Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Well great, always liked you.lol. it's still "red economist". I had a name change about a week ago. I thought maybe the Soviet space dog would be the clue.![]()
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Well great, always liked you.lol. it's still "red economist". I had a name change about a week ago. I thought maybe the Soviet space dog would be the clue.![]()
Many recent threads indicate that there are some very, very different understandings of what 'materialism' means.
As I understand it, it is simply a lens - a philosophical approach that assumes there will be a natural explanation. As opposed to atheism, nihilism, communism and all the other 'isms' I see it equated to. It does not deny anything, it does not reject paranormal concepts, it is not challenged by the unknown.
So what is 'materialism' to you?
I think George's objection is that materialism reduces spirit to matter, which essentially is a rejection of it.George-ananda
Materialism does not reject any concept, it just does not start from the assumption that Ghosts, spirits and so on are beings.
This is essentially how science came to be - long ago people attributed all manner of unexplained phenomena to beings. As we have learned we have found natural explanations for many of them, from lightning to birth.
Materialism does not reject any such concept, it just opens a door through which they can be further explored by not assuming that there is a being causing it.
Jeremy, you got confused b the wordplay I got into with Bunyip who that post was directed to. People in their right mind can certainly not believe in God. I was just saying no one in their right mind would claim 'the concept of God' does not exist. Just wordplay, never mindEliminative materialists, I suppose do not, but I think it might be stretching it to say they are in their right mind.
You don't mean it in this way, but materialism and even naturalism have generally had a hard time explaining the existence of abstract concepts.
How does that follow? How does reducing something to matter equate to rejecting it?I think George's objection is that materialism reduces spirit to matter, which essentially is a rejection of it.
"Reduction" is a thought process, a means of making sense of things in terms of something else.How does that follow? How does reducing something to matter equate to rejecting it?
What? Why not just try to give a straight answer? There is so much spin in that last response it is rendered meaningless."Reduction" is a thought process, a means of making sense of things in terms of something else.
If we reduce spirit to matter we deny spirit in its own terms.