Western Materialism

[1137]

That's bad luck. I'm curious why you are struggling with a simple question.

How about that. It's not what I asked.

So are you admitting that brains are conscious? Knowing involves a brain to comprehend.

Yet you don't explain how I violated logic, so you must agree that what I write is correct.

Why don't you make your own arguments.

Because consciousness is a property and process of material brains. They aren't the same type of phenomenon.

How can incoherent nonsense be refuted? Take in the bulk of my posts as refutation for what you believe.

So you have a prejudice against physicalism? Can you present examples of things that aren't physical?

How is consciousness immaterial?

And do gods exist? Is that what you are suggesting? If consciousness is immaterial regardless of gods, why mention gods at all?

What is there to defend? Consciousness isn't known to exist outside of living brains. You offer no evidence to the contrary. Why assume otherwise?

It's like observing rocks roll down hills. We never see them roll up hill. Do we assume they do roll uphill even if we don't see it? No. Consciousness is only observed in living brains. No one can cite examples of it outside of living brains.

I do not blame you for falling back on personal attacks and avoiding the lack of evidence for physicalism, but this seems pointless.

 

[blü 2]

I do not blame you for falling back on personal attacks and avoiding the lack of evidence for physicalism, but this seems pointless.

I fear there's plenty of examinable evidence for materialism ─ such as stubbing your toe, or trying to breathe under water, or posting on RF ─ but none for the supernatural.

And it seems to me in the absence of such evidence, supernatural explanations of consciousness are dreamy ideas, and like many dreamy ideas, they neither offer nor are able to offer any explanation of how the phenomenon of consciousness arises.

If that's wrong, I'm interested to hear your explanation as to WHAT definition of consciousness you're using and HOW you say consciousness arises, expressed (as is appropriate for reasoned enquiry) in falsifiable terms.

 

[1137]

I fear there's plenty of examinable evidence for materialism ─ such as stubbing your toe, or trying to breathe under water, or posting on RF ─ but none for the supernatural.

These prove the mind reduces to the brain? How exactly?

And it seems to me in the absence of such evidence, supernatural explanations of consciousness are dreamy ideas, and like many dreamy ideas, they neither offer nor are able to offer any explanation of how the phenomenon of consciousness arises.

This is an interesting objection considering reductionism also lacks any explanation of how consciousness arises.

If that's wrong, I'm interested to hear your explanation as to WHAT definition of consciousness you're using and HOW you say consciousness arises, expressed (as is appropriate for reasoned enquiry) in falsifiable terms.

I've already presented arguments and evidence, feel free to address those or present your own!

 

[F1fan]

I do not blame you for falling back on personal attacks and avoiding the lack of evidence for physicalism, but this seems pointless.

So I take it you don't disagree with what I said? You have no evidence to dispute that consciousness is only observed in living brains?

 

[Augustus]

Why are most Western cultures materialist?

If you want a very long (800 page) answer, read “A secular age” by Charles Taylor. It's very good indeed.

It's answering a slightly broader question, but covers lots of relevant stuff.

I will be making a continuing polemic against what I call “subtraction stories”. Concisely put, I mean by this stories of modernity in general, and secularity in particular, which explain them by human beings having lost, or sloughed off, or liberated themselves from certain earlier, confining horizons, or illusions, or limitations of knowledge. What emerges from this process—modernity or secularity—is to be understood in terms of underlying features of human nature which were there all along, but had been impeded by what is now set aside. Against this kind of story, I will steadily be arguing that Western mo- dernity, including its secularity, is the fruit of new inventions, newly constructed self-understandings and related practices, and can’t be explained in terms of perennial features of human life.


Here's a review:

A Secular Age

This is a very important book and quite an extraordinary one. Some years ago, a colleague of mine began a review with a sentence that I have always want...

ndpr.nd.edu

 

[RestlessSoul]

So what? Do you think the world external to you is your personal fantasy, something you're dreaming or devising?

Then try this simple test ─ stop breathing.

Or is it actually the case that you need air and the air has to come from the world external to you?

What about your parents? Did you just imagine them or are there really other people out there?

Your air, food, ancestry, society, shelter, transport, for you that only exists in your head?

Then why do you bother to post on RF?

Anyway, I'll be interested to hear your report on how you've successfully minded over matter and no longer need air.

I am here posting on RF because something in the order of 10^80 particles of bayronic matter (plus similar quantities of dark matter, and all the forces acting on them) in the past light cone of this event, have, from my unique perspective, converged on this moment. I am a part of all that, as connected and inseparable from the entire cosmos, as I am from the air in my lungs and the sun on my face. And so are you. The distinctions you draw in your mind between your inner and outer worlds, between the object, the observer, and the act of observation, between yourself and the world within and without you, are illusions caused by your limited perspective.

So to answer why I bother posting on RF, you would first need to answer why it is that the universe goes to all the bother of existing.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Theists see those interactions in various ways atheists do not. The workings of nature itself is often one, or the fact the universe exists at all, the idea of morality seemingly inherent in human societies and so on. We can measure the creation with the the scientific method and detect the creator, Gods, whatever, but the hand behind it is still immaterial. Just like we can hold physical money but the value we assign it cannot be physically felt, yet is very real in the economy. Paper money is itself worthless absent the value we give it. If you tested money under a microscope it'd just be paper or plastic or metal. But that's not what money actually is.

What is the difference between a natural process that is regulated by an immaterial god and a natural process that isn't?
In what way(s) do they differ?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I've already answered this: philosophy and theology.

How does that work?

You're the one who believes abstract concepts don't exist outside the brain.

Concepts are necessarily things that are dreamed up by brains, are they not?
Can you point me to a concept that was "discovered" and which exists independently of a brain, as opposed to being dreamed up by a brain?

I sure can't...

Your human rights are an abstract concept, so, again, according to you I'm free to torture you because your rights don't really exist.

Remove humans from reality. Do human rights still exist?

Human rights are nothing more or less then an "agreement" among humans based on how we feel people should be treated.
Case in point: plenty of cultures / people don't agree with them.


Human rights were dreamed up / developed by humans. And fairly recently at that.....
Before WE humans came up with them, they did not exist.

They only exist as an idea in our head.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I think there's some assumption on the part of some non-theists as to what theists believe a God is. While some do indeed believe in a concrete 'being/s', many don't, and see their Gods within nature/natural processes.

Take Nataraja. Does everyone who honors him thing there's a giant dancing God in a ring somewhere? Maybe a few do. But I've talked to more that see him as representative of the forces of life, the movement of all things.

View attachment 82086
(Nataraja at CERN)

I think its hard to generalize all theists. Really, its hard to generalize atheists, too, because even then you find diverse opinions on what 'is'.

Sure. I also did say "plenty of incarnation of god(s)". So by definition not all gods.

On the other hand, I also have a bit of an issue with people who say that "god is the energy of the universe". "Or god is the universe itself".

Ok. But we already have names for those phenomenon: "energy" and "universe".
I don't see what added value it has to give it an additional label.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You are still assuming that abstract ideas are the product of 'brains'.

Not an assumption.
I don't know of a single abstract idea that wasn't dreamed up by a brain.

The word "idea" specifically seems like a dead give away.
Ideas aren't discovered... they are developed. By brains.

This is far from a closed issue in philosophy and psychology. This is the nominalist vs realist argument and it has not been solved by anyone. Modern day Platonists believe that abstract objects are real and exist outside of us (the majority of mathematicians, for instance, believe mathematics is discovered not invented).

I think it's obviously false that math is discovered as opposed to invented.
Math is in essence just a language by which you can express ideas and / or describe relationships between objects or patterns.

Calculus wasn't discovered under a rock. It was developed / invented by Newton as a tool to describe orbital paths of celestial bodies.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

If it weren't for philosophy you'd have no science. Philosophy gave us logic to begin with. It is behind the scientific method. Surely you know that science was long considered a branch of philosophy? It's rather hubristic to throw out the father of all sciences. Medicine also has a philosophy behind it, as has mathematics. Ethics and morality come from philosophy.

I like Krauss' quote on the topic:

Philosophy is great at asking questions. Science is great at answering them

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Then you're missing a lot from your intellectual arsenal. Philosophy is mandatory.

But you are illustrating my thread nicely.

GIVE ME HARD SOLID ABSOLUTE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE OR ELSE IT'S NOT TRUEEEEEE.



Prove justice exists using science. I'll wait.

Again, "justice" doesn't exist as an independent thing.
It's an idea, a concept, developed by humans which really only matters in social context.
And the only reason it matters, is because as a human collective we decided it should matter.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I like Krauss' quote on the topic:

Philosophy is great at asking questions. Science is great at answering them

Can science answer the question, How should I live?

 

[Heyo]

Not an assumption.
I don't know of a single abstract idea that wasn't dreamed up by a brain.

The word "idea" specifically seems like a dead give away.
Ideas aren't discovered... they are developed. By brains.

Some ideas seem to be so universal that they can only be "developed" in one single way, i.e. the moment start to think about it, there is only one objective way, a way you discover.

I think it's obviously false that math is discovered as opposed to invented.
Math is in essence just a language by which you can express ideas and / or describe relationships between objects or patterns.

Calculus wasn't discovered under a rock. It was developed / invented by Newton as a tool to describe orbital paths of celestial bodies.

Calculus was discovered simultaneously by Newton and Leibniz. All of maths until then was discovered multiple times by multiple civilisations. The laws and constants of maths are discovered in the same way as the laws and constants of nature are discovered - only that they work on abstract entities.

 

[blü 2]

These prove the mind reduces to the brain? How exactly?

The "mind" is a vaguely defined term for some or other mix of brain functions, but (depending on context) usually including, say, consciousness (being awake and aware), the sense of self, memory, language, sensory perception and the brain's monitoring of it, and abstract thought and reasoning.

These functions can be largely mapped onto the physical brain. That mapping, and particularly the interplay of the brain's regions, is of course a work in progress. However, unlike non-physical versions as far as I'm aware, this is a matter of active scientific research.

Anyway, in short, the 'mind' is the product of the brain's biochemistry and bioelectricity and hormones.

What else do you say it is? How else do you say it arises?

This is an interesting objection considering reductionism also lacks any explanation of how consciousness arises.

But at least we're actively looking for the answer.

I've already presented arguments and evidence, feel free to address those or present your own!

Please point me to the evidence you've presented. I'll be interested to read it.

 

[exchemist]

If you want a very long (800 page) answer, read “A secular age” by Charles Taylor. It's very good indeed.

It's answering a slightly broader question, but covers lots of relevant stuff.

I will be making a continuing polemic against what I call “subtraction stories”. Concisely put, I mean by this stories of modernity in general, and secularity in particular, which explain them by human beings having lost, or sloughed off, or liberated themselves from certain earlier, confining horizons, or illusions, or limitations of knowledge. What emerges from this process—modernity or secularity—is to be understood in terms of underlying features of human nature which were there all along, but had been impeded by what is now set aside. Against this kind of story, I will steadily be arguing that Western mo- dernity, including its secularity, is the fruit of new inventions, newly constructed self-understandings and related practices, and can’t be explained in terms of perennial features of human life.


Here's a review:

A Secular Age

This is a very important book and quite an extraordinary one. Some years ago, a colleague of mine began a review with a sentence that I have always want...

ndpr.nd.edu

I read that review. Seems to cover very much the sort of ground a number of us on this thread have been exploring. It sounds very thought-provoking, though the reviewer seems to acknowledge the ideas in the book are a bit jumbled. I think 800pp is a bit much for me, but perhaps a keen student such as @Rival might be tempted.

 

[exchemist]

I like Krauss' quote on the topic:

Philosophy is great at asking questions. Science is great at answering them

Krauss is pretty shallow on the subject of philosophy, as Massimo Pigliucci is fond of pointing out.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Can science answer the question, How should I live?

Provided that you have an end goal in mind (like "maximizing happiness, health, ...") then yes.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Some ideas seem to be so universal that they can only be "developed" in one single way, i.e. the moment start to think about it, there is only one objective way, a way you discover.

Calculus was discovered simultaneously by Newton and Leibniz. All of maths until then was discovered multiple times by multiple civilisations. The laws and constants of maths are discovered in the same way as the laws and constants of nature are discovered - only that they work on abstract entities.

I disagree. Here's the way I see it...

The thing is that reality works a certain way. If you are going to use the same starting point (as Newton and Leibniz did, starting from the base-10 math that was already present), then naturally you will end up with at least similar, and most likely the same, way to describe / model the same phenomenon.

Take Pythagoras for example. A² + B² = C²

This models the relationship between the sides of a triangle. There is only one way to describe it accurately.
What is universal here is not the math language imo. It's rather the relationship between the sides of a triangle.

Pythagoras didn't "discover" the math. He discovered how the sides of a triangle relate to one another. And he merely used the math language we humans have developed, to express that relationship.

It's not the math that is universal. It's the relationship between the sides of the triangles that is.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Krauss is pretty shallow on the subject of philosophy, as Massimo Pigliucci is fond of pointing out.

It doesn't seem to hinder him in his scientific work.