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How do you stop arguing with fundamentalists? Should you?
- Thread starter 1137
- Start date
What? Do you not understand how this forum works? I get we don't enforce much here, but a thread topic is usually what's discussed in a thread, not some completely off topic arguemtn that another thread exists for. Go to the thread, address the op, stay on topic. I don't understand the confusion...
http://www.religiousforums.com/threads/mind-body-dualism-a-finale.190523/
Well, yes. Your post is huge. As I said, in that thead too I believe, what point would you like me to destroy first?
Ciao
- viole
Well, yes. Your post is huge. As I said, in that thead too I believe, what point would you like me to destroy first?
Ciao
- viole
If you could have you already would have. I seriously tire of these games. Go address the points or don't, and my apologies it has more depth than "you're wrong".
I should have been more specific: you've provided no justification for your actual conclusions. When I ask you to defend "the mind is immaterial", you seem happy to go on at length about "self-existence is self-evident" all day long, but you've yet to give any justification for "the mind is immaterial" (or "materialism is false", or any other of your conclusions that make you froth at the mouth when confronted with a materialist).
Edit: When I ask you to defend claims like "the mind is immaterial", you effectively just shout "axiom!" over and over. When pressed, you explain why you accept other axioms, not the claim you've put forward.
That's all lovely, but it has jack to do with the truth or falsehood of materialism or dualism.
And I've changed my mind about you. You aren't so much a fundamentalist as you are a presuppositionalist: it isn't so much that you accept premises as true that I think are false; it's that the foundations of your worldview are so fundamentally wonky that we can't even carry on a conversation.
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How is the mind immaterial? I'm sorry, you have some direct insight into the minds of others, sensationally interact with their minds, hold their thoughts in your hands? If the mind is material then let's see yours, directly in a way we can empirically verify it. Since all is matter, either you can, or obviously you don't have a mind!
Yeah, sorry, but basic stances based on simple observation literally can't be presupposed.
I can hold a thought as easily as I can hold wind in my hand.
Are you now going to argue that wind is immaterial, too?
BTW, you do realize that argument from ignorance is a logical fallacy, right?
When I said "presuppositionist", I meant that talking to you feels like talking to someone who's into presuppositional apologetics. Google "Sye Ten Bruggencate" - talking with you is as frustrating as talking to him.
If you can't understand how "A is A" and "self-existence is evident" doesn't get you to "the mind is immaterial" or "materialism is false", then I don't know how to help you. It's so wrong that I can't even tell you where you went wrong.
Actually this may be more precise and hopefully more helpful.
Help him to see and recognize the truth, without esteeming yourself to be, in the least, superior to him, or to be possessed of greater endowments." -Baha'u'llah
If ye be aware of a certain truth, if ye possess a jewel, of which others are deprived, share it with them in a language of utmost kindliness and good-will. If it be accepted, if it fulfil its purpose, your object is attained. If any one should refuse it, leave him unto himself, and beseech God to guide him. Beware lest ye deal unkindly with him. A kindly tongue is the lodestone of the hearts of men. It is the bread of the spirit, it clotheth the words with meaning, it is the fountain of the light of wisdom and understanding….
Ignore the God part if you don't believe in God but the rest makes sense if you can't get through or if the person keeps rejecting your argument. But leaving on good terms will have a good effect on them.
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So is something like, say, logic able to be held in your hand? You know very well what my point was with the mind, and it's the same that can be made to logic, mathematics, ideas, values, morals and ethics, etc. Would you claim that any of these are physical? If so, how?
It's easy to be confused when you refuse to listen and just want to laugh off a position. I never said the immaterialism of the mind was related to it being axiomatic. Actually, being immaterial is a property of the mind, which rather clearly puts it with the problem of property dualism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_dualism . The problem with the axiom for materialism is that this mind cannot be reduced since it is necessary, which again is what an axiom is http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Metaphysics_Axiom.html . If only matter exists, then how can the mind exist? It's it's just, say, an abstraction of physical processes, then only those physical processes exist in reality. It's actually pretty widely recognized in non-reductionist philosophy that the need to eliminate things like thoughts, values, and experience is a huge problem. I have many connections in both psychology and philosophy, and I've actually yet to meet a reductionist.
Now, what exactly is so overwhelming confusing about that?
ukok102nak
Active Member
~;> the least thing we could say
is expect the unexpected
no extremist nor fundamentalist
could ever deny that
coz if they will
those extremist and fundamentalist
shall commit themselves unto the things
that no one could ever think of
if we may so
as they say
... . have you ever thought of that
the kind of thought that we are
thinkin right now . ...
:ty:
godbless
unto all always
is expect the unexpected
no extremist nor fundamentalist
could ever deny that
coz if they will
those extremist and fundamentalist
shall commit themselves unto the things
that no one could ever think of
if we may so
as they say
... . have you ever thought of that
the kind of thought that we are
thinkin right now . ...
:ty:
godbless
unto all always
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Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
Your argument looks like a straw-man to me. Materialism doesn't say all IS matter, it says everything RESULTS from matter. It wouldn't deny that mental phenomena exist, it would say they are the result of electro-chemical activity in the brain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism
You're making a bait-and-switch. The existence of concepts (which doesn't conflict with materialism, BTW) doesn't have anything to do with your claim that our minds exist in some "immaterial" realm and control our bodies from there.
"The mind" is just our word for "what the brain does." It's a useful concept for us, but the mind no more requires a separate realm to existvin than symmetry (another term describing the arrangement of physical thibgs) does.
Every time I challenge you on any of your claims, you just end up going off on some irrelevant tangent about axioms.
You assert this without any sort of justification, and that's the central claim of the argument. Everything else from you is just hand-waving.
It isn't enough for you just to ask the question.
For materialism to be false, you need to get from "I can't see how the mind exists if only matter exists" to "the mind CAN'T exist if only matter exists". This extra leap needs justification you haven't provided.
I would say that invoking the existence of a separate, invisible plane of existence creates its own problems. Whether these problems aremore or less than your perceived problems with materialism is an open question.
BTW: what are these problems? You've yet to give a "problem" with materialism that's logically justified and actually creates a problem for materialism.
Take your earlier nonsense about ethics and values: no materialist claims that concepts don't exist.
Since I have no confidence whatsoever in your judgement, your assessment of the overall consensus holds no weight for me at all.
It's just a boatload of bad assumptions, AFAICT.
I'll pay my entire salary to see that. It'd be witnessing a genuinely supernatural miracle to see someone physically hold something that is entirely non-physical.
jonathan180iq
Well-Known Member
The fact that it's not entirely non-physical is the point
jonathan180iq
Well-Known Member
What is your vision, without your eyes?
Can you see without your brain?
What is the brain, without its matter?
What is the mind without a brain?
Who are you, without a body?
Where are you, without where you are?
What is the wind, without an atmosphere?
What is temperature, without a star?
Materialism is all there is, suckas.
Can you see without your brain?
What is the brain, without its matter?
What is the mind without a brain?
Who are you, without a body?
Where are you, without where you are?
What is the wind, without an atmosphere?
What is temperature, without a star?
Materialism is all there is, suckas.
Materialism is a type of monism, meaning that only one substance exists period, end of story. In reverse kinds of monism, for example, the material world is understood as not real, an illusion. But if something that is not matter exists, monism cannot be correct because now more than one substance exists, even if it arises from matter.
"I won't address any of your points directly, then I'll ***** about how you don't make them". There's been plenty of threads for you to address my fully explained position, but you refuse to. Hell, now you're straight admitting non material things like values and subjective experience do exist! Materialism really has become a new Christianity, even when people see the gaps they just keep hanging on and screaming against it. Address my points or leave me the **** alone, unfortunately I can't ignore you and mods can't get in trouble for trolling.
Cool, can you show us your mind please?
M'kay. Hold a thought for me, then. Hold an idea. Right there, in your hand. Take a picture and post it. I'll write you a check if you can.
And no, holding a blueprint is not holding an idea, it's holding a physical piece of paper with stuff drawn on it.