti-X.

I also showed how the first of the OP's arguments is simple an argument from personal incredulity and hence clearly fails (1) as future evidence (development of conscious AI) can indeed refute it. It also fails (2) as no logical disproof of the idea that such a conscious AI cannot be built has been provided (and does not exist, and cannot exist if Upanisadic seers on which OP poster's own beliefs are based on are right). Let's now look at the other arguments,

2. It is narrow minded and self-contradictory: Materialists only accept as a valid epistemology sense perception or extensions to the senses like telescopes as their way of knowing reality, ignoring that we have other ways of knowing reality, through inference(those things which cannot be sensed or cannot currently be sensed, we can know through inferring from their effects.) And those materialists who accept inferences, like for atoms and gravity etc, then are selective about which inferences they select so that it does not breach their materialist paradigm e.g inferences to establish God, soul, reincarnation, other realms and PSI they reject.

They also deny other means of knowledge like intuition, revelation, psychic perception. Hence, they are myopic.

Of course, no materialist today disbelieves in inference as a valid means of (fallible) knowledge as all of science is based on such inferences (including seeing through telescopes). Epistemology of all stripes consider that false beliefs based on mistaken perceptions, hallucinations etc. occur The question here is what belongs to what. A materialist is one who places greater faith on those sense data and inferences thereof that are simultaneously accessible to multiple observers so that errors from single perceivers are minimized. Thus, for example, they will put more faith on the video-recording of a past event than the memory of a person who was there. This is not narrow-minded, nor self-contradictory...but comes from an excess of caution borne forth from the modern ossification of human memory capacity, psychological discernment and how psychological science has made false starts time and time again (Freud, repressed memory scandal and current results showing lack of repeatability in psychological sciences). We do not have the kind of memory training, mental calculation and recall ability, or mind training through meditation etc. that ancients needed in their world when technology was not there to help them all the time. Without such training, most people are not able to assess such truths for themselves and between blind faith and skepticism, they are indeed being rational in choosing skepticism. The onus is on us to show it is possible to get reliable knowledge based on internal perceptual states and its reliably possible to distinguish them from make-believe fantasies. Without easy access to such training, their rejection of other means of knowing is logical and rational.

To be continued....

 

[Kapalika]

I think it is pointless debating with you, because you are not a materialist and don't speak the language of a materialist and don't believe in the same thing materialists do. I learned my lesson from debating with Sayak in the "Can Hindu be atheists thread" He spent pages defending materialism, only in the end to find out he remembers two of his past lives and experiences God. He was not materialist, and yet some reason he dedicated several days, time and energy to defend materialists. I honestly don't understand what motivates Hindus like him, and yourself to jump in for the rescue of materialists like dutiful Sepoy, when yourselves are not materialists and do not believe what materialists believe. However, seeing we are both on the same side and share the same worldview(were almost from the same school too Shaiva Tantra LHP) I do not see any reason to debate with you. Let materialists fight their own battles.

Just because I'm not a materialist now doesn't mean I've never been one in the past or that I can't point out the problems in your argument.

As I said, to the lay person and to many others too I would be seen as a materialist. I'm at least much, much closer to materialism than I am to idealism and in either case the validity of an argument is not based on who makes it.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

So you are you admitting to me your argument that you don't know how matter somehow give to consciousness is similar to the argument that we don't how and when and why the universe was created but we know it has a creator

I never said "everything has to have a creator" - that was more of me calling out the ridiculousness of what you believe.

Actually, there is more validity to the cosmological argument than your argument, because the cosmological argument at least is based on a possibility that we can observe is true. A pot does not come into being by itself, it requires a potter to make it. Therefore this universe, everything in it, life could not have into being by itself, it requites a creator to make it.

This just keeps getting pushed out there like it is wisdom... it is nothing. Absolutely nothing. And it is THE BEST that believers have to offer, that I have seen. To claim you know that the universe had to have a beginning because "pots?" At no time do you ever believe that something just "is?" Oh wait... of course you do. "God" just "is." But He's the only thing, right? Gravity has to have creator and a "manager" according to you, and the interaction between matter of the universe couldn't possibly be because those relationships between gravity and matter and energy and matter as just "the way it is." Couldn't possibly be, right? Because what we've observed as humans is that EVERYTHING is created by a crafting/creative hand, right? This is worse than naivete... this is just imbecilic.

Complex functional systems do not just come into being by itself, they require an intelligence that designs them and supervises them e.g.

Would you classify a star as being a complex, functional system? How about a solar system, or a galaxy? Where do you draw the line at what is "allowed" to come into existence by itself and what isn't? I swear, so many believers just don't even think about these things deep enough to understand that they are applying double standards EVERYWHERE in their beliefs.

Your arguments, on the other hand, rests on an impossibility that nobody has ever seen of matter which is unconscious like rocks become self-aware. It is a fairy tale.

Why are you going on about "rocks?" It is statements like these that completely discredit you, and out you for the ignorance you harbor. And who has seen God? Better yet, who has seen God and had the sighting verified? The events which lead to matter becoming infused with "life" - and let's get right to it here, THAT is the start. Not jumping straight into human-level consciousness - are probably so complicated, so specific, and so unlikely that it takes billions of sets of circumstances, billions of stars, billions of planets, billions of years, billions of chemical reactions, billions of coincidences... finally boiling down to 1 series of moments in which those recombining strands of elemental matter become something more. You think you're going to reproduce something like that in a lab? To expect such is willfully trying to make the process fail so that you can gratify your own stilted beliefs. Again - we know it is possible that mater be infused with life - the proof is all around us. And all it takes is one "soup" to get that chance.

I know you don't because it a fairy tale based on wrong understanding of properties of substances and mistaking them the properties of one thing to belong to another. I illustrated this earlier with the example of sweet water. This is an example where two substances are superimposed on one another, where one is visible and one invisible. If we use the materialists faulty logic, then sweetness is the property of the water. Yet we will find in any another examples of pure water sweetness. So a rational person likes me has to come along and tell the materialist that the sweetness is NOT the property of the water, but belongs to another invisible substance called sugar. Similarly, we only see consciousness in living matter and not in non-living matter like rocks, though the non-living and living matter is made up of exactly the same stuff, because consciousness is NOT the property of matter, but belongs to an invisible substance called soul.

Sorry... this is an awful analogy. It really is. The sugar is still able to be detected within the water. The sugar becomes ionic compounds as it dissolves in the water. It's there, it can be detected, it is measurable - if the water is evaporated you get sugar crystals. Where is this remaining evidence of the soul? What is the measurable quantity (or quality)? Remove all the pieces of the body and where do you find the soul? You can't prove it is there. You can't. Just as I can't prove that consciousness arose from the interactions of matter. But, matter being infused with consciousness is a fact, is observable, is real. Matter being infused with "soul?" Not so much.

There are other arguments to show why I am not the body.

-- The body is something I know separate from, hence I say "my body, my head, my brain"
-- The body is something I control, it does not control me
-- The body changes, but I don't change I remain constant

Go ahead then, leave your body. I dare you. Try it out - should work out fine, right? You should "remain constant", according to your logic. This tells me you understood not one iota of what I posted about the mind being "hired" by the community of cells that make up the body. You don't understand the idea behind the subtlety of the relationships I proposed grew from relatively mundane to human-style consciousness. And you DO change, by the way. acquiring new knowledge, new memories actually affects the physical properties of your brain. This is also a fact.

You yourself are telling me at some point matter becomes conscious. So of course then this implies it happens at some point. What is that point? At what point does your compound of chemicals become self-aware? Yeah of course you don't know, because it is fairy tale.

How WOULD I know? I mean honestly... I could know this just about as much as you could know what or who created "God". Oh wait... God's exempt from needing created, right? The universe and the matter and energy in it is not exempt - because it would be so foolish to think that anything in the universe didn't have a beginning... oh... except God. Double standards man... I'm seeing double all over the place.

Your just adding more stuff to your fairy tale or what we call multiplying quantities. First you say a certain arrangement of compounds become self-aware. Then you say they develop ideas, then go in search of "attractive" beautiful compounds LOL

You know what I am saying... and you're attempting to make it sound foolish by paraphrasing like a kindergartner would. All of those processes start small... and are built on by accretion of necessity.

It is so patently clear you materialists believe in fairy tales and you have audacity to accuse religious people of believing in unicorns?

Obviously you don't believe in unicorns... you believe in something far less likely than unicorns. I could see it being entirely possible that a horse could evolve the need for a horn given some particular set of circumstances.

Hence, why I argue you can never be a consistent materialist. Of course you do not believe every moral claim s equivalent, but you have no way of settling a moral dispute or coming to a moral agreement because your onology does not allow it. So you are left with making it all up as you go. Hence, my charge of hypocrisy. Not only do you have no consistent standard of truth, you have no consistent ethic.

Umm... I don't have to be a "consistent materialist". I already relayed I don't give a flying crap about the title, the philosophy, or whether it applies to me in whole or part. Not one flying crap. Good luck trying to denigrate my position by saying I'm not a "consistent" one of something I don't claim to be in the first place. You may as well say I'm not a consistent "speebockner" - that's a word I made up, by the way. And I care as much about it as I do the word "materialist."

This is a naive, obsolete and well refuted argument. It is not just one way. The physical affects the mind and the mind affects the physical... Conversely, thinking negative thoughts affects the body, thinking positive thoughts affects the body, willing to move your arm makes your arm move. Placebo effect can affect the body, in some cases it can cause tumours to spontaneously vanish or bones to regrow. It is a two way street, not a one way street.

"Well refuted?" What you posited here supposedly refutes my point "well?" Wow. Of course the mind affects the body! This is just... just... duh. That's what it is. Duh. You find yourself in a crazy situation... stress and danger everywhere - so what does the mind do FOR you (remember that part where YOU stated YOU were in control... yeah... not entirely), it releases adrenaline, of course. Suddenly you're twice as strong, far less able to be fatigued - and man can you run! Our body is equipped in all sorts of insanely intricate ways to respond to input from the mind. Did I ever say it wasn't? Hmmm... I'm thinking no. No I didn't. And in no way does that "REFUTE" that the brain taking physical damage alters the mind. You don't get to decide to "remain constant" when your brain is negatively affected in a physical sense.

Again, you cannot be a consistent materialist. Although your ontology tells you that emotions are nothing more than chemical reactions in your body, you don't want to believe that.

Ugh... for the second time... I DON'T believe that. And I don't have to. Now go be a more consistent speebockner, will you? You're bothering me.

Because that is exactly how animals live, they are selfish pleasure seekers, they are ruthless to one another(law of the jungle)

Seriously... do you know anything about animals?

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

LOL

Good one.

So are you trying to argue that matter cannot have emergent properties?

How about, oh I dunno..Sound. does sound need a magical creator to explain? What about light, or heat? Would you argue these are not emergent properties of matter, or are tiny little fire fairies whizzing around behind the scenes?

 

[jonathan180iq]

I believe that, just like the anti-theists against theism and anti-immaterialists against spirituality, the anti-materialists are narrow minded, biased and bigoted in their views against materialism.

That's true of any position taken, if you think about it.

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

How can an ant colony exist, if the single ant does not have enough brain to plan anything that complex?

Not sure what that has to do with how matter becomes self-aware.​

Psychic perception? Revelation?

We are not myopic. We just do not see things that do not exist. Or things that are claimed to be existing without a shred of evidence.

Can you see that invisible monster, whose name is Bob, sitting on your shoulder and inspiring your posts? If not, you are myopic.

Does it sound convincing?

It does not sound convincing because that is a strawman of my arguments. I have made far more sophisticated arguments during the thread to show there are other means of knowledge to know something such as testimony, intuition and mental perception. I have also shown that the materialist uses these other means to, but only when it suits them, hence they suffer the defect of not having a consistent standard of truth and hence self-contradictory.

Amoral does not entail false.

Nihilist does not entail false.



Dark depressing does not entail false.​

I never said they did, but they expose other problems with the materialist worldview, which if taken to their logical conclusion give us Hitler, Mao and Stalin. All three were materialists, hated religion

I said in the OP "these are the problems I have with materialism" I never said every singe problem is it to do with its reality. It is only the first two arguments that challenge its reality.​

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

Just because I'm not a materialist now doesn't mean I've never been one in the past or that I can't point out the problems in your argument.

As I said, to the lay person and to many others too I would be seen as a materialist. I'm at least much, much closer to materialism than I am to idealism and in either case the validity of an argument is not based on who makes it.

No you are not, just said you don't believe you cease to exist at the death of the physical body, you talked about the higher reality of Shiva and Maya. You are not a materialist. And the other guy Sayak isn't either. He's just come in trying to some kind of crusader of materialists and even argued that consciousness arises from matter, and yet says he remember two of his past lives one as a Vedic Brahmin and the other as Buddhist monk and tells me has experienced God since his childhood, and yet is voting as "winner" a guy who rejects the existence of God and ridicules beliefs in Gods.

I think other Hindus should question what are your motivations. Why do you feel you need to come in as sepoys for materialists? In the the whole of history of Hinduism I have never seen any Hindu scripture speak positively about Charvaka or defend them.In fact all my arguments against materialism here are coming from Hindu shastras. I simply think you are confused Hindus and your loyalties divided and you do no favours to others of your own kind. There is a wider gap between you and materialists, then there is between a Hindu and another Hindu. As I said before try to unite over larger commonalities than smaller differences.

I have decided not to respond now to either you or Sayak's posts as I know neither you are materialists, subscribe to the same worldview and believe many of the things I do too(Brahman, Maya, Shiva, Samsara) Here I am arguing a position that says there is more to the world than matter, and you already believe that yourself.

 

[Kirran]

One doesn't need to be a materialist to argue against your characterisation of materialism, @Spirit_Warrior

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

One doesn't need to be a materialist to argue against your characterisation of materialism, @Spirit_Warrior

These are the same arguments that I have cited against materialism, that Hindu shastras cite. I did not make up any of these arguments, they are strongly informed by my Hindu views. We do not like materialists and condemn them as Rakshasas, Asuras and Charvakas. Hence, why Hinduism is an anti-materialism religion.

Btw I am ex materialist myself

 

[Kirran]

These are the same arguments that I have cited against materialism, that Hindu shastras cite. I did not make up any of these arguments, they are strongly informed by my Hindu views. We do not like materialists and condemn them as Rakshasas, Asuras and Charvakas. Hence, why Hinduism is an anti-materialism religion.

Btw I am ex materialist myself

One can be against something philosophically and not agree with all your ideas! Although I do ultimately think moving past materialism would be healthy.

Me too!