What's wrong with Materialism?

[LuisDantas]

It makes people shallow, then you end up with bad episodes of the Walking Dead. Know what I mean? Just dead people walking.

I take it that you are kidding?

 

[atanu]

Exactly. I am as capable of objectivity as you are (given that we both understand scientific method and the use of multiple repeatable tests to maximize objectivity). If science and I aren't capable of objectivity, or sufficient objectivity, then neither are you; and if you are, so are science and I.

Yes. We have the competence to objectively reason to greater or lesser degrees.

Most likely because being able to discern the external world accurately is a great help to survival and breeding, and is thus a trait which natural selection would strongly favor.

'Most likely'? Inert chemicals came out of collapsing of wave forms and eventually developed taste for sex and honey .. and delusions too.

Not only that,but your own position against materialism is incoherent, and explains nothing about reality. or thought (or objectivity, which it often seems not to believe in anyway).

Not at all. 'I am' is the evident truth that no one, including you can deny.

 

[blü 2]

Most likely'? Inert chemicals came out of collapsing of wave forms and eventually developed taste for sex and honey .. and delusions too.

I must contact the UN and get the Rights Convention altered to end this cruel and unjustifiable discrimination against 'inert chemicals'. They, sir, are the root and branch of biochemistry, and you, sir, are biochemistry.

Seriously, if not biochemistry then magic. I don't give great credit to magic.

'I am' is the evident truth that no one, including you can deny.

From where I sit, you could be a Turing machine, of course. But since the Festive Season is near, and on the assumption of due reciprocity, I'm prepared to take your word for it.

 

[atanu]

I must contact the UN and get the Rights Convention altered to end this cruel and unjustifiable discrimination against 'inert chemicals'. They, sir, are the root and branch of biochemistry, and you, sir, are biochemistry.
Seriously, if not biochemistry then magic. I don't give great credit to magic.

I acknowledge that you are kind hearted and generous. I request a favour too. Let the inert chemicals themselves file a petition against my cruel discrimination. You may be required to demonstrate in court that some chemicals or their interactions indeed generate life and consciousness.

See? I do give credit to magic that you have woven in your mind.

OTOH, "I am" awareness does not require any proof. It is self evident. It does not require a story of genesis or a story of its origin from the very chemicals that the awareness itself informs us about.

Imagine a dream where you emerge from a conglomerate of biochemicals. You are having that dream. It is you as awareness that is the seer of the chemicals and not the other way around. The chemicals do not ever claim we are the gods -- creators of intelligence.

It is like, in a dream you are attributing your awareness/dreaming power to the dream objects. It is like getting killed in a dream by a dream snake.

From where I sit, you could be a Turing machine, of course. But since the Festive Season is near, and on the assumption of due reciprocity, I'm prepared to take your word for it.

Do you then doubt your own awareness that it may be a product of Turing machine operating at the behest of some unknown process or power? Well, that may well be true. And being a product of unknown chemical processes your intelligence is probably useless for objective investigations into its own source. It is like Harry Potter investigating JK Rowling.

For me "I am" awareness is true and is endowed with objective power to investigate its source.
.......

The story is of ego. Man creates a bicycle using the inborn-given intelligence and the ego claims that it has surpassed the ability given to it. Man creates a computing machine using the inborn-given intelligence and the ego becomes very proud. It says "See my Turing machine is intelligence itself".

 

[blü 2]

Let the inert chemicals themselves file a petition against my cruel discrimination.

I am biochemistry as are you. Biochemistry is capable of life, which I may contrast with your chosen 'inert', though the elements composing the chemicals are the same. It is yourself you disparage when you jest again the rights of chemicals (rights which we hold to be self-evident, of course).

OTOH, "I am" awareness does not require any proof. It is self evident.

Or so it appears to its possessor. That doesn't stop it being a particular instance of biochemistry.

It does not require a story of genesis or a story of its origin from the very chemicals that the awareness itself informs us about.

Consciousness / self-awareness is not more mysterious than the interactions of neurons ─ nor at this stage of our researches, less. But as I mentioned, hypotheses as to the nature and evolutionary use of consciousness have already successfully made predictions, and all that without the need to think consciousness is magical.

Imagine a dream where you emerge from a conglomerate of biochemicals.

Stay tuned and you may be reading reports of potential paths from chemistry to biochemistry to life, all done in the lab.

Your own team is not doing any such research, is it? So it isn't even maneuvering to offer a counter-hypothesis that's demonstrably correct, is it?

The story is of ego.

I'd have thought a lot more ego was involved in imagining humans had a form of consciousness that was magically independent of its underlying biochemistry, compared to my own biochemical take.