Is there a shred of evidence for atheistic physicalism?

[Lucifer_]

There you go relying on that philosophy your rejected again!



Actually we can be more certain of self existence and inner experience, for everything else is filtered through it. I know that "I exist" is a true statement, and there's no possible way I could deny it or be incorrect. Yet this doesn't mean I can show you my inner experiences in some physical way, they inherently seem to be personal, immaterial, non-spacial, etc and so on. Now sure we have evidence to believe in a physical world, but even then we're moving away from a default position, as we can never know or access this world without obviously existent inner experience. But even if we accept that this world exists despite our lack of certainty - for it certainly seems to exist, it's still then on the physicalist to show that only that physical matter is real, and what we directly and axiomatically seem certain of reduces to it. So in no way you can slice it is physicalism a default position.

Lol. If you can't win a philosophical debate, become a solipsist. You should have done this back on Page 1 and saved everyone this circle jerk.

 

[Willamena]

I studied existentialism and nihilism to a great extent, but don't see how it is suppose to support physicalism.

It isn't used for that.

 

[1137]

Lol. If you can't win a philosophical debate, become a solipsist. You should have done this back on Page 1 and saved everyone this circle jerk.

Wut? I'm not a solipsist, I'm simply asking for any evidence supporting physicalism/materialism. I fully reject solipsism on, practical grounds if nothing more, and believe the evidence is against it.

 

[1137]

It isn't used for that.

So you were just making a random comment about reading nihilism?

 

[shunyadragon]

I studied existentialism and nihilism to a great extent, but don't see how it is suppose to support physicalism.

Philosophies like nihilism cannot support objectively philosophical naturalism nor prove it is not true. Philosophies are just that anecdotal subjective beliefs based on assertions that cannot be objectively falsified nor verified.

 

[Willamena]

So you were just making a random comment about reading nihilism?

How does nihilism support anything (at all)?

 

[shunyadragon]

Actually I like Nietzsche and find his writings intriguing and interesting. Even though I am not a fan of nihilism, I think Nietzsche and nihilism are not generally understood.

It is an example of one who supports philosophical naturalism. No, none of the philosophies that support nor oppose metaphysical naturalism have any objective evidence to falsify nor in any way demonstrate or prove any one philosophy can definitively explain the relationship of the brain and the soul beyond a reasonable doubt. The only objective evidence available at present only demonstrates that the brain is the source of the mind and consciousness, but this objective evidence does not prove anything, because science does not prove things.

 

[Willamena]

The only objective evidence available at present only demonstrates that the brain is the source of the mind and consciousness, but this objective evidence does not prove anything, because science does not prove things.

How does evidence that is objective fail to prove anything?

 

[shunyadragon]

How does evidence that is objective fail to prove anything?

The purpose of science is not to 'prove' anything, but to falsify theories and hypothesis, and demonstrate the nature of our physical existence based on objective physical evidence.

That is the strength of science, because all the knowledge is progressive in science changes and evolves, and does not 'prove' things 'true.'

 

[1137]

Philosophies cannot objecively support objectively philosophical naturalism nor prove it is not true. Philosophies are just that anecdotal subjective beliefs based on assertions that cannot be objectively falsified nor verified.

So what you use to get to methodical naturalism is anecdotal subjective belief?

 

[shunyadragon]

So what you use to get to methodical naturalism is anecdotal subjective belief?

No. it is the consistent predictive quality of objective physical evidence in the result of sound evolving knowledge of science in theories and hypothesis over the past history of science. Please refresh your definitions of what is 'objective' and what is 'subjective.'

You can make all the assertions and accusations you like, but science works, and the many conflicting philosophies and theologies of other worlds outside the physical worlds, remain 'subjective' (by definition) claims, and cannot be resolved with predictable objective physical evidence.

Still waiting . . .

 

[Yerda]

I want to know if there's any solid support/evidence or reasoning for your position. Literally anything at all. Usually there are only two responses. First is a "lack of evidence," which itself isn't evidence at all.

Has anyone even thought of a way that we could gather evidence on whether "atheistic physicalism" is true or false?

Does no-god imply physicalism?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Has anyone even thought of a way that we could gather evidence on whether "atheistic physicalism" is true or false?

This thread has suffered from an ambiguity problem that a few posters have tried to disambiguate to no avail. The ambiguity is the result of referring to "physicalism" rather than "philosophical physicalism," or to have a clear concept of what the philosophical physicalists assert is true.

As a result of this failure to clarify terms, methodological physicalism has been the subject of several of the posts, an idea that needs no defense. Even the supernaturalists accept that idea, which says basically that science can only study the physical.

The position of the philosophical physicalist is that nothing exists except the physical, which generally means energy, matter, force, space and time - an unsupportable claim even if correct. Something can be a true belief, but until confirmed, is not knowledge.

One can suspect that only the physical exists, and argue effectively that there is no evidence to the contrary, but neither of those is the same as asserting positively that nothing but the physical exists. The latter is a claim of knowledge that the claimant cannot possibly possess.

As for the evidence requested to support that claim, I wouldn't know what such evidence would look like. Evidence of the physical doesn't help. I would need evidence that nothing else exists.

Also, my guess is that there are no philosophical physicalists posting on this thread. I don't recall anybody making that claim or trying to defend that position.

Does no-god imply physicalism?

Not to me. As I said, that doesn't mean that it isn't a true belief, just that it is one that cannot be confirmed even if correct.

Physicalism implies no god, however - or at least no supernatural god. There would be room for one made of matter or energy in physicalism..

 

[shunyadragon]

Has anyone even thought of a way that we could gather evidence on whether "atheistic physicalism" is true or false?

No.

Does no-god imply physicalism?

Atheistic physicalism implies no-God.

Actually physicalism=atheistic physicalism.
From - Physicalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on the physical.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Has anyone even thought of a way that we could gather evidence on whether "atheistic physicalism" is true or false?

Does no-god imply physicalism?

To an extent, it's an aesthetic preference:

- physicalism: everything that exists can be best understood as belonging to a single category ("the physical"). The question of which specific things belong to this category (i.e. which things exist) is a separate matter.

- supernatural dualism: everything that exists can be best understood as belonging to two distinct categories ("the physical" and "the super-physical/supernatural"). The question of which specific things belong to which category (i.e. which things exist, and whether they should be considered physical or supernatural) is a separate question.

Either way, we still have the same issues with rational inquiry and epistemology. All else being equal, a physicalist and a non-physicalist should accept or reject the existence of the exact same things; the only difference would be that the physicalist would put all of those existent things into a single category and the non-physicalist would divide them into two separate categories based on some sort of criteria.

When people like @1137 pretend that the debate is over which claims each group accepts, he's really doing a bait-and-switch, because there's nothing in the physicalist/non-physicalist disagreement that speaks to standards of evidence.

 

[siti]

...my guess is that there are no philosophical physicalists posting on this thread.

Here I am. I haven't posted to this thread before because I actually don't have an answer to the OP question - but proving that "nothing else exists" is entirely beside the point for physicalism.

Anyway, here's my defense of philosophical physicalism -

1. Track record: everything in the world that we have so far found an explanation for has been satisfactorily explained by physicalism (properly understood). Of course there are 'realities' that are not, in themselves physical - like thoughts and qualia and poems - and some aspects of how these come about is not well understood. This used to be the case with other aspects of reality - like disease for example - which we now know has a physical explanation. And of course there are 'phenomena' that we have yet to formulate or discover a physical explanation for, but the 'unexplained' is not evidence for the actual existence of the 'unexplainable'.

2. Elegance of explanation (Occam's razor): I am a philosophical physicalist not because I can prove that nothing else exists, but because I think physicalism generally provides the most satisfactorily elegant explanatory framework under which we can examine what there is. Physicalism provides the sharpest blade we have yet discovered to trim Plato's luxuriant and tangled philosophical "beard".

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Here I am. I haven't posted to this thread before because I actually don't have an answer to the OP question - but proving that "nothing else exists" is entirely beside the point for physicalism.

Anyway, here's my defense of philosophical physicalism -

1. Track record: everything in the world that we have so far found an explanation for has been satisfactorily explained by physicalism (properly understood). Of course there are 'realities' that are not, in themselves physical - like thoughts and qualia and poems - and some aspects of how these come about is not well understood. This used to be the case with other aspects of reality - like disease for example - which we now know has a physical explanation. And of course there are 'phenomena' that we have yet to formulate or discover a physical explanation for, but the 'unexplained' is not evidence for the actual existence of the 'unexplainable'.

2. Elegance of explanation (Occam's razor): I am a philosophical physicalist not because I can prove that nothing else exists, but because I think physicalism generally provides the most satisfactorily elegant explanatory framework under which we can examine what there is. Physicalism provides the sharpest blade we have yet discovered to trim Plato's luxuriant and tangled philosophical "beard".

OK, but I'm still not sure that you fit the description of the philosophical physicalist according to the definition I indicated I was using, which I believe is standard.

Are you claiming to know that everything that exists is physical (accessible to scientific inquiry)? I doubt it.

 

[siti]

Are you claiming to know that everything that exists is physical (accessible to scientific inquiry)? I doubt it.

I am claiming to know that everything we can reasonably hope to know of the existence of is physical. Its an epistemological rather than an ontological claim. But it is a philosophical claim, not just a selected methodology. I am not limiting the means of examination to scientific observation - I also think it makes sense, for the purposes of philosophy, to assume that the world is fundamentally physical and to think about it 'as if' it were (at least in principle) accessible to scientific inquiry. I would even include the possible existence of "God" in that. God, if there is such a thing, must also be fundamentally physical. Now there's an odd thought to start a new off-topic side-shoot. But what I mean is - I think there is potentially a lot to be gained by philosophically considering the implications of such a suggestion. It leads to a kind of naturalistic pantheism - but that really only tells us about what God is (if that's what God - if there is one - is, if you see what I mean) now - but how did God (if there is one) get to be what God (if there is one) is (if that's what God - if there is one - is). I know that sounds like gobbledygook - but only physicalism can even attempt to formulate these questions in an intelligible and potentially answerable way - let alone begin to answer them. Is that sufficiently confusing to successfully dodge your perfectly sensible question without letting on that I have no idea what I'm talking about?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I am claiming to know that everything we can reasonably hope to know of the existence of is physical. Its an epistemological rather than an ontological claim. But it is a philosophical claim, not just a selected methodology. I am not limiting the means of examination to scientific observation - I also think it makes sense, for the purposes of philosophy, to assume that the world is fundamentally physical and to think about it 'as if' it were (at least in principle) accessible to scientific inquiry. I would even include the possible existence of "God" in that. God, if there is such a thing, must also be fundamentally physical. Now there's an odd thought to start a new off-topic side-shoot. But what I mean is - I think there is potentially a lot to be gained by philosophically considering the implications of such a suggestion. It leads to a kind of naturalistic pantheism - but that really only tells us about what God is (if that's what God - if there is one - is, if you see what I mean) now - but how did God (if there is one) get to be what God (if there is one) is (if that's what God - if there is one - is). I know that sounds like gobbledygook - but only physicalism can even attempt to formulate these questions in an intelligible and potentially answerable way - let alone begin to answer them. Is that sufficiently confusing to successfully dodge your perfectly sensible question without letting on that I have no idea what I'm talking about?

"Is that sufficiently confusing to successfully dodge your perfectly sensible question without letting on that I have no idea what I'm talking about?"

LOL.

My understanding is that a philosophical physicalist is one that positively claims that nothing exists that is not physical. You used that term to describe yourself. Is that your claim, too? Is that your definition of the phrase?

 

[siti]

"Is that sufficiently confusing to successfully dodge your perfectly sensible question without letting on that I have no idea what I'm talking about?"

LOL.

My understanding is that a philosophical physicalist is one that positively claims that nothing exists that is not physical. You used that term to describe yourself. Is that your claim, too? Is that your definition of the phrase?

You don't give up do you? Really no, that is not my definition of philosophical physicalism. If I had to define it as a positive philosophical claim (which I am not sure is a tremendously useful way of defining things philosophically but never mind) I would go with something more like this:

Philosophical physicalism is the claim that everything that exists is either physical or an effect arising from the existence, interactions and relationships among physical things.

But, like I said, I make an epistemological claim not an ontological one. My epistemological position is the equivalent of saying something like "everything that has objective existence (i.e. can be known to exist) is either physical or an effect arising from the existence, interactions and relationships among physical things".

I want to make the ontological claim. I want to believe that - not because I have a particular personal preference for atheism (or whatever - which I don't in fact) but because I think it makes "methodological physicalism" (which being a professional scientist of sorts and an amateur student of many other sorts of science is what I do both for a living and for enlightenment and entertainment) more powerful. But the fact is, I (we) can't rule out the actual independent existence of spiritual, ideal, Platonic...things entirely... we can accommodate them within physicalism, but we still can't rule out the notion that at least some of them might have an existence that is entirely independent of the physical. I very strongly doubt this - and that goes back to the "track record" point I made earlier. But there is no way to rule it out altogether.

I want to be a physicalist but the rules of physicalism make it impossible to rule out the independent existence of the non-physical entirely. So whilst I am, for all intents and purposes, adopting a physicalist philosophy I don't suppose I can honestly claim to be a "philosophical physicalist" in the sense that you used the term (which may be standard - I have no idea - but I'm not sure its a useful definition because what if I just want to do philosophical physicalism without making any exclusive - and indefensible as far as I can see - negative ontological claim about the possible independent existence of non-physical 'entities'?)