Anti-Materialism

[Spirit_Warrior]

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!

Sure they can, but what I find inherently contradictory here, is they are opposing the ideas they believe in themselves e.g. A person who says he has experienced God since childhood, is praising somebody for ridiculing belief in God.
I also don't understand how can remember two of his past lives, and still argue the brain is producing consciousness?

 

[sayak83]

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!

I also agree about this.

 

[Kirran]

Sure they can, but what I find inherently contradictory here, is they are opposing the ideas they believe in themselves e.g. A person who says he has experienced God since childhood, is praising somebody for ridiculing belief in God.
I also don't understand how can remember two of his past lives, and still argue the brain is producing consciousness?

It's not about defending people who are ridiculing, it's about honestly understanding what materialism is.

Sayak made a nice comparison of atheism to strong acids he uses for cleaning stuff in the lab, which was interesting.

Of course you and I both know that the philosophical and theological understandings of God we're on about are very different to those which we are assumed to have in these kinds of discussions, which are those of mainstream Protestant Christianity and orthodox Islam.

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

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

Water gets solid because of different kinetic energy of the water molecules and this is just a change in one physical state to another physical state.

Nobody is arguing here that physical states cannot change into other physical states and physical properties cannot change into the other physical properties.

But you what you proposing is absurd. You are saying a physical state changing into a mental state eventually. How and why? It is like I said in the OP it is Pinocchio a purely physical thing emerges mental states and becomes self-aware. It is a fairytale of the materialist.

#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.

You have not been reading the discussion properly.

#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.

I never said materialists cannot be moral or subscribe to moral systems, I have already refuted this argument several times already. All I said that a materialists morals are imaginary according to their ontology, that they are not real and they cannot be generalised to everybody and cannot be enforced.

#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 ).

Again, they are forced by their ontology to believe all purposes are also imaginary. I made this obvious when I said they believe life is an accident anyway of colliding atoms, and accidents do not have purposes.

#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.

A materialist has no reason to improve the world or save lives etc --- because they believe we all cease to exist at death anyway. It seems rather pointless and waste of time to go about the world saving people from death, when they are going to die anyway. I think the other guy was more honest on this point, when he said it was all about survival. The materialist by their ontology is only forced to survival ethics and the rest morality, charity etc is a waste of time.

You can give me tons of examples of materialists who do good, but I will ask why do they do good and for what ends? Religious people have a reason to do good, because they will be rewarded for it after life with greater pleasure of heaven. A materialist has no reason to do good, because they will cease to exist.

 

[Koldo]

Water gets solid because of different kinetic energy of the water molecules and this is just a change in one physical state to another physical state.

Nobody is arguing here that physical states cannot change into other physical states and physical properties cannot change into the other physical properties.

But you what you proposing is absurd. You are saying a physical state changing into a mental state eventually. How and why? It is like I said in the OP it is Pinocchio a purely physical thing emerges mental states and becomes self-aware. It is a fairytale of the materialist.

In other words, when a particular arrangement exists, water becomes solid.
In materialism, mental states are nothing more than physical states. So it is the same rationale.

You have not been reading the discussion properly.

I haven't been reading it much. Has anyone said that they disregard the use of inference ?

I never said materialists cannot be moral or subscribe to moral systems, I have already refuted this argument several times already. All I said that a materialists morals are imaginary according to their ontology, that they are not real and they cannot be generalised to everybody and cannot be enforced.

I don't understand what you mean by 'imaginary' here. That they don't exist ? How can a materialist be moral if their morality doesn't exist ? And why can't morals be enforced ?

Again, they are forced by their ontology to believe all purposes are also imaginary. I made this obvious when I said they believe life is an accident anyway of colliding atoms, and accidents do not have purposes.

I am not sure I understand what you mean by this. Do you mean that some sort of purpose must have been instilled into us so that we can have some sort of purpose in our lives ? Why ?

A materialist has no reason to improve the world or save lives etc --- because they believe we all cease to exist at death anyway.

That's just... completely incorrect.

It seems rather pointless and waste of time to go about the world saving people from death, when they are going to die anyway. I think the other guy was more honest on this point, when he said it was all about survival. The materialist by their ontology is only forced to survival ethics and the rest morality, charity etc is a waste of time.

You can give me tons of examples of materialists who do good, but I will ask why do they do good and for what ends? Religious people have a reason to do good, because they will be rewarded for it after life with greater pleasure of heaven. A materialist has no reason to do good, because they will cease to exist.

Do you mean that religious people do good just because they will rewarded for it in a afterlife ? Wow, just wow...
Why do you think so lowly of them ?

 

[Windwalker]

Btw I am ex materialist myself

That does explain much. No offense meant at all, but it certainly adds context. Being an Ex-Whatever, tends to make someone less than fair and balanced in their current assessments as they try to differentiate themselves from their former selves. This is well known to me. It has value as part of your process, but you should at some point come to see it as such. Objectivity pays a price during that process, but that's okay.

Again, I'm not a materialist and I find it a rather flat philosophy. But most of the other stuff you're saying, you're just heaping onto it when it actually doesn't belong. I appreciate the spirit of the points your raising, but there is more to the picture yet.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Complex systems do happen. You can have a complex arrangement of atoms for example with different physical properties. However, no combinations and permutations of atoms have mental properties like morality etc. Atoms have spin, charge, mass etc not awareness, morality, knowledge, love and hate. Therefore, if your argument is that matter gives rise to these, you need to show how and why.

I am using a more logical argument. I am saying, that because the properties of minds do not belong to atoms, we must postulate another a substance which is the locus of those properties which is superimposed on physical matter, hence causing us to mistake physical matter to be the locus, when is in fact it is not e.g. if we superimpose water with sugar, then the waste tastes sweet. However, water is not all the time found to be sweet. In fact sweetness is simply not a property of water. Therefore, we are forced to the inference, that it belongs to another invisible substance which is the locus of sweetness which is superimposed on the water i.e., sugar dissolved in it. Similarly, mental properties are found sometimes in a collection of atoms but only in living bodies which are a collection of atoms too, therefore there is another invisible substance which is the locus of those mental properties which is superimposed on those collections of atoms i.e., soul. When the souls is present the collections of atoms behaves "alive" and when the soul is absent it behaves "dead"

If you asked someone to show evidence of an operating system within the hardware of a computer by opening up a computer and looking at the bits of plastic and metal, you won't find it. That doesn't mean that operating system is not part of the computer and must be on some otherwordly plane from the computer. Software and hardware are both physical things, the former a physical system emergent from the physical hardware. I have no reason to believe things like emotions and self-identity and morality aren't the same. And plenty of reason to believe it is, such as manipulation of a physical brain effects all of those things in a predictable way, to the extent that all of those things can be permanently changed merely by effecting the physical brain. And despite the dubious claims of people in 'parapsychology,' nobody has sufficiently demonstrated any non-physical thing beaming into or out of the body, or that anything 'non-physical' about the body does anything meaningfully at all. And although we might not understand everything about how consciousness developed, we still have more than nothing: measuring development of consciousness, emotions, and self-identity in embryology and ethology and zoology.

The above was one inference to prove the soul exists(there are plenty of more arguments). I can also give you an inference to prove God exists, such as the anthropic principle. The physical universe is fined tuned for humans to exist and for it to continue to exist such that every moment some power keeps this universe in a state of dynamic equilibrium so that everything is sustained.

There are a myriad of arguments against anthropic principle and fine tuned universe that I find more compelling. Both require unnecessary assumptions, the latter of which can be dismissed quickly with something as simple as the puddle analogy. There's no evidence the world was built to suit life, there is evidence life developed to suit the world, just like you wouldn't assume a puddle was carved out in a specific way for a body of water, rather that the body of water was shaped by the hole it's filling.

I agree that humans have come up all kinds of moral systems themselves. However, you don't get my argument --- none of these moral systems and necessarily binding on anybody. If I break a moral as defined in utiltarian consequentialism what are the consequences I face and who enforces it? In contrast, in a real objective moral universe, not just every action, but every thought is accounted for and I must necessarily face consequences and the law system is perfect.

The problem with a materialist's moral system is by the definition of their own ontology it is imaginary and I am not obliged to follow any imaginary ethical code. The result of this, the materialist because they their own moral arbiter can do whatever they want and change their morals to suit them.

This is an authoritarian argument. Firstly, I have no reason to assume a non-materialist's moral authority is perfect or behaves perfectly. Nor do I have a reason to believe that just because their moral authority is mighty and can enforce greater control than humans can, that it is an innately morally superior being. Might doesn't make right.
Secondly, the non-materialist has no real way to demonstrate that the moral instruction they receive is moral authority at all, rather than their own personal morals they relabel as divine. In fact, studies in brain scanning have shown that religious people, when searching for an answer of right and wrong, go to the same place non-religious people do: their own moral reasoning.

Simply to say 'objective moral universe' cannot be demonstrated to exist in any meaningful way. Everyone's moral judgment is based on their own interpretation of right and wrong. Subjective, however, doesn't mean arbitrary. And I value moral judgements based on consequentialism as being less intellectually lazy than '[authority] says so.'

Again in the materialist ontology there is no such thing as "purpose" either. It is again an imaginary thing. Hence, every purpose is equally imaginary and equally ultimately pointless. Consider the implications of this Nazi going around collecting people to escort to gas chambers is just as valid as going to Africa and feeding hungry children.
If you argue, not according to a certain system of morality like utilitarianism, I reply, well that is just according to a view and it is not necessarily accepted by all and binding on all. Besides, the Nazi could argue what they are doing is utilitarian too, that is it will give happiness to a maximum number of people in the future, when the undesirable have been purged from the gene pool to create a perfect happy race.

The problem with philosophical moral arguments is they never lead to absolute answers, just somebodies view or a shared view. On the other hand, religious moral arguments are binding on the adherents that accept that religion to be true. If it says in scripture that if you do x you will go to hell, then the person who believes in that religion if they do x, they must necessarily accept they are going to hell. If you argue, that religious people do those things anyway, it is not evidence against my argument, it simply means that at some level that person does not really believe in their religion sincerely enough .

Like morality, nobody can demonstrate an objective purpose. That doesn't mean purposes created for oneself should be meaningless.

What is the point of correcting injustices at all, if in the end everybody is going to cease to exist anyway? It all becomes rather pointless. Why would, I for example, put my body(which according to the materialist is the real me) at risk and danger by fighting some oppression suppose for example opposing an evil dictator to correct an injustice against others, when I could just fend for myself, make sure I get what I need and others be damned. I consider it self-contradictory and even unwise for a materialist to behave morally, altruistically, charitably etc, because they themselves believe in a universe which is ultimately is amoral, purposeless and has no love or feeling. Therefore, if a materialist like Mao or Hitler does behave in accordance with such beliefs, looking at people as only just profit or gain or with the system or not with the system, why should they express problems with it if that is what they believe too?

I have an answer for this, because just like some theists claim to believe such and such(like love thy enemy) but in practice they do not, materialists claim to believe such and such(the universe is amoral, mind and consciousness is just chemical reactions) but do not actually practise it.

The real danger for us is when a materialist like Stalin, Mao or Hitler come along who do practice what they believe.

First of all, Hitler wasn't a materialist, or at least there's no record indicating he was. He identified as Christian and there's some evidence of mysticism and pagan influence in there, too. Hitler and Mao both used religious devotion (in the latter case a cult of personality) to make an authoritarian regime. The danger isn't in materialism, but in blind obedience to authoritarian rule. So rather than creating an argument against materialism, all you've created is an argument for questioning leaders, not trusting charismatic leaders, not taking leaders at their word alone, and using your own sense of moral judgment to make independent evaluation of leader's actions.

Second, why in the world would you believe that being a materialist doesn't mean you can't value other lives? This completely strawmans materialism as being equivalent to sociopathy, without aknowledgement of emotions like empathy and attachment to others, naturally evolved traits to all social animals. To assert that in order to be a "real materialist" that I can't have feeling, purpose, altruism, charitability or selflessness of any kind is just a presumptive attack on materialists. People who believe that emotions which cause those behaviors are real, albeit chemical reactions in physical systems.

I think this is perhaps more a reflection on you, than me. That without your religion you'd have no sense of self, no sense of identity. And you need promise of something beyond this life in order to care about anyone or anything around you. So really, you're only in this for yourself, in perhaps the most egotistic way possible. Any charitability you have is just a front to avoid punishment and attain reward. (If it weren't evident, this is how disrespectful I find your argument to be, flipped around.)

 

[siti]

All I said that a materialists morals are imaginary according to their ontology, that they are not real and they cannot be generalised to everybody and cannot be enforced.

No, morals are nothing more (or less) than the regularities that relationships between humans and between humans and the wider world that have been observed as beneficial or detrimental to human thriving. You can dress this up however you like - and I have no objection to making morals a matter of religious concern - but you don't need an external lawgiver to have morals any more than you do have freezing points of liquids. Its all about how physical entities relate to one another.

...they are forced by their ontology to believe all purposes are also imaginary.

All purposes are imaginary - if they're not in the minds of men then they are in the minds of gods - but they're still imaginary.

A materialist has no reason to improve the world or save lives etc --- because they believe we all cease to exist at death anyway.

Well that's just rubbish, from my point of view, there is more reason for a materialist to improve the world precisely because its the only one we have and God ain't gonna fix it for us.

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

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

No, you are bringing up a similar gaps argument that theists use that we cannot explain how the universe came into being therefore God to justify your own gaps argument that you don't know how consciousness came into being therefore matter. If that is the case you are admitting your argument is just as fallacious as the theist argument.

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.

I can answer your argument, but really it is another discussion. A non-materialist position is not necessarily a theistic one, there are non-materialist schools of philosophy like Jainism and Buddhism that have no creator God. We though, Hindus, do believe in Ishvara a creator God. But that is besides the point. You were suppose to answer the question how and why does matter produce consciousness and you brought up "Well, then you prove God exists" This means implicitly your belief in matter producing consciousness lacks in as much proof as God's existence and thus it is self-defeating.

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.

Of course I would and I would argue you have absolutely no idea how complex these systems are that they persist in space and time without colliding into one another and maintained in a state of dynamic equilibrium so that life can exist. Anyway, this thread is not to discuss whether God exists. I can do that, but it is another thread.

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.

You are weaving a yarn here, a fairy tale. I simply have to accept your fairy tale that over billions of years of billions of chemical processes eventually consciousness. You have to show me logically how this is possible. I can see how physical elements combine with other physical elements to make heavier physical elements, I can see why physical properties change of the new elements change --- I cannot see how they become self-aware. How and why?

Sorry... this is an awful analogy. It really is. The sugar is still able to be detected within the water.

No, there is nothing wrong with the analogy, rather you are over extending the analogy. I only used the analogy to show that when there are more than one property in present in a substance, it is not necessary that all the properties belong to that substance. It is also possible that there are two superimposed but separate substances. Where one can be a visible substance and the other an invisible substance. In the analogy of sweet water, the sugar is invisible and we only see the water. However, we find that sweetness is not always the property of water and therefore we infer another substance which is the locus of those properties and that is even before we try to separate the water from the sugar. The sugar and water never "fuse" because they are separate from one another but merely superimposed on top of one another. That it becomes possible to separate the sugar from the water.

Similarly, mental properties are not always present in matter. They are present in examples of living-matter but not non living matter, even though both are made of exactly the same matter with properties like charge, spin, mass but no mental properties. Therefore, we infer another substance which is the locus of those properties and that is the soul which is superimposed on the matter. They are not "fused" because they are separate from one another and therefore it becomes possible to separate one the other.

Go ahead then, leave your body. I dare you. Try it out - should work out fine, right?

I am laughing at you, because I have left the body, several times. I know I am not this body through experience. I am simply explaining to you the logic by which you will understand you are separate from the body. The fact is you do experience your body as separate from you in very much same way you experience your clothes as separate from you. You can look at the body you are wearing right now, most of it the feet, legs, the torso, the arms, your nose, bit of your lip and the rest you can see in the mirror. You even take a knife and open up your body to see the insides. You can open your skull up right now see and even touch your brain. This shows the total absurdity of your materialists saying the brain is producing consciousness, in that case who is the one looking at and touching your brain right now? Studies have shown you can lose huge chunks of your brain over 50% of it and still you remain and your retain all your memories. In other studies with certain earthworms that grow back their heads, their heads have been chopped off, and the head regrows back with the memory. All of these are clear evidences you are separate from your body as the logic shows us.

There is plenty of literature on OOBE today and we even have experimental evidence, the equivalent of evaporating the water to separate the sugar from the water, where we have detected the separated soul from the body in parapsychology. If you were not so close minded, I could even teach you the technique to have an OOBE yourself and confirm the obvious to you which already know that you are separate from your body.

You should "remain constant", according to your logic.

And this is yet another evidence that you are not your body. Your body changes, it is replaced by new cells every few years, and yet you do not change. You remain constant. However, that is just change at the cellular level, what about the changes every moment at the atomic level, every moment atoms appear and disappear in your body, bur you remain constant. This is another absurdity exposed in your belief that you are just the body or the brain, there is nothing to contain you, because every moment those atoms change. One factor always remains constant "you" and the other factor matter always inconstant. It is because you are constant that you can say "I am the same person 5 yeas ago, 5 hours ago, 5 min ago" It is because you are constant you can say "My body has changed from what it was 5 years ago"

You are clearly not your body. It is obvious to any intelligent and rational person who can follow these arguments. You have simply made a naive judgement because the body and the soul is superimposed on one another, that they both the same thing. It is based on lack of understanding and analysis.

"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.

Well you omitted that bit out in the last post, and only presented one side the body affects the mind

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.

The brain can alter the mind and the mind can alter the brain. Have you heard of neuroplasticity? The brain can physically change if we learn new things or change our attitudes, beliefs and ideas. So you are not establishing any direction of causation here. All you are showing me that mind and brain are correlated. Sure, and that is known as the soft problem of consciousness. We know they are correlated. However, the materialist has to explain how the brain produces mind and that is the hard problem. The materialist cannot explain it because mind and brain are irreducible. So the materialist philosophers are forced to a new kind of philosophy which is eliminative materialism which is current big wave in materialist Philosophy of Mind, and that is to deny mind exists at all. In that sense to completely deny mental qualities exist at all and to redefine them purely in physical terms. This is the ultimate conclusion of a materialist ontology because nothing like mind can exist in a materialist ontology.

Second, we actually have positive evidence that consciousness does not at all rely on the brain. In fact, we have found the opposite, the brain acts like a stop valve, the more the brain is active the lesser one experiences the breadth of consciousness. In NDE experiences the subjects brain has completely stopped showing no electrical activity and yet the subject reports the most vivid conscious experiences in their life in that period when officially they are clinically dead. You cannot dismiss this evidence as we have a very large body of literature of NDE from hospitals all around the world and they are common experiences.

However, as I said, you materialists are a bunch of hypocrites, you will ignore all this evidence when it is established using the same scientific methods that establish your gravity waves and higgs bosons, because you have no consistent standard of truth.

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.

Lets concentrate on the metaphysical arguments, because it is clear to me you make up your ethics as you go. Hence, proving my charge of hypocrisy.

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

Correction: There is plenty of literature on OOBE today and we even have experimental evidence, the equivalent of evaporating the water to separate the sugar from the water, where we have detected the separated soul from the body in parapsychology.

 

[Spirit_Warrior]

In other words, when a particular arrangement exists, water becomes solid.
In materialism, mental states are nothing more than physical states. So it is the same rationale.

Sure, I understand that is what the materialists claims I am asking you to prove how and why it is possible?

The materialist is claiming consciousness is just another physical state change like water is a physicals state change of ice, so the materialist has to prove how consciousness is a physical state change. Actually, the argument itself is absurd, because physical states changes are just atoms with different levels of kinetic energy i.e., moving faster and these states are solid, liquid, gas, plasma. So this would mean consciousness are atoms moving at even faster speeds than gasses LOL

Actually, the materialist argument is not based on physical state change but on chemical changes. But even this is absurd. Chemical changes produce compounds of molecules, and the compounds have the properties of the parent elements that produce them e.g. H2O is produced from the parent atoms of hydrogen and oxygen and these too appear in solid, liquid or gas states. So if you are saying consciousness is just a chemical compound then consciousness should be in a solid, liquid or gas, or plasma(or BEC and other extreme rate states) This means we would be able to find it.

Elementary particles that are responsible for the properties of aggregates of matte have physical properties like charge, mass, spin and these properties are than transferred to the aggregates which also have mass, charge etc
To argue that another property appears out of nowhere like awareness is to argument ex-nilhlo, of it coming out nothing or nowhere. The parent particles did not have it, the parent compounds did not have it, and now you saying all of a sudden some higher aggregate does? It is a pure fantasy.

I haven't been reading it much. Has anyone said that they disregard the use of inference ?

I never said they disregard inferences. I said they selectively use inferences. Inferences that establish invisible entities like atoms, gravity, quantum forces and dark energy and matter, even parallel universes are kosher, inferences that establish invisible entities like souls, God, reincarnation and psychic forces are haram. They are a bunch of hypocrites with no consistent standard of truth.

I don't understand what you mean by 'imaginary' here. That they don't exist ? How can a materialist be moral if their morality doesn't exist ? And why can't morals be enforced ?

Philosophical materialism is a monist philosophy that says only matter really exists. Phenomena like mind, consciousness and those phenomena that only are experienced in the mind do not really exist and therefore are imaginary.

I am not sure I understand what you mean by this. Do you mean that some sort of purpose must have been instilled into us so that we can have some sort of purpose in our lives ? Why ?

Nope, I am saying there no such thing as purpose in PM, these are phenomena that only take place in mind and hence do not exist -- just like dreams worlds do not exist(according to materialists)

Do you mean that religious people do good just because they will rewarded for it in a afterlife ? Wow, just wow...
Why do you think so lowly of them ?

No, I have said religious people have reasons to do good. If there was no benefits to be gained by taking up a religion we would not take up a religion. Religion tells us to delay gratification, and I am not about to delay gratification if I am not going to be benefited at the end of it. Many religions require austerity, torturing your body, fasting, celibacy, denying sense pleasures, forgiving your enemies, vows of poverty. Why the heck would I do that if I had no benefits to attain at the end of it? I would have wasted my life. It is because I believe that I have infinitely greater spiritual benefits to attain by denying the material body that I do so. It is fully consistent with my worldview.
However, it is not consistent with a materialist worldview, because they believe they will cease to exist at death. Why then would they waste their time on these things, shouldn't be doing the exact opposite gratifying the material body as much as they can?

Why would a materialist go off to Africa to feed hungry children and spend their own time, money and energy, when they can use the same on themselves?

 

[Darkstorn]

I think anti-materialism is exactly the same as materialism. In either case you are preoccupied with, well, materia. You have a stance, and active one, if you're anti-something. You are still preoccupied with materialism, specifically, its rejection.

Not thinking about it at all is much more healthy.

 

[Koldo]

Sure, I understand that is what the materialists claims I am asking you to prove how and why it is possible?

The materialist is claiming consciousness is just another physical state change like water is a physicals state change of ice, so the materialist has to prove how consciousness is a physical state change. Actually, the argument itself is absurd, because physical states changes are just atoms with different levels of kinetic energy i.e., moving faster and these states are solid, liquid, gas, plasma. So this would mean consciousness are atoms moving at even faster speeds than gasses LOL

You surely did take it quite literally...

Actually, the materialist argument is not based on physical state change but on chemical changes. But even this is absurd. Chemical changes produce compounds of molecules, and the compounds have the properties of the parent elements that produce them e.g. H2O is produced from the parent atoms of hydrogen and oxygen and these too appear in solid, liquid or gas states. So if you are saying consciousness is just a chemical compound then consciousness should be in a solid, liquid or gas, or plasma(or BEC and other extreme rate states) This means we would be able to find it.

What is the physical state of electricity ?

Elementary particles that are responsible for the properties of aggregates of matte have physical properties like charge, mass, spin and these properties are than transferred to the aggregates which also have mass, charge etc
To argue that another property appears out of nowhere like awareness is to argument ex-nilhlo, of it coming out nothing or nowhere. The parent particles did not have it, the parent compounds did not have it, and now you saying all of a sudden some higher aggregate does? It is a pure fantasy.

Do you mean to say that atoms are solid, liquid, and gas at the same time ?
Otherwise, how do they acquire one of these forms when combined ?

I never said they disregard inferences. I said they selectively use inferences. Inferences that establish invisible entities like atoms, gravity, quantum forces and dark energy and matter, even parallel universes are kosher, inferences that establish invisible entities like souls, God, reincarnation and psychic forces are haram. They are a bunch of hypocrites with no consistent standard of truth.

Once again, this feels simply like a rant on your part.

Philosophical materialism is a monist philosophy that says only matter really exists. Phenomena like mind, consciousness and those phenomena that only are experienced in the mind do not really exist and therefore are imaginary.

Nope, I am saying there no such thing as purpose in PM, these are phenomena that only take place in mind and hence do not exist -- just like dreams worlds do not exist(according to materialists)

But dreams world do exist ( as long as you are dreaming ), they just don't accurately represent some external reality.
Further than that, philosophical materialism does say that only matter exists, but it also states that everything is ( in some way such as in consequence ) matter. What materialist philosophers have you been reading that told you otherwise ?

No, I have said religious people have reasons to do good.

It is more than that. You have said that people only do good because they expect a reward in the afterlife. I will quote you on that: "Religious people have a reason to do good, because they will be rewarded for it after life with greater pleasure of heaven. A materialist has no reason to do good, because they will cease to exist."

If there was no benefits to be gained by taking up a religion we would not take up a religion. Religion tells us to delay gratification, and I am not about to delay gratification if I am not going to be benefited at the end of it. Many religions require austerity, torturing your body, fasting, celibacy, denying sense pleasures, forgiving your enemies, vows of poverty. Why the heck would I do that if I had no benefits to attain at the end of it? I would have wasted my life. It is because I believe that I have infinitely greater spiritual benefits to attain by denying the material body that I do so. It is fully consistent with my worldview.
However, it is not consistent with a materialist worldview, because they believe they will cease to exist at death. Why then would they waste their time on these things, shouldn't be doing the exact opposite gratifying the material body as much as they can?

That depends on each person, but I have no idea why you have conflated any of that with 'good'.

Why would a materialist go off to Africa to feed hungry children and spend their own time, money and energy, when they can use the same on themselves?

Because materialists can have empathy.

 

[Fool]

it is simply the difference between idealism and realism. Both are necessary.

why?

a cause without a result is like faith without action, belief without reality.


what is salt that has lost it's saltiness?
what is a fig tree that has lost it's ability to bear fruit?

 

[sayak83]

Sure they can, but what I find inherently contradictory here, is they are opposing the ideas they believe in themselves e.g. A person who says he has experienced God since childhood, is praising somebody for ridiculing belief in God.
I also don't understand how can remember two of his past lives, and still argue the brain is producing consciousness?

Because consciousness and atman are different. Consciousness can be perceived through introspection (and also through modern neuroscience) while atman stands behind all perceptions and cannot itself be perceived.

 

[Kirran]

Why would a materialist go off to Africa to feed hungry children and spend their own time, money and energy, when they can use the same on themselves?

If your only reasoning for why someone would do so is because they believe they'll be rewarded, or they'll shed karma etc, then this is morally no different. Moving beyond pure selfishness is a matter of the heart, not the brain, so it applies equally to materialists and everybody else.

 

[sayak83]

If your only reasoning for why someone would do so is because they believe they'll be rewarded, or they'll shed karma etc, then this is morally no different. Moving beyond pure selfishness is a matter of the heart, not the brain, so it applies equally to materialists and everybody else.

It's also psychologically rewarding to do activities that are directly seen to help others.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

No, you are bringing up a similar gaps argument that theists use that we cannot explain how the universe came into being therefore God to justify your own gaps argument that you don't know how consciousness came into being therefore matter.

My "gaps" have proof though - as I keep telling you. Matter can be configured such that it has the property "consciousness". Fact. Unavoidable fact. Cold and hard... FACT. Does matter contain a property called "God?" Hmm... what the hell does that even mean?

You were suppose to answer the question how and why does matter produce consciousness and you brought up "Well, then you prove God exists" This means implicitly your belief in matter producing consciousness lacks in as much proof as God's existence and thus it is self-defeating.

Once again, I'll repeat myself, I don't mind, really. "Conscousness" within the confines of physical matter = FACT, "God" within the confines of physical matter = NOT FACT. Expecting me to know "how" matter is infused with consciousness is exactly the same as me expecting you to know how "God" infuses things with consciousness. In fact... I want you to show me how it happens IN A LAB. Go on now... show me how God crafts consciousness. What? You can't? Awww... that's too bad. Guess that means your views on the matter are incorrect, right?

Of course I would and I would argue you have absolutely no idea how complex these systems are that they persist in space and time without colliding into one another and maintained in a state of dynamic equilibrium so that life can exist. Anyway, this thread is not to discuss whether God exists. I can do that, but it is another thread.

Note the part in bold, underline, italics... again you give yourself away - you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. The bodies in space collide ALL THE TIME. Literally... at any given moment there are millions to billions of space-faring bodies of matter smashing into one another everywhere. ENTIRE GALAXIES COLLIDE. The fact that some stable relationships arise out of this is no mystery at all. The vast amount of space between bodies, and the sheer number in the collisions mean that those bodies have relatively ample time to "come to terms" and affect one another toward "orbits".

You are weaving a yarn here, a fairy tale. I simply have to accept your fairy tale that over billions of years of billions of chemical processes eventually consciousness. You have to show me logically how this is possible. I can see how physical elements combine with other physical elements to make heavier physical elements, I can see why physical properties change of the new elements change --- I cannot see how they become self-aware. How and why?

Once again...you tell/show me how God does it, and then I will try my damnedest to get you an answer. Until then... I've only got what I have already stated - which I still prize far, far above anything you have dished out.

Therefore, we infer another substance which is the locus of those properties and that is the soul which is superimposed on the matter.

Don't use the word "we" here... unless that "we" doesn't include me.

I am laughing at you, because I have left the body, several times.

Well, you got a hearty chuckle out of me with this statement also. Actually, probably more of a snicker, if I am being 100% honest.

This shows the total absurdity of your materialists saying the brain is producing consciousness, in that case who is the one looking at and touching your brain right now?

I felt the need to single this out because... well... what in the world are you talking about? Who is "touching my brain?" Is there something I am missing here? I feel like there is.

Studies have shown you can lose huge chunks of your brain over 50% of it and still you remain and your retain all your memories. In other studies with certain earthworms that grow back their heads, their heads have been chopped off, and the head regrows back with the memory. All of these are clear evidences you are separate from your body as the logic shows us.

Lose the correct 50% and sure, I bet you could still have a majority of your memories - I can guarantee there are other things that disappear though. Let me ask you - why do "mind altering substances" work if the mind is completely separate from the body? Do you have an answer for that? How can physical material with physical properties affect this "non-physical" "mind" you keep going on about? I would bet that you enjoy your mind being altered - just a hunch - but WHY would it work if your mind isn't "of the body?" Shouldn't it be beyond the reach of physical affectation? You know what though... it isn't. Fact. Cold and hard.

And this is yet another evidence that you are not your body. Your body changes, it is replaced by new cells every few years, and yet you do not change. You remain constant.

Sorry... more ignorance shining through. Yep, agreed that the body replaces many of its cells on a specific frequency, but do you know the one part that DOESN'T regenerate or replace cells in this way? Guess who? The good ol' BRAIN. And can you guess WHY that is the case? Go on... take a guess. Okay, okay... I'll tell you. It's so that "you" CAN remain(more or less) constant. Because to replace the brain cells with new ones would mean you'd LOSE knowledge, LOSE memory, LOSE experience - which would be very, very bad from a survival standpoint. There's not really any getting around that one.

Well you omitted that bit out in the last post, and only presented one side the body affects the mind

My point wasn't even that "the body" affects the mind. It was that physical damage affects the mind. Which it does and has been proven.

Second, we actually have positive evidence that consciousness does not at all rely on the brain. In fact, we have found the opposite, the brain acts like a stop valve, the more the brain is active the lesser one experiences the breadth of consciousness. In NDE experiences the subjects brain has completely stopped showing no electrical activity and yet the subject reports the most vivid conscious experiences in their life in that period when officially they are clinically dead. You cannot dismiss this evidence as we have a very large body of literature of NDE from hospitals all around the world and they are common experiences.

Here's the problem with a near death experience - as you stated, the brain is in full-on shut-down mode. So how in the hell are we supposed to accept as credible ANY witness testimony while the brain is in shut down? As much as you keep denying it, it is known that the brain is THE hub of mental activity. Take away your brain and you have no mental activity. This does not apply to any other body part. No eyes - yes you can still think. No heart - you may not last long, but you can still think. No liver - still think. No stomach - still think. No hands/feet - still think. No brain - NO THINK. Seriously... what on Earth has led you to believe what you believe?

 

[Kirran]

My "gaps" have proof though - as I keep telling you. Matter can be configured such that it has the property "consciousness". Fact. Unavoidable fact. Cold and hard... FACT.

In no way, shape or form is this verified. That's why there's the hard problem of consciousness.

 

[Kapalika]

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.

First off, I think you are often missing the nuance and implications in what I am saying. I do not believe in an afterlife rather what I was trying to suggest is that "me" doesn't cease to exist because "me" isn't this mind/body but rather "me" is the Universal, nondual whole.

I would also agree that consciousness arises from matter, that's why our normal perceptional experience is illusionary. If you took the time to look at my post you would notice that my worldview is not ideal / I don't think that the world is mental. So I don't even agree with your view of the fundamental nature of reality anyways. BUT I do believe that the material is NOT an illusion. More often than not it's the mental that is the illusion.

Also Shiva isn't a supernatural deity. It's the nondual whole of reality and the realization of self as that whole. The reason for the use of Shiva has a lot of history and theology behind it but none of that requires supernaturalism so far as I have ever understood it even if it is a more common interpretation.

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.

Because I'm not an idealist (opposite of materialist), and I believe the material is real and almost always closer to true reality (which you do not).

Also even if I did agree with you, I wouldn't want my side to look bad by your strawmen and generally bad arguments. I'm not saying that to be facetious, I honestly would still be critical of your arguments and then try to make better arguments for idealism.

If you really feel that I am closer to idealism than materialism I would invite you to argue how but I feel another topic would be needed for this, perhaps the 1v1 debate section. You could argue for idealism and I could argue for neutral monism and the real nature of the material and it's status as almost always closer to ultimate reality.

I have decided not to respond now to either you or Sayak's posts

This isn't over.

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.

Wait wait wait slow down who said I believed in Maya and Samsara in the way you do? I think I might of only made it a point to use the word Maya to illustrate how I *don't* agree with you. And I never commented on Samsara.

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

Funny, because it sounds a lot like the Christian arguments I hear against atheism.